Plan the work. Work the plan.
Planning can take a number of forms, depending on where you are in your content marketing journey, but it should be the first — and strongest — thread throughout your content marketing framework.
Are you getting started?
Planning might take the form of a creating your business case (these 50+ stats can help). Or maybe you want to study examples of those businesses that have successfully used content marketing (our documentary looks at six outstanding examples in depth or get inspired with our favorite 75 examples).
Here is one of our favorite examples: John Deere.
Note: If you are new to content marketing, check out our getting started how-to guide to understand what content marketing is.
You need to understand your purpose
Once you understand what content is and why you want to invest your time, you need to create your strategy.
Your strategy helps you avoid the one mistake that is causing companies to fail at content marketing. And, as our annual research has repeatedly shown, it’s a key differentiator between effective marketers and their less effective peers.
Before you do start your content marketing plan, you need to understand why you are creating content in the first place.
The best and simplest way to solidify your purpose is to create your content marketing mission statement.