7 Steps to Creating a Content Plan That Drives Results (Part Two)

Part One of this content planning series laid the groundwork for creating a content plan that drives intended results. We discussed the need to stop winging content creation and instead take the time to understand the wants and needs of your target audience and set clear, measurable goals to align content efforts with business objectives.

Here again are the seven steps to creating a content plan that drives results:

1. Stop Winging It – Understand Why Your Business Needs a Content Plan

2. Get Inside Their Heads - Identify What Your Audience Wants to See

3. Meet Them Where They’re At – Understand the 5 Stages of Buyer Awareness

4. Set Your Direction – Define Clear Goals That Align with Business Success

5. Bring Order to Chaos – Organize and Prioritize Your Content for Maximum Impact

6. Choose Wisely – Pick Content Types and Platforms That Work Best for You

7. Follow the Plan – Build a Content Calendar You’ll Stick To

Steps 1-4, which we covered in last month’s blog, showed you how to build a strong foundation for a purposeful content plan. Now it’s time to take your plan from concept to execution.

Accordingly, this blog covers the final three steps of the content process—prioritizing your content topics, choosing the right content platforms, and organizing your content ideas into a content calendar.

At the end of this blog, I’ll provide a link for you to download my personal content calendar that will help you organize and plan your content regardless of whether you’re a solopreneur or you have a marketing team.

So without further ado, let’s look at how to strategically organize and prioritize your content ideas.

Step 5: Bring Order to Chaos – Organize and Prioritize Your Content for Maximum Impact

Organizing and prioritizing content ideas should be centered around the content marketing goals and KPIs established in Step 4 (previous blog post).

For example, if your goal is to generate leads, you will want to prioritize gated content over generic social media posts with no clear CTA (call-to-action). Examples of gated content, which requires someone to provide basic contact information to obtain access, include the following:

• eBooks

• Whitepapers or research reports

• Webinars

• Interactive content (quizzes, calculators, surveys, polls)

• Detailed case studies

• Free templates or tools

• Email courses

• Checklists or cheat sheets

• Free trials or product demos

• Online communities

• Exclusive content

• Contests or giveaways

The exact nature of the content you produce will depend on the needs of your target audience. A Buyer Mindset Analysis can help you determine your audience’s most pressing needs. The best way to encourage your audience to download your gated content is to ensure it provides tangible value by solving a specific problem, answering a common question, or providing a time-saving shortcut.

If your goal is to nurture existing leads, you’ll want to focus more on content that educates, builds trust and removes barriers to purchase. Unlike lead generation content, which captures initial interest and contact information, lead nurturing content is designed to guide prospects through the buyer’s journey and help them make informed decisions.

Examples of lead nurturing content include:

• Case studies showcasing real-world success stories.

• Product tutorials or explainer videos that highlight ease of use or unique features.

• Personalized email sequences addressing specific pain points or objections.

• FAQs that clarify common concerns or misconceptions.

• Comparison guides that demonstrate how your solution outperforms competitors.

• Webinars or live Q&A sessions offering deeper insights.

• Customer testimonials or reviews that build social proof.

• Value-driven blog posts, videos, or infographics that address decision-stage needs.

While lead generation content is about attracting and capturing interest, lead nurturing content focuses on strengthening the relationship with your audience, addressing their concerns, and demonstrating why your solution is the right choice. Both are essential for an effective content strategy, but the type of content you prioritize depends on which stage of awareness your audience is at in their buyer’s journey (refer to Step 3 in last month’s blog) and your KPIs for that stage.

In addition, you’ll want to align content with your UVP (Unique Value Proposition) to ensure each content idea reflects your brand’s unique strengths and differentiates you from competitors.

Balance Impact with Effort

When prioritizing content, it helps to evaluate each content idea for its potential impact on achieving your KPI versus the effort required to produce it:

Organizing and prioritizing your content ideas are key to aligning them with your goals. Later on as you begin executing your content plan, your KPIs will help you assess whether your prioritized content is delivering the expected outcomes. But for now, simply focus on setting your direction and building a purpose-driven content plan.

Once you have your content ideas organized and prioritized, the next step is to determine how and where to share them. Choosing the right content types and platforms is critical to delivering an effective message to your target audience.

Step 6: Choose Wisely – Pick Content Types and Platforms That Work Best for You

Regardless of whether you’re a new business or already have an online presence, I recommend you choose one or two content platforms and focus your efforts on optimizing them.

While there’s nothing wrong with setting up an account on multiple platforms to establish your presence there, there is little to be gained and much to lose by spreading your content too thin. You’re much better served by building a strong presence on fewer platforms for greater impact.

After all, the whole idea of being online is to stand out so your prospective buyers will find you, get to know, like, and trust you, and eventually buy from you. So, the saying “go big or go home” is very appropriate here. Because if you don’t go big, you risk getting lost in an ocean of online distractions.

Content creation takes valuable time and resources, so you need to make it count. If you have a large marketing budget and can afford to go big on multiple platforms, then by all means, do so. However, smaller businesses with limited marketing budgets and personnel need to be as strategic as possible with their marketing assets.

Which platform should you start with?

Within reason, whichever you’re most comfortable with.

As long as you’re posting great content, your audience will find you. It’s just that it may take you longer to build an audience on some platforms than on others.

But consider this. Once you commit to a platform, you need to post there regularly, so be sure to start with something you’re comfortable doing.

If the idea of filming videos regularly scares the heck out of you, don’t choose TikTok or YouTube as your platform, at least initially. You might want to build your confidence first by posting primarily written content and images on Facebook or Instagram and dabbling with stories or reels until you get the hang of video.

Comfort level plays a vital role in how successful you are on a platform because it will affect how you show up and how authentic and authoritative you appear to your audience. In addition, the greater your level of discomfort, the more stressful your content creation will be and the more of a chore it will become.

Questions for Determining Your Best Platform

Comfort aside, here are three key questions you should ask yourself when determining the best platform to start with:

1. Which platform offers you the best opportunity to reach your prospective buyers? For example, B2B buyers often engage more on LinkedIn, while younger audiences may favor TikTok or Instagram. Understanding audience preferences helps you choose a platform where the right people will see your content.

2. Which platform enables you to tell your story best? If your product or service is complex and requires detailed explanation, longer-form content such as blogs or YouTube videos may deliver the best results. On the other hand, social posts or platforms like Instagram Stories or TikTok may be better suited for more straightforward offers that can be communicated quickly and visually. The key is to match the complexity of your message with the platform’s strengths to ensure your audience fully understands and connects with what you’re offering.

3. Which platform gives you optimal control over presenting your content and building your audience? Here’s where you’ll want to consider long-term sustainability/scalability, as well as your overriding content marketing goals and related KPIs. At the present time, is your key strategy to build an audience or leverage the audience you already have? You want to ensure the effort spent on any platform directly contributes to achieving your strategic content goals as measured and evaluated by KPI metrics.

In addition, consider how you might repurpose content across multiple platforms. For example, a blog post can be broken into multiple social posts or transformed into a video script. Repurposing content maximizes the ROI of your content creation efforts, significantly benefiting businesses with limited content resources.

If you’re unsure which platform(s) might be best for your situation, consider starting with one or two and testing how they perform before fully committing. For example, if you’re a solopreneur comfortable with writing and targeting professionals, you might want to start with LinkedIn. But if you’re running a visual product-based business, Instagram or Pinterest may be a better choice.

Remember, choosing the right platform isn’t only about where your audience spends the majority of their time, it’s also about where you can most effectively achieve the content marketing goals you’ve set. As you begin implementing your content plan, your KPI metrics will tell you if the platform(s) you’ve chosen are working or whether you might need to reconsider your initial platform choice.

Understanding the Strategic Value of Content Platforms

When deciding on your content platform(s), it’s critical to understand each platform’s key benefits and drawbacks.

So here are some pros and cons of eight popular content platform types.

1) Self-hosted blogs (standalone or integrated into your website)

Pros:

• Builds a long-term content library that drives organic traffic through SEO (search engine optimization)

• Establishes authority on industry-specific topics

• Provides in-depth resources or evergreen content for your audience

Cons:

• Requires significant time and effort to consistently produce high-quality, SEO-optimized content.

• Organic traffic takes time to build, often requiring months before seeing results.

• Success heavily depends on technical skills (e.g., SEO, analytics) or hiring experts.

2) Guest blogging (for industry-relevant blogs)

Pros:

• Expands your reach to a new audience by leveraging the host blog’s existing readership.

• Establishes credibility by associating with well-known industry platforms.

• Generates backlinks to improve your website’s SEO.

Cons:

• Relies on securing approval from external editors, which can be competitive and time-consuming.

• Offers less control over the final content or how your brand is presented.

• Backlinks may not always drive significant traffic to your website.

3) Publishing platforms (Medium, Substack)

Pros:

• Reaches niche audiences already interested in specific topics.

• Builds a personal or brand voice through thought leadership.

• Allows testing of ideas and gathering feedback without building a complete website.

Cons:

• You don’t own the audience—followers are tied to the platform rather than your brand directly.

• Medium prioritizes content visibility based on platform algorithms, which you can’t control.

• Limited SEO benefits compared to self-hosted blogs since traffic often remains within the platform.

4) Social media channels (Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest)

Pros:

• Engages your audience in real-time and builds brand visibility.

• Enables shareable, bite-sized content that’s visually or emotionally engaging.

• Targets specific demographics based on platform strengths:

• Facebook: Community-building and versatile content formats for broad age demographics.

• X: Real-time updates, thought leadership, and hashtag visibility.

• LinkedIn: B2B content, professional networking.

• Instagram: Visual storytelling, influencer collaborations.

• TikTok: Trend-driven, short-form video content for younger audiences.

• Pinterest: Visual search engine with high purchase intent and evergreen content lifespan.

Cons:

• Algorithms can drastically limit the reach of your content, and algorithm changes can affect content reach and audience engagement.

• Requires frequent posting and active engagement to stay relevant and maintain visibility.

• Time-intensive to produce platform-specific content (e.g., reels for Instagram, short videos for TikTok).

5) Video platforms (YouTube, Vimeo)

Pros:

• Enables you to provide detailed, instructional, or visually engaging content.

• Builds a loyal audience through long-form videos or tutorials.

• Showcases your product/service in action.

Cons:

• High production costs (equipment, editing software, and time) for professional-quality videos.

• Requires consistent uploads and optimization (thumbnails, titles, metadata) to grow an audience.

• Videos may have limited discoverability without effective promotion or existing SEO knowledge.

6) Podcasts (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Anchor, Podbean, Stitcher)

Pros:

• Reaches on-the-go audiences who prefer audio content.

• Establishes thought leadership in a conversational format.

• Builds loyalty through regular episodes that resonate with niche communities.

Cons:

• Audio content can be time-consuming, requiring good equipment and editing skills.

• Growth relies heavily on promotion through other platforms, as podcast directories have limited organic discovery.

• Competition is steep, and building an engaged audience takes time and patience.

7) Online communities and forums (Reddit, Quora)

Pros:

• Allows you to engage directly with users asking questions related to your industry.

• Builds credibility by providing helpful answers and sharing expertise.

• Provides instant research data related to audience pain points and preferences.

Cons:

• Conversations can be highly unpredictable, requiring frequent moderation and thoughtful engagement.

• You may encounter negative feedback or hostile responses, and users or moderators can sometimes flag links to your content or website as spam.

• Success depends on building credibility over time.

8) Newsletters (ConvertKit, Mailchimp)

Pros:

• Nurtures leads and maintains relationships with your audience.

• Provides exclusive updates, insights, or offers directly to subscribers.

• Drives traffic to your blog, social channels, or product pages.

Cons:

• Requires building and maintaining a high-quality email list, which can be challenging and time-intensive.

• Audience fatigue can lead to declining open rates if newsletters aren’t consistently engaging.

