What makes an Effective Content Marketing Plan to Work?

How do you go about creating an Effective Content Marketing Plan for your private practice or business?

Well… it starts with list and plans… and I need to confess before we go any further. I am a planner and love making lists.

I make lists upon lists. I makes lists about the lists I need to make. I’ve done this my entire life. (Back in grade 9, I had a list that planned out every course I would take in high school and then in University!)

It’s a genuine thrill when I can tick off an item on my list. (I know, I need to get out more!)

This is part of who I am and it has helped me have success with my business. I know not everyone is the same.

But here’s the thing, when you plan and make a list of steps to follow when it comes to marketing your private practice or business, you will find yourself getting improved results.

Lists and plans can actually reduce stress about projects and plans. Why? Because it breaks the project down into actionable pieces.

Without lists and plans, you often do the work in random ways. And random plans will get you random results. Random is not what you need to thrive.

Sooo, how do you go about creating your Effective Content Marketing Plan?

You make sure to include elements so that your plan matches your goals, and then have a list of what you need to create and publish for your marketing. This helps everything you do have a purpose and that is how you will get those results you are seeking.

It will be more of a challenge to reach those goals if every day your marketing is done like the example below.

This is how some folks describe their marketing plans to me…

• You hit your office or workspace in the morning and login to Instagram.
• You spend some time checking out what’s happening in your feed. (15 minutes)
• Then you think, “I have to engage!”
• Now you hit “like” on some posts you see and add a few comments. (5 minutes)
• Get lost for a little bit watching the video reels in your feed. (20 minutes)
• Check the time and think – “Oh, I need to get a post on here.”
• Then remember you haven’t booked any consults this week and decide to do a quick post to say anything that you can think of and add a “DM me to book a call”.
• The quick post turns into 25 minutes in Canva making an image to go with the post.
• Then another 15 minutes perfecting and typing in the caption to go with it.
• You spend 5 more minutes thinking up the hashtags to add on.
• Finally … you check it all and then hit “post.” (5 minutes)

You did your marketing for the day.

Good Golly Miss Molly! You have literally just spent 90 minutes making one post for Instagram.

This is not a good use of your time.

Do you know what folks who follow my Thrive Marketing Method can do in 90 minutes? A lot!

Well… here’s a sample of what planning your marketing can do to your time once you have created your main article (i.e. your monthly newsletter)

• 20 minutes – to pull out 7 posts to use as social media content from their monthly newsletter.
• 10 minutes – to create 3 images in Canva to use with all those posts on different platforms which means the 7 pieces of content have turned into more than 14!
• 10 minutes – to resize the 3 main images to use on different channels so they show up properly in the news feeds.
• 10 minutes – to save all the content created in a document to reuse.
• 30 to 45 minutes – to schedule those 14 pieces of content on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn to go out over the next 2-4 weeks (depending on your schedule).

This method means you now have taken a block of time and used it to keep your social media channels active with planned content for a few weeks.

Not one post on one day.

You can now take 10-15 minutes a day and go online to engage and connect with people, knowing that your marketing content has been scheduled to go out over the next few weeks.

There’s no pressure now. Your strategic marketing has been done. Now YOU need to fill in the blanks between your planned content and spend your time online to connect and engage with folks.

Imagine how fun it would be to go on Instagram each day (or your fave social media channel) and just talk to people; knowing that the businessy stuff has been done! This allows you the freedom to spend some time (and not 90 minutes!) to do some networking to build the relationships that will help lead to more clients.

Yes, you might need a list and a plan!

This planning is needed to set your goals and plan the steps you will need to take to help your marketing have a focus on your goals. You’ll never achieve those goals if your plans and marketing is not designed to get you there.

Your plan can also help you save time by ensuring you follow a systematic approach to the time you will invest in social marketing and networking. The social networking part can easily take you off track and eat up your time if you do not pay attention to the overall picture of what you are trying to accomplish.

YOUR ACTION STEP TODAY…

Review how you are planning your marketing. If it is more random than planned, consider blocking time to make a content marketing plan.

I promise you will save time, have marketing that is more effective and you will get more results by blocking time to be more strategic.

We typically follow this process when I teach folks how to do this:

1. Define your top 3 Goals
2. Create a Priority List to keep your focus
3. Plan out your Marketing Calendar
4. Develop a list for your Action Steps
5. Plan the Content to Create

These 5 steps help you know how much content to create, what it needs to say, and when and where it will get published.

In my ACE your Content Marketing Workshops and the Thrive Marketing Academy we break this down into an Annual Goal list and then we list out the top 3 for each quarter.

This helps you plan your marketing for 3 months at a time which is less stressful and overwhelming, and helps you focus on a specific time frame, not EVERYTHING you need for an entire year.

Yep, I am a planner and list maker, but it is because I have seen how it can help people achieve their goals!

Now…if you want someone to guide you to create your own content marketing plan, I invite you to register for the upcoming ACE your Content Marketing Planning workshop I’m hosting next Wednesday. June 22nd.

The workshop registration fee of $47 gives you access to:

• The 2 hour LIVE workshop on June 22nd (12-2pm ET)
• The BONUS follow-up Q & A session on June 29th (12-1pm ET)
• A workbook to follow and use to create your own plans.
• Access to the recording of the workshop and Q & A session for one month – to review as you finalize your plans.

It will kickstart you on a process of better planning your content which will lead to a better use of your time!

The ACE your Content Marketing Planning workshop will help you:

• GET CLARITY on your business and revenue goals to match these with your content marketing strategy and build a priority list for your action steps.
• FOCUS on what you need to implement your content marketing plans and outline the activities/tasks to get it done. Know what to do or what you can delegate.
• ORGANIZE the marketing content for your practice or business and create some initial content to kickstart your marketing and gain momentum.
• BRING BALANCE to your Life and Business by planning your calendar to mix in regular marketing and promotional marketing content (AND planning Time Off!).​

Register for the workshop now.

And if you have any questions, please reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook and let me know!

Just promise me, if you are Random-ing your Content Plans, stop! One way or another stop. Either on your own or with my help next week at the workshop. You have way better things to do with your time than spend it all on marketing!