As mentioned in our intro blog post, we will feature articles that have been written by the writers here at iNeedArticles.com. You should note that this article, our “Eight Templates Every Content Marketer Needs To Use” was either purchased on the iNeedArticles.com marketplace and thus this article was previously available to anyone, or we ordered the article through the iNeedArticles.com ordering platform. We did not cause the writer to spend an unusual amount of time writing the article on our behalf. In other words, this is a fine example of the quality of writing that is available to all our customers. The final output contains a few minor edits on our part to include graphics, insert links, and so forth. In addition to reading this post, check out our introduction to content marketing and tips for building an email list for more useful tips to help you turbocharge your content marketing efforts.
Eight Templates Every Content Marketer Needs To Use
A worker is often only as good as his tools. When it comes to content marketing, templates are some of the most important tools around. Here are eight templates that every content marketers need to have in their toolbox.
- The Planning Template.
Every great strategy starts with a plan. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to war, building a skyscraper, or launching a content marketing strategy. If you don’t have a plan, then you’ll quickly find yourself lost along the way. Just as every great strategy starts with a plan, every great plan starts with a template. We really can’t emphasize this point enough.
Planning templates aren’t necessarily difficult to put together. However, when looking for a template online, prioritize templates that include goals, multiple paths, and clear order. The last thing you want is for your planning template to confuse you when you read it four months into the future.
- The Content Questionnaire.
Do you have big plans and big questions ready for your content marketing strategy? Maybe you’ve outlined some serious goals in your planning template, but now it’s time to start making progress. A content questionnaire will help you identify your voice, the messages you want to send, and your position on various matters.
What questions should be included in the template? Some of the staples include:
– What are the strengths of my organization?
– Who is the competition?
– Who is our ideal customer?
– What do our customers hope to accomplish with our products/service?
These are just a few of the important questions that need to be answered in your questionnaire. You can probably think of at least fifty more.
- Target Customer Persona.
In the content questionnaire, there was the question, “Who is our ideal customer”. The target customer persona will help you dive deeper into that subject and really identify who you are marketing your brand to. This template contains a series of questions that are applied to a particular person you are targeting as a customer. As you fill more and more of these out it will help you learn more about your target audience as a whole and your ideal customer. Not only that, but it will help your sales team identify with the target customer in question.
There are some key pieces of information that should be included in the persona. You need to document where that customer is in the buying process, what their needs are, what sort of job they have, and what are their pressures.
- Content Mapping Template.
If you spend any time talking with a content marketer, they’ll probably mention mapping the content at least half a dozen times. It’s a common practice and one that is greatly benefited by the use of a template. The act of content mapping is identifying the information needed by the target customers outlined in your personas.
Content mapping is already a very drawn out and time-consuming process. If you didn’t have a template to aid you, it would be even longer. What are some of the key pieces of information outlined in a content mapping template?
One major area of focus is content gaps. These are areas that need to be filled with relevant content. They tend to take priority over the rest of the information included in the template.
This template benefits greatly from the information provided in the target buyer’s persona template. Without that, you’ll struggle to know what content is needed and when it is needed.
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- The Editorial Calendar Template.
Ten different marketers will argue about whether ten different tools are relevant. However, one area that almost all of them will agree on is the importance of an editorial calendar. It’s easily one of the most important tools a content marketer has at their disposal, perhaps only outweighed by the importance of buyer persona profiles.
Calendars are good for a lot of things besides checking the date. They help you stay constant, on time, and relevant to the people who are important to your business.
The simplest of calendars will help you align the dates with content that you are planning. That’s great for getting your feet wet, but it’s a good idea to branch out and find more detailed templates that include areas for additional information.
- The Keyword Tracker Template.
In this day and age, it’s impossible to have content without taking search engine optimization into consideration. A keyword tracking template will help you stay on point with the right keywords and provides you with a safe place to record related information.
This template can look a lot of different ways, but it’s important that some of the same basic information is always recorded. For example, your template should have a place for listing potential keywords and statistics related to those keywords. Simply put, the more information you can record related to each potential keyword the better.
- Web Page Template.
What is more important to your business than your web page? Maybe a few things, but not much. Something this important deserves a powerful template. A template will help ensure that you create relevant and effective content for your website each and every time.
This template should include a series of questions about the content that need to be answered prior to writing. It can also include an area for potential headlines, tags, and sub-headlines.
- Social Media Conversation Calendar.
Finally, in the age of social media, a conversation calendar is a very helpful tool. Remember, content marketers love calendars. The same applies to social media conversation calendars. This template helps you track when and what you said to your potential clients. It also helps you stay relevant to your audience by staying updated with what’s happening on social media.
Bonus Template: Facebook Marketing Template.
This is a bonus template that more and more marketers are starting to use. It’s useful for tracking the mass amount of data that can be gathered from Facebook. This includes changes that occur over time and statistics related to individual personas. One of the great things about this template is that it can be modified to work with other social media platforms as well.
As long as you have these eight templates every content marketer needs to use in your toolbox, you can track and analyze information streaming in from all corners of the web. That makes it easier to get organized, publish compelling content, and get results.
And after you read through this list of templates and are feeling the need to have even more templates in your life to help you organize yourself, have a look at these articles that have useful information as well: