Whether you’re a first-time blogger or an established company, you dream of maximizing your ROI. Am I right? Well, all you need to make your dream a reality is some good content planning on social media. Like a process map, a content plan ensures you’re always adding value to your customers. Good content planning not only brings customers in but also helps to keep them.

But first, you need to have a solid ecommerce content strategy—i.e., a clear idea of what your goals are. Your goals shape your marketing strategy, so defining them is an essential first step. For this article, let’s assume you’ve nailed your content strategy and are ready to take the next step: Developing a kick-ass content plan for social media.

What should a content plan include?

To make the most of that killer content you’re writing, your content plan should include the following:

1. Getting to know your customers
2. Bringing in your customers 
3. Retaining your customers 
4. Fostering teamwork 
5. Reviewing and adapting your content plan 

Getting to know your customers

A staggering 46% of businesses don’t research their potential audiences. Those businesses are missing out on understanding their customers. And understanding your customers is the top factor that contributes to the success of your content strategy:

To avoid this happening to you, spend time researching the market. Go where your target audience goes, and look at what they’re engaging with. Social media is a great place to start. You could even conduct a survey and ask people what kind of content they’d like you to write.

Also, look at your competitors. What type of content are they writing? Are people engaging with it? Pay attention to any complaints their customers have, and think about how to avoid them in your business. This is a great time to map your customer journey so you can address any potential pain points. And if you see a gap in the market, fill it!

Bringing in your customers 

Once you understand your customers, it’s time to start bringing them in. But in order to maximize your content marketing ROI, you need to bring in the right customers. There are two ways to do this: 

1. Keyword research 
2. Bottom-of-funnel content

Keyword research 

Keywords are important for your SEO ranking. They tell search engines what your content is about. But, to bring in customers rather than casual browsers, you need to focus on long-tail keywords. 

Long-tail keywords are phrases, at least three words long, that people search for when they’re looking for a particular kind of content. An example is “Canada toll free number” instead of “Canada free number” or “free number”.

There tends to be less competition for long-tail keywords, so they’re easier to rank for. People are more likely to find—and read—your content when you use them. Long-tail keywords make your content relevant.

Bottom-of-funnel content 

In an ideal world, your target audience enters at the top of your marketing funnel and converts into customers by the time they reach the bottom. They may then decide to re-enter the funnel or move on.

The temptation is to begin by creating top-of-funnel (TOFU) content. After all, you want to attract customers, right? But like long-tail keywords, bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content sees the highest customer conversion rates. By this stage, visitors are more likely to be searching for a solution to a problem your business solves.

So, begin by creating BOFU content, like product pages and case studies, before moving on to middle-of-funnel (MOFU) and TOFU content.

Retaining your customers

There’s no point bringing in customers if you can’t keep them. Existing customers have a higher SaaS customer lifetime value (CLV) than new customers. This is because customers are more likely to spend money when they’re loyal to a brand. 

Companies that focus on their customers, and how to keep their customers happy and loyal, grow their income 2.5 times faster than their competitors. So, keeping existing customers happy is crucial to your bottom line.

How do you keep customers happy? Communication is a big part of it! For example, if a customer leaves a comment or query on social media about an agent agreement template, answer it! If you want to know how to improve your customer experience, ask them! Making your customers feel valued is the best way to keep them coming back for more.

Fostering teamwork

Making sure everyone on your team is communicating and working together is essential. If you don’t, you could end up with communication silos—groups of people who aren’t communicating. They hinder the implementation of your content strategy and can mean customers have to repeat the same thing too many departments. Communication between teams is a top challenge for 60% of businesses.

Collaborative tools are one way to keep communication flowing throughout your business. They also ensure that everyone on your team has access to your content strategy and content plan.

Collaborative tools include editorial calendars, tools to video chat online, and collaborative boards. You also want to ensure that all team members are fully trained on all communication methods you use. Can they send an efax in Canada? Do they know how to sync their calendars? 

Including ways to foster teamwork in your content plan is a must. It will help ensure each member of your team is working towards your business goals.

Reviewing and adapting your content plan

The final stage of your content plan is simple. You need to review your strategies and adapt your content plan to your changing business needs. What’s working well, and what needs improving? How has your business changed over time? These are all important questions.

Keep up-to-date with the latest marketing trends, keywords, and technologies. If your marketing budget increases, great! Scale up your content plan to match. Essentially, make sure your content plan is still helping to maximize your ROI.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Content planning on social media doesn’t have to be hard. By following the steps outlined in this article, you’ll be well on your way to taking advantage of the growing online market.

Anniston Ward , 15 February 2023