How to create a content marketing plan for your small business

The amount of content needed to promote a business can feel overwhelming. Every day there's a new tool to learn or someone telling you to post on a certain platform, well… every day.

When you're running a small business, you want to create simple systems and make sure the limited time you have makes the best possible impact.

This blog post provides a step-by-step guide to planning, creating and distributing content. It'll help you develop a content plan that focuses your effort and increases sales.

We've included tips on content creation, as well as steps you can take to develop a process you enjoy.

And we have the perfect tool to help – Adobe Express, the quick and easy app for all your content marketing efforts.

What is a content marketing plan and how is it going to help my business?

A content marketing plan sets out the activity you're doing to promote your business. It gives your team everything they need to create and publish content, and allows you to track progress and measure success.

But you probably already know that. The important thing is that your content marketing plan should galvanise your efforts:

• Get traction by consistently posting high-value content

• Learn from what's working and what isn't

• Take advantage of when you're feeling creative

• Build a sustainable routine

Start with the basics

Whether someone's encouraging you to comment relentlessly on LinkedIn or you're looking at an SEO tutorial, it can be hard to know where to start.

The best way to get over that hurdle is to go back to basics. Who is your customer and what do they care about? How does your business help them?

Customer personas (or buyer personas) summarise that information. They provide details on your main types of customers using fictitious profiles like "Dave the really tired dad".

When you have that information, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• What does my target audience want to see?

• Where can I add the most value?

• What am I an authority on?

VIDEO: How small businesses can create buyer personas

Marketer Dan Smith explains why buyer personas are essential for marketing, and outlines the steps you can take to build them from scratch:

Defining your content marketing goals

It's important to set clear expectations. Marketing activity needs to fit with your business goals.

No doubt, you want to drive sales and you may have a wider mission too, such as raising awareness of something you're doing.

To decide how to measure those things, start by thinking about where people are in your sales and marketing funnel. These map the stages people go through before buying a product or service (sometimes called the "customer journey").

It's helpful to have a content goal for each stage:

• Discovery: Entertaining and educational content that builds awareness about your business and is measured by reach and engagement metrics.

• Interest: Content that gives people more information about your approach and is measured by explicit displays of interest, such as signing up to an email list.

• Conversion: Case studies, product pages and other detailed information, which is measured by the number of sales made.

Think about what influences your current customers through that journey and how you can measure it.

Picking your key performance indicators

You need to be able to see what's happening at a glance, so focus on three to six key performance indicators (KPIs) that move the needle.

An eco-friendly cleaning business might track these goals:

• Website enquiries: The number of quote requests from potential customers

• Traffic from search engines like Google: The number of website visits from people who are actively looking for cleaners in the area

• Instagram Reel views: The number of people who are becoming aware of the brand because of its environmental tips

Your KPIs will likely change over time. There are also lots of opportunities to deep-dive on the numbers when you want to learn more.

Six simple steps to creating a content marketing plan

1. Audit your existing content

Start by looking at how the content you've already published is performing, and doing what's called a content audit:

• Does it reflect your brand and vision?

• Is it reaching the right audience and does it address their challenges and interests?

• Which content was popular and what didn't do so well?

• What supported customers' progression through the marketing funnel?

• How does it compare to the competition?

2. Choosing your content pillars

Content pillars define the main content topics you talk about. They provide a foundation for you to create individual pieces of content and campaigns.

This pillar content is based on your business's values, customer interests and the stages in your marketing funnel. Here are the pillars a vegan bakery could use:

• Product showcases: Videos and images mainly posted on Instagram, including some user-generated content.

• Education and myth-busting: Share advice about living as a vegan through blogs and social media posts to further the business's mission.

• Behind-the-scenes content: Share the founder's journey to get customers to buy into the bakery's success.

• Seasonal content: Post about events that cause increases in sales, such as Halloween and Christmas.

3. Developing impactful content ideas

The next step is to develop ideas for high-quality content and campaigns. Brainstorming offline is an effective way to generate ideas.

Try writing your content pillars down on a large sheet of paper and then add as many ideas as you can around them.

Inspiration can come from the audit, customer personas, looking at competitors and sharing content you love.

Think about the questions your customers ask. What are they excited to talk about? If several people mention a similar challenge or interest, it's a sign that content you create on the topic will resonate.

Seasonality

Many businesses have seasonal elements to their sales. You might receive more orders ahead of Mother's Day or Christmas, for example, so think about what content you can create around these dates.

It's also worth looking at public holidays and other events that can provide a great hook, such as International Women's Day or Chinese New Year.

Adobe Express offers thousands of free templates for social media content, flyers and more. Browse their seasonal collections to create the perfect spooky Halloween flyer, for example.

4. Picking types of content and platforms

Once you have a list of potential ideas, you can think about content formats.

Your best bet is to focus on a small number that cover the different ways you want to communicate.

For example, a personal trainer might learn to create:

• Instagram reels sharing fitness tips and customer success stories

• blog content that will appear in local Google searches

• flyers to distribute in local shops that sell health-conscious products

Don't spread yourself too thinly. Look at your goals and think about how much time you have. It's better to do a great job on a smaller number of platforms.

You can also think about how you might repurpose a single idea for several platforms. For example, if you have a podcast that streams on YouTube, you could break it down into clips for Instagram and TikTok.

Tools like Adobe Express's social media caption writer and Resize feature can make that content production process easier too.

In a few clicks, easily resize content for any social media platform using contextually-aware generative AI capabilities to automatically expand image length or height to fit a new layout.

Resize is an Adobe Express Premium feature, but we've secured Enterprise Nation members three months' access, which you can redeem at this link.

And the repurposing doesn't end there. Give your idea a physical form by printing products like business cards, T-shirts, invitations, and more – designed and ordered all in the same quick and easy app.

5. Write a one-pager explainer

Once you've developed your approach, it's useful to summarise everything. Set out the main types of content you're going to use and your goals for each platform.

You can use this document alongside your personas and marketing plan (more of that in a moment) to keep everything on track.

6. Deciding what to include in your marketing plan

Now it's time to create your content marketing plan. You normally do this using a spreadsheet or specialised tool.

You need to figure out what information you'll need each day for your content creation process. This could include:

• content title

• target persona

• content pillar

• status

• responsibility

• key metric

• link

• notes

It's an opportunity to make sure you're focusing on the right things. If you include a particular goal next to an Instagram Reel, you'll have a better chance of creating a clip that generates good audience engagement.

Tools to create your content marketing plan

The goal is to create a system that makes your life easier. Using the right tools to create your plan will save you time and make it easier to collaborate.

Adobe Express offers a free content scheduler you can use to plan content, preview what it looks like and post directly to your social media accounts.

Whether you want to schedule a month's worth of Instagram posts or work out how to make an impact across several different channels, Adobe Express lets you create, plan, preview and schedule posts all in one place.

Building a sustainable marketing routine

Now you have customer personas, a simple one-page strategy document and a content calendar – that's a major achievement! The goal was to create a simple system and you've done it.

We know that running a business can be hectic. Building a routine makes it easier to stick to your marketing plan:

• Book time in your diary and create content in batches.

• Adapt and improve.

• Pick content types that make you enjoy the creative process.

• Cover subjects you're passionate about.

The most important thing is to keep things simple and start creating content. And there's no easier way to do that than with Adobe Express.

As an Enterprise Nation member, you can get three months' access to Premium for free – just redeem the offer at this link.

Relevant resources

• Growing your social media channels for your small business

• Content strategy for small businesses: Top tips and expert insights

• Small business brand design: Cost-effective ways to get recognised

Adobe Express: The quick and easy app to bring your business goals to life

With thousands of easy-to-use templates and commercially safe generative AI tools, Adobe Express makes creating content easy.

Learn more about Adobe Express on our Brand Builder hub