{"id":20045,"date":"2023-12-11T20:35:08","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T20:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/?page_id=20045"},"modified":"2026-03-12T22:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:20:13","slug":"content-marketing-plan-template","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/content-marketing-plan-template\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create a Content Marketing Plan (+ Template)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/npUvSyOy6ic?si=0jd2W7_QwrcyzHK-\" width=\"760\" height=\"515\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">You&#8217;ve decided to start a content marketing program. Where do you begin?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Great content marketing starts with a <b>great content marketing plan<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">In this article, we&#8217;ll explain our content marketing planning process that we have used for hundreds of clients at Media Shower.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">Step 1: Product or Service<\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>In plain English, what do you do?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Describe your company and what it sells. This part should be no more than two to three paragraphs. It should be in plain and simple language that avoids industry-speak.\u00a0We highly recommend reading your first draft to someone outside your industry: do <em>they<\/em> understand it? If not, simplify further.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">As marketing managers (especially B2B marketing managers), we can get lost in our own jargon. We assume that the outside world understands our &#8220;inside&#8221; language and acronyms. Simplicity is difficult. But forcing yourself to explain the company in plain language removes barriers to understanding: it helps you connect better with your target customer who&#8217;s just thinking, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability\/dp\/0321344758\">Don&#8217;t Make Me Think<\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><center><img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-15990\" src=\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-300x142.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-300x142.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-1024x486.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-768x364.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-1536x728.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/AdobeStock_354456539-2048x971.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\nGood communication is about simplification. So simplify, simplify, simplify.<\/center><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 2: Target Consumer Name<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Give your customer a name.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This is simply a label for your ideal customer, or the general type of person who will be reading this content. (For example, you&#8217;re probably generally a &#8220;Marketing Manager,&#8221; even if that&#8217;s not your official job title.) Think of a category of target readers: a little more general than a job title or role, but targeted specifically to the audience you hope will consume the content you put out into the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">As a B2B communications company, we target our content to &#8220;Marketing Managers,&#8221; the people within a company that are responsible for marketing the business. While startups and small businesses will occasionally use our services, most of our clients are mid-size enterprises with a formal marketing department, so &#8220;Marketing Managers&#8221; helps us visualize them. It gives them a name.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Choose ONE target customer name. Your job is to simplify marketing for your content team. Force yourself to focus.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 3: Target Consumer Description<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Who are we trying to attract?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Here, you provide a rich description of this ideal customer, giving as many details as possible to create a picture in the mind of your content team. This section includes their demographics, and for B2B companies, the type of job position and company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Some of the demographics you&#8217;ll want to include (see video for more examples):<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Male\/Female<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Education<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Age range<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Income level<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Personality traits<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Of course, not everyone in your target audience will fit into one set of specific demographics, but you&#8217;re just going for a &#8220;type&#8221; or a typical audience member. Giving a best guess is okay for this section. It&#8217;s not meant to be perfect (trust us, no one&#8217;s going to check your work), but to help your content team visualize the type of person they&#8217;re after.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><strong>Don&#8217;t get it perfect, get it done.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This section has some similarities to the concept of &#8220;personas&#8221; in marketing, but personas typically result in three different personality types: too much for your content team to keep in their heads. We just want <em>one<\/em> persona, your best target customer. It&#8217;s much easier and more effective.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 4: Target Consumer Challenges\/Pain Points<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Why do they need us?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Every target customer has a problem they&#8217;re trying to solve. What&#8217;s their big pain point? What do they need? For example:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Creating great marketing content that drives leads<\/li>\n<li>Managing disparate customer databases<\/li>\n<li>Tracking SaaS subscriptions across the enterprise<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Again, you want ONE pain point. Sure, your solution solves a hundred different problems, but force yourself to focus. Select the ONE category that drives most of your customer demand. See if that doesn&#8217;t get you 90% of the way there.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 5: Product\/Service Category<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Where are we competing?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This is a two- to three-word description or your industry category; it should be specific enough to identify competitors but broad enough to encompass everything you do. For example:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Content Marketing Systems<\/li>\n<li>Customer Data Platforms<\/li>\n<li>SaaS Management Software<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 6: Relevant Competitors<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Who else is in this space?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">List three or more companies that provide the same or similar services to yours. This gives your team examples on how competitors are doing their content marketing, and can also be used for keyword research and brainstorming blog topics. Note any examples of competitors who are doing their content marketing particularly well.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 7: Unique Brand Benefit<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>What is the ONE thing we do better than anyone else?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Until you answer that question, you don&#8217;t really have a successful marketing strategy. You need to know what makes your company, product, or service different from your competitors, because this will drive the entire organization&#8217;s message.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Many companies try to stuff a bunch of product features or benefits into this field. They play Buzzword Bingo. That&#8217;s not differentiating. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Avoid word salad. Think, &#8220;Even if we&#8217;re not there yet, what is the ONE thing we can be the very best in the world at doing?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 8: Benefit Supports<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>What are specific things that support this claim?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Finding your unique brand benefit is essential, but you also need to back up your claim. Here, you come up with two to three convincing bullet points that support or prove your unique brand benefit. For example:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Brand benefit:<\/strong> The most flexible Content Management System for SMEs. <strong>Benefit support:<\/strong> Our headless software approach allows you to bring your own data&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brand benefit:<\/strong> The enterprise fraud detection software that provides advanced protection. <strong>Benefit support:<\/strong> Our AI algorithm can detect fraud patterns that humans can&#8217;t see&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brand benefit:<\/strong> The content company that drives results. <strong>Benefit support:<\/strong> We ruthlessly track and analyze every piece of content, then iterate and improve monthly&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 9: Brand Voice<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>How do we want to sound?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Brand voice is the tone of your content. It&#8217;s how you engage with customers, your corporate communication style, usually described in adjectives. Select 4-5 adjectives that describe your desired brand voice, such as friendly, authoritative, understanding, compassionate, or humorous.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Step 10: Summary Positioning Statement<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>Putting it all together.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The final section is a fill-in-the-blank statement that sums up your marketing plan in one sentence. You simply take your answers from the categories above, then fill them in, Mad Libs-style:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><strong>For [TARGET CONSUMER], [BRAND] is the brand of [PRODUCT\/SERVICE CATEGORY] that offers the [UNIQUE BRAND BENEFIT].<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the video above, we have plenty of examples from our own company, Media Shower, which you are use as a starting point for your own marketing plan. Here&#8217;s our finished positioning statement:<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><em>For\u00a0<\/em><\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">marketing managers<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">,\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Media Shower<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0is the\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">communications company<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0that offers\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">digital communication that drives results<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Download the Content Marketing Plan Template<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Now you have a step-by-step plan that will help create great marketing content for your business. We&#8217;ve tested and iterated this with hundreds of companies over the years, and <i>it works.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>If you need more help with your content marketing strategy,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/contact?__mscta=2823_86199_162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">contact Media Shower<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0for terrific content that will help you execute on the Content Marketing Plan you&#8217;ve created here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Fill the form out below to get instant access to our Content Marketing Template.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ms_curtain_content\" data-ms-curtain-type=\"lead\">Thanks for filling out the form! <a href=\"https:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Content-Marketing-Plan-Template-0221.docx\">Click here to download the Media Shower Content Marketing Plan Template<\/a>.<\/section>\n<section data-ms-curtain-type=\"lead\"><\/section>\n<section data-ms-curtain-type=\"lead\">\n<p class=\"p1\">\n\t<div class=\"category-view-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2>More Tools for Busy Marketing Managers:<\/h2>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"category-view-articles ms-submit-posts\">\n\t\t\t\t<section id=\"recent-posts\" class=\"recent-posts\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t        <div id=\"post\">\n\t\t\t            <header class=\"clearfix\">\n\t\t\t                <div id=\"single-header\">\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-img\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/compass.png\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-meta\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/customer-journey-map-templates\/\">Customer Journey Map Templates (+ Examples and Free AI Tool)<\/a><\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t                <\/div>\n\t\t\t            <\/header>\n\t\t\t        <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t        <div id=\"post\">\n\t\t\t            <header class=\"clearfix\">\n\t\t\t                <div id=\"single-header\">\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-img\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Woman-in-yellow-sweater-surrounded-by-social-media-emojis-.jpg\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-meta\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/content-distribution\/\">Top 15 Content Distribution Companies, Rated and Reviewed<\/a><\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t                <\/div>\n\t\t\t            <\/header>\n\t\t\t        <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t        <div id=\"post\">\n\t\t\t            <header class=\"clearfix\">\n\t\t\t                <div id=\"single-header\">\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    \t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-img\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <img src=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1-min.png\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t                    <div id=\"single-header-meta\">\n\t\t\t\t                        <h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/customer-journey-map-examples\/\">Customer Journey Map Generator (with Templates and Prompts)<\/a><\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t                    <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t                    \n\t\t\t                <\/div>\n\t\t\t            <\/header>\n\t\t\t        <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- Media Shower Impressions --><\/p>\n<div class=\"ms_article_id\" style=\"display: none;\" data-ms-article-id=\"86199\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- \/Media Shower Impressions --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve decided to start a content marketing program. Start here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23933,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-bot.php","meta":[],"tags":[466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20045"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25688,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20045\/revisions\/25688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}