As you look to increase your marketing reach each month, either on your website, digital ads, or social media posts, having content to put in all those places isn’t always an easy task. Creating impactful content can be an even greater challenge.

We’ve found, through trial, error and a whole lot of red ink, that forming and sticking to a simple, strategic plan is the most effective way to manage the process and keep your creative juices flowing.

Gather 

With the wealth of knowledge available at our fingertips today, the research phase of generating content can sometimes be the most daunting step. Start by creating a list of resources depending on your industry; this could be online news sites, blogs or traditional media like magazines. Start a system to easily locate information on any given topic.

Curate

Develop ideas and topics from your research that will appeal to your audience.

Write

Use content for blog posts, website copy, Twitter or even a caption for a Facebook photo. Just remember, no matter how many words you need to use, always focus on keeping copy concise and writing in small bits. Also, keep the goal in mind – you want your content to be impactful with your audience; it needs to be surprising, informative or create emotion.

Publish & Share

You know all those social media sites? Share, share and share again all content that you publish.

Recycle

This step also involves monitoring. Take note of what content gets the most traffic on social media or produces the most comments on your blog. Look for ways to expand on this in different ways for future use.

Optional step

Drink a pot of coffee; run around the block a few times.

There isn’t a magic button to push that will spit out great content for your traditional or digital platforms, but with some easy planning you can make the most of your and your employee’s schedule (and sanity) to keep the content engaging as you put it out into the world on a regular basis.