How To Create a Content Marketing Plan

How To Create a Content Marketing Plan using
PowerPoint Templates
In the last year the changes within the internet marketing space (SEO, SEM, Social Media and PR)
have forced the Marketing Agencies, Consultants, Startups and Corporate Marketing areas to drive
focus to their Inbound Marketing. In this post we will guide you for the initial steps any Marketing
area, startup or even consolidated corporate Marketing Agency should follow for the creation of
a Content Marketing Plan.

What is Inbound Marketing ?
Inbound Marketing is the combined effort of promotion (of a company, brand, product, service, etc.)
through different internet channels (ebooks, blogs, podcasts, videos, newsletters, SEO, social media
marketing and other channels of content) which help to attract customers. The focus of inbound
marketing is bringing customers IN the website instead of the marketer go to “search” for possible
customers. Inbound Marketing mantra is to “earn the customer” instead of “buying” the customer.

How to Start with Inbound Marketing?
In order to be successful at Inbound Marketing, companies need to invest in content, which if the
pushing force for Inbound Marketing campaigns. The amount of content generated by companies is
increasing dramatically, and consumer are receiving thousands of marketing messages in all of their


internet channels. Said this, it is extremely important to plan the content marketing efforts in order to
effectively reach the right audiences, add value to them and receive in exchange, their loyalty and
their business. Tied with the effectiveness, the ability to measure it is necessary in order to gather
data, calculate the Return of Investment (ROI) and be able to iterate the process with more
information that will help to improve the content and its reach.

Content Marketing Plan for Inbound Marketing
Content planning is one of the key success factors for an effective and efficient Inbound Marketing
Campaign. We will describe a simple four steps process combining general knowledge business and
marketing tools that will help you trace the path of your content strategy. The management tools

described apply to every planning activity and the value is not only driven through the final work
product, but for the process itself. SlideModel provides a set of Professional PowerPoint
Templates where the users can edit the placeholders and iterate over the management
tools through the analysis process.
The process and management tools we will describe in this post are the following:
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Analysis of your current and past marketing efforts through the use of the SWOT tool.
Definition of clear objectives and how to measure them in order to build SMART KPI’s.
Brainstorm ideas for content, matching it to the stages in the buying life cycle (FUNNEL).
Create a Plan (Tasks, Resources, Duration) with a PowerPoint Timeline.

Content SWOT Analysis
What is SWOT?
SWOT is a popular analysis and decision-making management tool. The word is the acronym
for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. SWOT analysis is helpful for understanding a
current situation and be able to create a positive strategy. The tool framework is very simple, it
consists of a 2×2 matrix (4 quadrants), where each cell represents one of the components of the
SWOT acronym. This matrix should be analyzed jointly, in order to picture at the same time the
major components and visualize the relationships.
If you want a deeper understanding of the SWOT Analysis and a practical guide to create it with
professional SWOT PowerPoint Templates you can review our previous post “Best SWOT
Analysis Templates for PowerPoint“.

The Planning SWOT Template is a professional presentation deck designed for showcasing SWOT
Analysis results to executive audiences. Using the traditional four quadrants layout, the design
combines thin curved arrows shapes mapping the four concepts Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities
and Threats.
SWOT Analysis is a powerful tool for strategic planning. Because of its simplicity and insightful
results, organisations around the world choose to include it in their strategy toolset. There are several
approaches to SWOT Analysis; the most used consists on working out the antagonic concepts:
1. Identify the organisation strengths. (Internal point of view)
2. Identify the organization weaknesses. (Internal point of view)
3. Identify the opportunities in the context of the analysis (External view)
4. Identify the threats in the the context of the analysis (External view)
5. Mitigate Threats reducing Weaknesses, using Strengths as a lever.
6. Amplify Strengths to be able to tackle Opportunities.
7. Create new Strengths that enable the competitive advantage over Opportunities.
8. Create new Strengths to eliminate Weaknesses.
Note that we introduced the context keyword in the approach. The context defines where the analysis
is placed. In a corporation, context can be defined as the market in which they operate, but if the
analysis is being carried out in an internal departments, for example Human Resources (HR), the
context can be the workplace.
The Planning SWOT Template is crafted in order to allow users to easily replace the placeholders
with their findings and conclusions. Each piece of the PowerPoint Templates are created with
PowerPoint objects, allowing the user to fully customize its appearance.

Current Content SWOT
The Content Analysis starts with a simple exercise; present the 5 major strategic strengths and
weaknesses of your current content marketing efforts. It could be difficult at the first try, but the
iterative approach, trying to reach the five points, is vital to analyze your knowledge about the
marketplace and environmental situation. In essence, you need to set a title for what is working well,
and what is not working. This deep thinking will trigger in the analyst or group of analysts, several

leverages that will allow fresh ideas in future steps of the process.


Our Customers are used to work with remote teams, and having a PowerPoint Templates as the
canvas for working through shared environments is ideal. You can use some tips of online
broadcasting from our previous blog “How To Broadcast PowerPoint Presentations Through the
Web“.
Using “virtual” sticky notes in the PowerPoint Slide makes it easy to keep the previous ideas and
track the evolution of the SWOT analysis. Also, printing the template in a poster and generate an
Agile meeting , working with tangible paper, also triggers interactions and creativity; take the
suggestion and try it, it has proven track.

Lets describe an example. Consider the “Stock Photo Business” where a company sells pictures to
their users. The content marketing SWOT could look like this, after a couple of iterations. Look at
the ideas and their evolution. The team starts to realize the effect of their content strategy. The
PowerPoint Template shows in one snapshot the full team ideation, and will be extremely easy to
showcase later.
STRENGTHS
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Expertise in photography -> Photography DOY tutorial are recognized as professional.
Great Bloggers -> Recognized Photographers Blogging at regular pace.
Photography sites linked -> Content Referenced from partners networks with high authority.
SEO Optimized Content drives traffic.


WEAKNESSES

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Our content is too focused on “bringing in”, but not on leading to conversion.
Not measurable results blinds calculation of ROI.
Not customizable content disables Targeting the right persona.

The second steps moves to the Opportunities and Threats. At this point the analysis has traversed the
initial iteration that breaks the ice of ideas. Now, strategic thinking flows, and opportunities are
clearer, and potential threats to them are not any more hidden.
OPPORTUNITIES
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Advertising in Social Networks (Facebook) has less competition than Search and Display
Networks.
Creating a Youtube channel with photography tutorials can bring new customers to top of the
funnel.
Using the stock photos as content, generating “meaning” around them can help bring traffic
through SEO.

THREATS
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Current Tutorials strategy has no entry barrier to be copied, and depends in paid advertising.
Competition can develop better influencers network.

Content Marketing investments will increase, noise will be generated by the amount of
content.


Defining Tactics and Actions over the SWOT
Once the SWOT analysis has concluded, is time to summarize the exercise and create an actionable
plan that takes advantage of it. Empowered by the strengths take action over the opportunities, and
knowing your weaknesses protect your Content Marketing efforts against the threats.
The following example applies for the SWOT Analysis described:
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Change the approach of your Photography tutorials moving towards Edition of Photos in order
to create conversions.
Create a Content ROI system along the funnel, measuring acquisition costs, conversion rates
and amount spent in content creation, curation and promotion.
Test Social Media Advertising of Photography tutorials that had performed well in regular
PPC advertising and measure effectiveness and ROI.
Create a Youtube Channel of free photography tutorials powered by the partners network.
Develop an Affiliate program for Influencers in order to gain fidelity among them.
Take advantage of Bloggers and technology to help personalize content.

You can use one of our Text & Tables PowerPoint Templates in order to present the plan clearly
visually and add it to your deck.

Each of the sections describe the Actions that the plan will execute. This template allows clear
presentation of the ideas, catalogue them including an Id number and visually engage the audience
with top of the line PowerPoint Icons.


Define Content Marketing Objectives and Key Performance
Indicators (KPI’s)
After the analysis stage, the next step consists of defining the objectives that maps to the actions
described previously. For each objective it will be defined a key performance indicator (KPI) that will
measure the progress toward achieving the objective. This methodology is the basic foundation of the
strategic approach to Content Marketing and will provide visibility in order to understand if the
content marketing plan is on track or not.






RACE Digital Marketing Planning Framework PowerPoint Template is a professional presentation
with the steps Reach, Act, Convert and Engage incorporated into a model. It describes the steps for a
digital marketing plan, covering the main four steps for effective marketing in the web.
The framework, designed by Smart Insights, Dave Chaffey, has helped several internet marketers to
develop effective digital marketing plans, with 4 steps that cover the full customer lifecycle along the
marketing funnel. The steps of the model consist of:
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Reach: Get the brand, product or service to be known in the web though different presence

(specialized websites, social, digital press, search engines,etc.)
Act: Get the just arriving users to interact with your product or service. Generate content for
them, provide trial, make them understand your value proposition.
Convert: Persuade the user to become a customer
Engage: Make the newly customer to become a loyal customer, with a higher lifetime value.

The framework provides a guide for the KPI’s to use and which of them apply on each step.
The RACE Digital Marketing Planning Framework PowerPoint Template is a 100%
editable presentation, ideal for presenting the created plan, with descriptive slides of each of the
framework steps. All the slides are created with PowerPoint shapes and icons, allowing the user to
fully customize the presentation to its corporate identity or branding palette.
Impress your audience with this professional flat design presentation.


RACE Framework

In order to define clear objectives for your Content Marketing is important to map them through the
marketing funnel. To strategically follow this approach we will use the RACE Digital Marketing
Planning Framework. The RACE framework covers the main four stages of the customer lifecycle
along the marketing funnel. The RACE Acronym states for:
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Reach: Awareness, drive visits and presence.
Act: Engage Audience with brand. Interaction and Visits.
Convert: Achievement of marketing goals.
Engage: Build Customer Loyalty.

In each RACE Stage its necessary to define the objectives and KPI’s. For this purpose we will use the
second management tool, the SMART Objectives Goals setting framework.

SMART Objectives


SMART its a management acronym generally used to guide the process of goal settings in different
management areas (projects, business, strategies, etc). When the SMART principles are followed for
goals settings, the chances of success increases. The meaning of the SMART acronym is as follows:
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Specific: The goal needs to be as specific as possible. It must be clear, unambiguous. A
specific goal is short, crisp and concise. Specific Goals always answer the 5 “W” questions
(What, Why, Who, Where, Which)
Measurable: If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It. Goals need to be quantifiable.
Progress towards achievement must be measurable.
Attainable: Goals need to be possible, in a realistic scenario.
Relevant: Goals need to matter. Managers can choose infinite goals, but only a few will
matter.
Time-bound: Goal need to be achievable in a time frame, that could be planned.

How To Work With the RACE and SMART PowerPoint Templates?
As did with the SWOT template, we will explain how to take advantage of Professional
PowerPoint Templates, to guide the users strategic thinking through the process in an ordered and
structured fashion. The process continues from where it was left, the action plan, and places the

RACE framework PowerPoint Template in the board. The Template provides a matrix with 4 rows;
each row representing a stage of the customer lifecycle. The analysis team will start placing the
different actions in the correct stage of the lifecycle. It will happen three different scenarios:
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Action will match a specific stage: Great, this is the best scenario.
Action will match more than one stage: Great too, this is the most common scenario. As a
rule of thumb, the team needs to match the most profitable stage in case this happens. This
kind of “untie” is part of general experience. Also, if the Content Marketing is mature enough,


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the team could start A/B testing over the funnel stage (advanced stuff not covered by this
post)
Action will match no stage: Great too, this means, the action is not really “actionable” for
your content marketing plan. Return the idea to the previous stage for more “idation”
iterations.

Once your actions are placed along the customer lifecycle, start defining the objectives you want to
reach. For this purpose we will apply the SMART criteria on the first objective as an example.
Lets consider the action of the creation of the YouTube channel. This action is a driver for Organic
Traffic. What is what we want to achieve? We apply the SMART Objectives criteria to this action
in the following Slide Template.


After all our plan actions have a goal, and each goal has been analyzed through the SMART criteria,
we complete a snapshot of all the analysis conclusions in a RACE Matrix, where each row
represents a stage of the funnel and goals, KPI’s and actions are recorded for follow up.

Assets Analysis with Content Marketing Matrix and Content
Marketing Media Matrix
Once the content SWOT analysis is concluded and an actionable plan is in place across the customer
lifecycle, its important to identify the GAP’s between the content assets you organization creates, and
the content your audience may consume. At this point you have measurable objectives to achieve. It
is time to look into the content spectre your audience consumes, and identify if you need to adjust
your content generation strategy to fill the GAP. In this stage, it is also important to look to the
competition and understand their content strategies.
For this purpose we propose the use of the Content Marketing Matrix and the Content Marketing
Media Matrix. These tools are simple four (4) quadrant matrixes that used together can provide
insightful information of Content Assets GAP’s.

How to Use the Content Marketing Matrix?
The Content Marketing Matrix is a simple tool which aims to generate “quality conversations”
between the content creation teams and marketing stakeholders. Information about assets can be
organized in a visual perspective that provides insights about their possible effect over the audience
and the business.