• Deliverability issues can arise if email content isn’t tailored to avoid spam filters.

Once you’ve decided upon your content platforms and formats, it’s time to organize your content into a detailed content calendar to track what needs to be created and when it should be published.

Step 7: Follow the Plan – Build a Content Calendar You’ll Stick To

Maintaining a content calendar can seem like a lot of work, so you might be tempted to skip it.

However, without an organized calendar, it’s difficult to keep track of what content needs to be created and when it should be published. This leads to inconsistent posting and last-minute rushed posts that provide limited value to your target audience and do little to elevate your brand.

When you’re not formally documenting your posting strategy, you risk over-emphasizing some topics while neglecting others. As a result, your content may not fully align with your overall business goals.

On the other hand, a content calendar will help you align your content topics to business goals and keep you organized so that you can more efficiently schedule time and resources for content development. A well-planned content calendar will help you identify ways to repurpose content across multiple formats/platforms.

It will also help you maintain a consistent posting schedule, which is essential for keeping your target audience engaged and platform algorithms optimized to share your posts with a broader audience.

If you have multiple team members involved with content creation, a content calendar is an excellent tool for keeping everyone up to date on the status of each post.

You can download my free Content Calendar template here. The template includes detailed instructions for completing it, along with tips for filtering your content by week, platform and format to create efficiencies by grouping similar activities together.

Common Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid When Developing Your Content Plan

Even with a clear content plan, common pitfalls can undermine your efforts. Here are some mistakes to avoid as you implement your strategy.

1. Not having a clearly defined content plan – Treating content as an ad hoc task and scrambling to meet deadlines invariably leads to fragmented messaging, superficial posts, and missed opportunities to connect with your target audience. A solid content plan transforms chaos into clarity and ensures every piece of content aligns with your business goals, speaks directly to audience need, and drives measurable results.

2. Neglecting to research your target audience – Assumptions can be dangerous. Assuming you know what your audience wants can lead to irrelevant content that doesn’t resonate or address buyer concerns. That’s why you should take the time to conduct a Buyer Mindset Analysis to obtain factual insights that guide the development of ultra-relevant content that wows your target audience.

3. Failing to define clear goals – Without KPIs, it’s extremely difficult to confidently measure how well your content is achieving results that support business objectives. For example, if your marketing team built a large social following but none of your followers were qualified leads, then arguably this was a waste of content resources. A KPI that focuses on conversions rather than follower growth will guide your marketing team to focus on content that attracts more qualified leads.

4. Focusing on too many platforms at once – Trying to establish a presence on multiple platforms without the resources to do so effectively can lead to inconsistent posting and/or low-quality content. Instead, choose one or two platforms that align with your audience and business goals, and focus on building a strong presence there before expanding to other platforms.

5. Overloading your content calendar – Setting unrealistic content goals leads to missed posting deadlines, poor-quality content, and general frustration with the content process. Instead, be realistic. Prioritize consistent, high-quality content over quantity, assign sufficient resources, and set achievable production timelines.

6. Not staying the course – Reaping the rewards of your content efforts takes time, and so content needs to be a long-term strategy. You might be tempted to prematurely change course in the hopes of finding a faster path to success, but constantly changing direction leads to disjointed content that confuses more than it converts. So trust the process and let the metrics guide your decision-making.

The Bottom Line

Creating a content plan that drives results requires more than just filling a calendar with ideas. It demands a strategic approach grounded in understanding your audience, aligning content with your business objectives, and delivering the right message at the right time. By following these seven steps, you’ll move from reactive content creation to a purposeful strategy that builds trust, engages your audience, and achieves measurable results.

The principles outlined in this guide are key elements of the Study and Align stages of my SAGE Methodology for creating content that raises brand awareness, connects deeply with your target audience, and generates more leads and sales.

While this blog series focuses on building a strong content foundation with the Study and Align stages, the final step in the SAGE Methodology—Evaluate—will guide you on how to measure success and refine your approach based on real-world data.

