The Importance of Themes in Content Marketing Planning

I’ve just finished a content plan for a new client. It was great fun filling it in. The fact that they are a new, exciting product that I can let my imagination run riot with is partially responsible for this fun, however it is the use of key themes that made it much easier for those ideas to flow, and work their way onto the spreadsheet.

Themes are very important

Why are they so important? Four key points:

• They help you to add much needed structure to the plan
• They aid you in assessing what content and how much of it is required
• They ensure you’re covering all key messages and reaching your key audience/customer/prospect bases
• They can fuel creativity

Deciding on themes

I’ll give you an example using an imaginary new Vodka brand. The theme is first and them some examples of content that could fall within them.

Theme 1 – Heritage – when was the Vodka created, who by, where, how etc etc
Theme 2 – Using the product – Cocktail recipes, seasonal options, matching with food etc etc
Theme 3 – Inside the brand – staff profiles, blogs from within, image of the day etc etc
Theme 4 – Promotional activity – deals, competitions etc
Theme 5 – Customer activity – using UGC (user generated content) on your platforms, what do we want our fans to create for us, our customers/fans across the globe

Allocating content by theme and platform

Your themes spread across all of your platforms. These platforms could be a blog, email, Facebook, Twitter etc etc. Thinking of those themes and the content that falls within them will help you to identify the most relevant platforms to place the content on. So, you have key themes, content ideas and both of those mapped out across your platforms. Spread that over days, weeks, months etc and you have your content plan. This approach will make things much easier. Trust me!

How do you approach content planning? Got a top tip for our readers? Please do share in the comments below.

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