It’s Effective Communications Month: Creating a Powerful Content Plan

 If there was one thing we learned throughout the pandemic, effective communication is essential. Messaging is always important, but so is the platform on which you state your message. June is Effective Communications Month, so it’s a good time to look at your current content and determine more ways to provide your core information to your audience. Here are some tried and true content plan ideas for your blog to help you communicate your message.  

Tell Your Story

If you’ve been reading my blog over the last year, you know that I believe storytelling is the core of human communication strategy. When you make a buying decision, a good story can sway you in the right direction. When you connect with a service provider, you’re more likely to choose that person for your business. When you tell your story on a blog, you humanize yourself, and readers can relate to you.  

 

Write a List

Lists are still hugely popular online, and there are great ways to make effective use of them. First, consider the formatting. Knowing that many online readers will only skim an article, it helps to have things broken up into numbered lists. Odd numbers draw more attention than even numbers. Your list can be anything related to your business. For example, a real estate blog can post about the Top 5 Hikes Near (city name). Or a staffing blog can write 3 Ways to Impress in the Interview.

 

Put Together a “How To” Guide

One of the most popular searches on Google is still “How do I…?” People use the internet to learn how to do a variety of things. Videos are popular for How-To guides, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Some people still want to read the steps and follow along at their own pace, so a thorough How-To guide online can attract the right readers. Here’s an important concept to include, though. For example, if you’re a plumbing company, you can write a “How To” guide for simple home plumbing fixes, but be sure to include a call to action so when someone realizes that even simple plumbing isn’t in their wheelhouse, they’ll pick up the phone and call.

 

Make a Video

Video content is huge. According to MarketingSherpa, videos attach 300% more traffic to your site. And, Insivia shares that a website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if there are videos included. There was a time when making videos for online publishing was time-consuming and expensive. It still can be, but there are so many easy-to-use platforms now, including those baked into social media, that make the process so much easier.

 

Getting Started

Now that you have your ideas, how do you put them together into a content plan? My clients all handle this a little differently, but you can use a few options to make your blogging easier. How you do it may depend on how many blog posts you decide to publish each month. It’s common to do one a month, one every other week, or once per week. You can create a content plan that covers one month of content, three months at a time, or even a full year of content ideas.

If you want to know more about creating a content plan and writing a blog for your business, visit my website and email me today.