To learn more about my SAGE Methodology (Study, Align, Evaluate, Generate) and how it can help you transform your content strategy, visit SAGE Content Marketing.

FAQs About How to Create an Effective Content Plan That Drives Results

Still have questions? Here are some common ones about creating a content plan that drives results.

What Is a Content Plan, and Why Is It Important?

A content plan is a strategic roadmap that outlines what content to create, when to create it, and where to publish it. It’s important because it ensures your efforts are intentional and aligned with business goals, helping you save time, stay consistent, and deliver content that resonates with your audience. Without a plan, your content is more likely to be fragmented and less effective in achieving measurable results.

How Does SAGE Methodology Help with Content Planning?

The SAGE Methodology offers a structured, step-by-step approach to content marketing strategy and planning. It includes four Steps: Study, Align, Generate, and Evaluate. The first two Steps, as covered in this blog series, focus on understanding your audience (“Study”) and aligning your content with your business objectives (“Align”). The third and fourth Steps guide you through implementing your plan (“Generate”) and measuring its performance (“Evaluate”), with adjustments as needed. This comprehensive framework ensures your content raises brand awareness, connects with your target audience, and drives measurable results, such as generating more leads and sales.

What Are KPIs in Content Marketing, and Why Are They Important?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that evaluate the success of your content in achieving specific business goals. In content marketing, metrics are data points used to track performance, such as website traffic, social media engagement, lead conversions, or sales. KPIs differ from general metrics because they are directly tied to your strategic objectives.

KPIs are important because they provide a clear way to measure whether your content efforts are delivering the results you want. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, a KPI might be the number of new website visitors or social media impressions. If your goal is lead generation, the KPI might be the number of newsletter sign-ups or free trial requests. Without KPIs, it’s difficult to know what’s working, what isn’t, and where to focus your efforts to improve performance.

By defining KPIs at the start of your content planning process, you ensure your strategy is goal-driven and purposefully aligned with measurable outcomes, allowing you to track progress and make informed decisions over time.

How Do I Choose the Best Platforms for My Content?

Choosing the right platforms starts with understanding your audience and their preferences. Consider where your target audience spends the most time and what type of content they engage with most. For example, professionals often prefer LinkedIn for thought leadership, while younger audiences may gravitate toward TikTok or Instagram for visual content. Additionally, align platform choices with your goals—blogs and YouTube are great for building trust with long-form content, while social media excels at driving quick engagement.

If you’re unsure where to start, begin by testing the platforms or formats you’re most comfortable with. For example, if you prefer writing, focus on blogging or LinkedIn posts, and if creating visuals feels natural, start with Instagram. As you publish content, monitor key metrics like engagement, traffic, and conversions to determine whether the platform is helping you achieve your goals. Let the data guide your decision to either double down on that platform or transition to another that may better serve your audience and objectives.

What Is the Best Way to Organize and Prioritize Content Ideas?

The best way to organize and prioritize content ideas is to align them with your business goals and audience needs. Start by categorizing your ideas based on how they support key objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or nurturing prospects. Then, evaluate each idea for its potential impact and relevance. Prioritize high-impact ideas that address audience pain points, align with specific stages of the buyer’s journey, or support upcoming campaigns.

Using a content calendar can help you visualize and schedule your ideas strategically. Regularly revisiting and refining your calendar ensures your content plan remains focused, adaptable, and aligned with your overall strategy.

How Do I Track the Success of My Content Plan?

Tracking the success of your content plan involves monitoring KPIs (key performance indicators) tied to your business goals. Use tools like Google Analytics to measure website traffic, time on page, and conversions. For social media, track engagement metrics like likes, shares, and comments using platform analytics. To assess lead generation, monitor newsletter sign-ups, form submissions, or free trial requests.

Regularly review your performance data to identify patterns—such as which topics resonate most—and adjust to do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t. By continuously measuring and tweaking, you ensure your content strategy remains effective over time.

Have more questions? Learn how the SAGE methodology can transform your content strategy at https://dybledigital.com/sage-content-marketing.