From left to right the horizontal axis represents the buying funnel, from awareness to purchase. From
top to bottom, the Vertical axis represents the emotional effect that the content tries to generate in the
audience, ranging from emotional to rational. The tool places the different content assets across the
matrix, analyzing which is the content objective to the marketing organization and the emotion that
reflects. During this analysis the marketers may identify GAPS within the chain of content that
should guide the prospect from Awareness into Purchase, swinging within emotions and rationale.
Each Quadrant represents a two dimensional marketing objective, over the emotional axis and
lifecycle axis:
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Educate: Create Rational content that will attract the audience through the initial stages of the
funnel. The objective is to educate the audience about the subject matter expertise of
the product and business industry. Ideal for Tutorials, Trends Reports, Press Releases and
Infographics. This quadrant reflects the organization knowledge and the willingness of
sharing it with their digital community.
Entertain: Create Emotional content to attract the audience through empathy into the initial
stages of the funnel. The audience will invest time in this content assets to satisfy their
entertainment needs. This assets include viral content over social networks, quizzes within the
user base, competitions between the users for an award, branded videos over Youtube or
online games.
Inspire: Create Emotional content to help the purchasing decision to guide the user from
customer to advocate. The content assets are generated through interaction with customers. In
this quadrant locate the content assets related to product reviews, grant access to your users
forum to share the content with the new audience, or find influencers to talk/write about your
product/service and generate sharable content with their mentions and endorsements.
Convince: Create Rational content to complete the purchasing decision. The assets located in
this quadrant should help the prospect to choose your product/service. Content under this
characterizations are product features , checklists, your users ratings , interactive demos or
webcasts. Finally the obligatory content is the Plans and Pricing sheet.

To start using the matrix you can download SlideModel’s Content Marketing Matrix PowerPoint
Template, a 100% editable version of the Content Marketing Matrix, with professional quality
Icons that makes easy the copy and paste of assets into the Matrix Map, in a “post it” fashion. The

process is simple and intuitive, the user selects the content assets icon and drags and drops it over the
empty matrix canvas. Iteratively, the users and audience starts to relocate the assets over the quadrant
covering the funnel. Immediately after the first iteration the stakeholders will identify the GAPs, and
will plan for the missing content.

How to Use the Content Marketing Media Matrix?
The content Marketing Media Matrix is an intuitive tool that helps understand the relative effort of
creation of media asset compared to the relative attention they will generate over the audience. Once


the Assets GAP was identified during with the Content Marketing Matrix, the team can work with the
Media Matrix and prioritize the efforts. As the previous tool, this is relative comparisons that
provides guides for insights analysis between involved stakeholders.
The process is simple, just drag and drop the assets over the matrix canvas and position their location
in the quadrants according to the effort and attention dimensions. Visually the team will clearly
identify which content are a priority and which will not be as effective.

Example of content GAP Analysis
Going back to our example, we had put both matrixes into practice to show the final result of the
analysis. The business assets of the example organization are focused on the photography and web
design industries, the content to guide the user through the funnel tries to generate a simple rational
path. No big branding efforts. The example clearly identified a GAP in the Entertain Quadrant, that
was analysed later in the media matrix to define which content assets was going to be created to fill
that GAP. The team decided to fill the GAP with Virals through social networks, as being the most
effortless content that could be generated reusing existing assets. Even though will not be the most
engaging, the GAP will be covered and measurable results will show the effect.


Create The Content Marketing Plan Roadmap
After the analysis steps have been completed, the content plan is in place, and the assets required are

agreed, is time to create a realistic timeline. To create the Roadmap we suggest the use of a Gantt
Chart Template. This template is suitable to represent tasks, resources and time in a visual way, and
extremely easy to edit through its data driven nature (you can edit it though Excel). The timeline will


contain the tasks involved in content creation and the tasks related to the publishing of each assets in
the different digital marketing channels. You can create one slide per task if you need to sub
subdivide the tasks and give a more detailed plan.

Conclusions
In this post we reviewed a simple analysis process to create a Content Marketing Plan. As a visual
tool, several PowerPoint templates served as canvas for the analysis sessions and for tracing the
analysis stages outcomes. Also, after the process was complete, all stages were easily presentable just
regrouping the slides we edited on each stage.
The process can be summarized in the following steps:
1. Study your current Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT).
2. Design an actionable set of tasks that tackle the opportunities, leveraging the strengths.
3. Design an actionable set of tasks that protects you from the Threats and Mitigates your
Weaknesses.
4. Align the actionable tasks according to the customers life cycle (RACE).
5. Define SMART Objectives for the tasks across the funnel.
6. Identify the Content Assets GAPS with the Content Marketing Matrix.
7. Prioritize the Content Assets with the Content Marketing Media Matrix.
8. Create a Timeline for your Content Marketing Plan defining Resources and Durations.