Use this free content marketing plan template to make your content drive real business results. And to help you publish more often. (Available in Word, Google Docs and as a PDF.)

This template will help you create a rock-solid content marketing plan. It includes topic selection, competitive analysis, scheduling, promotion and more.

Why Use a Content Marketing Plan Template?

Compared to paid search, content marketing drives 3x as much business per dollar spent.

What’s more, content marketing can:

• Attract boatloads of SEO traffic and links
• Bring in tons of social shares
• Get your business press coverage
• Make prospective customers trust you more
• Increase your revenue
• And more.

But there is one drawback:

It’s REALLY competitive.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 75% of businesses have a content marketing strategy.

So to succeed at content marketing today, you need a rock-solid plan.

And that’s exactly what this template is for.

What’s Included

Here’s what’s included in this Content Marketing Plan template:

1. Finding content ideas: How to come up with topics for great pieces of content.
2. How to stand out from your competitors: Competitive analysis that helps you take action. (And doesn’t leave you spinning your wheels)
3. Promoting your content: How to turn your content into traffic magnets.

How to Use This Template

1. Optional: Start with our free Content Strategy Template to plan your top-level strategy
2. Download the free Content Marketing Plan Template on this page
3. Follow the step-by-step instructions to plan out several pieces of content
4. Create and publish your content
5. Refer back to your content marketing plan to promote your content and measure its results

How to Turn Your Content Into a Marketing Machine

It’s hard to succeed at content marketing without a solid plan. And this template will be a HUGE help. It will take you through all the basic steps you need.

But content marketing is a big undertaking. Too big for a single template to cover.

So going beyond this template, here are some ways to turn your content into an incredible marketing machine.

• More links = better rankings. And more SEO traffic. So make your content link-worthy. And don’t passively wait for the links to come, either. You’ll get a lot more of them with a little outreach.
• Don’t forget on-page SEO, either. (Use our On-Page SEO Template.)
• Sometimes you can sell products directly within your content. But most of the time, that feels unnatural. The solution? Use your content to drive email subscribers. Then sell things to your email list.
• Optimize your site’s user experience. For example, compress any images with TinyPNG before uploading. This will help improve your page speed.
• For more actionable advice, check out our Definitive Guide to Content Marketing.