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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

Are you just starting

to explore content marketing This short workbook
or wish to make your content will help you lay
efforts more structured? the foundations for your
content marketing
strategy.

It features a series of simple

yet useful templates
for each step of your
journey and provides
essential tips. Ready to move
to the fun part?

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

How To Use
the Workbook

In this workbook, you’ll Check out the guidelines

discover the key steps for each step and use our
any business needs free editable templates
to take when launching to complete them.
content marketing
To use the templates,
and putting together
please make a copy of each
a content marketing
document. There’s no need
strategy.
to request editing access.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

i there It looks like you’ve decided to add content

marketing to your marketing strategy.
�ongrats!

97% of the 1,700 businesses we surveyed

in our 2023 State of Content Marketing
report generated positive results with their
content efforts. And you can, too.

Let’s see where you should start and what

you need to prepare to succeed.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

01
Step One:
Define Your
Content Marketing
Audience
The first—and probably most
important—step is about Create and save your customer
defining your audience. profiles (or buyer personas) using
our tool:
It’s as essential for your content
marketing as it is for your business → Use the free Semrush
as a whole. Persona tool

When defining your content marketing Make sure to focus on the pain
audience, try to think bigger. Your points and motivations of your
content can attract a wider audience persona. These will help you
and tackle a wider set of customer identify high-level topics for
pain points. your content plan.

For example, imagine you run a platform

offering pet-sitting services. The
content you can create might address
a whole universe of related topics such
as grooming, pet health, diet, training, etc.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

02
Step Two:
Define Your
Brand Story and
Tone of Voice
It’s essential to know who you For example, iFixit is a company
are and what you stand for. that sells DIY technology repair kits,
tools, and spare parts—and shares
Your brand story revolves around your
advice, guides, and tips on how to fix
customers and focuses on how your
broken tech.
company can improve their lives. It’s
a narrative that covers a wide range The company holds the philosophy
of the facts and feelings created by that people should be empowered
your brand. to repair their own technology, calling
it the Right to Repair. The brand
Designing a compelling brand story will
has generated enormous attention
help you build a stronger connection
and organic traffic by building a global
with your customers.
community around this important
consumer mission.
It’ll also help you develop a consistent
approach to the content you create.

You can even turn your brand story

into the main theme of your content
marketing.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

Write down your brand story and think of ways you can use it to make your
content marketing more unique and true to your mission.

→ Use this free Brand Story Template to complete this step.

Next, it’s important to think

about the right tone of voice Think about the tone of voice
to use across your content that will be the closest to your
pieces. brand story and will help you
connect with your customers on
Tone of voice is how a brand
a deeper level.
communicates and connects with
its audience through messaging → Use this free Tone of Voice
and customer interactions. Template to complete this step.

It helps businesses differentiate It’ll rephrase your text to improve

themselves from the competition it and adapt to different channels,
and communicate their brand and showcase its tone of voice.
values to their audience.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

03
Step Three:
Analyze
Your
Competitors
Running a competitive analysis → Topics they cover
is key to understanding what
→ Their top-performing keywords
works in your niche and what
and pages
resonates with your audience.
Then, take notes to inform your own
It doesn’t mean you should copy-
content strategy while keeping your
paste your rivals’ ideas. Instead, look
unique approach.
for common patterns and potential
opportunities your competitors
are missing. → Complete this step by filling
out this free Competitive
When analyzing other websites in your
Content Analysis Template.
industry, look at the following:
Bonus tip: Don’t limit yourself
→ Their tone of voice
to looking only at your direct
competition. Make sure to
→ Content types and formats they
analyze content created by
opt for
diverse market players, including
→ Promotion channels that work best media and bloggers.
for them
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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

04
Step Four:
Map Out
Your Content
Funnel
A content funnel is a model For example, if you’re a B2B company,
that will help you visualize how you might need to target influencers,
to successfully use content users, and decision-makers at different
to attract potential clients stages with different topics and
and guide them through their messages.
journey.
Besides, many customers—no matter
Mapping it out before creating your if it’s B2B or B2C—tend to interact
content plan will help you better with multiple content pieces before
understand what kind of content, converting.
when, and for which audience you’ll
need to create.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

First, think about how your → Next, consolidate your ideas

customers make buying decisions in this Content Marketing
and how you can create various Funnel Template.
touchpoints throughout their
Remember that your findings should
journey.
be based on real-life insights coming
→ To do this, use our free Buyer's from customer research.
Journey Map Template.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

05
Step Five:
Create
a High-Level
Content Plan
You’re getting closer to the
finish line! Isn’t this exciting? Your content plan will include
multiple insights from all previous
Now that you have completed the
steps. This is a document you can
previous steps, it’s time to map out
refer to when organizing your
your first version of the content plan.
content production and creating
a content calendar.
A content plan determines the content
you will create and sets expectations
→ Use this Content Plan
for how it should be created.
Template to complete this step,
and be sure to refer to the
previous documents you’ve
created.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

06
Step Six:
Build Your
First Editorial
Calendar
Congratulations! You’ve made Using a content calendar lets you track
it to the last step. your or your team’s content creation
workflows and planned publication
Now, let’s create your first editorial
dates, helping keep your efforts
calendar.
on schedule.

An editorial (or content) calendar is

a written schedule used by bloggers,
marketers, and all kinds of businesses
to record when and where they plan
to publish upcoming content.

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

You will need to include the → Target KPIs

following information in your
→ Promotion and
calendar:
repurposing plans

→ Content topic → Author

→ Keyword (where applicable) → If you’re looking to conduct

keyword research first, use this
→ Target buyer persona
Keyword Research & Content
Calendar Template.
→ Content format

→ In case you already have your

→ Publish date
keywords and topics ready, use
→ Content category and this Content Marketing Calendar
topic cluster Template.

→ Funnel stage

Getting stuck adding creative content ideas? Start with this free Title
Generator that will come up with multiple headline ideas, related topics,
and blog summaries for your content plan!

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 The State of Content Marketing. 2023 Global Report

Next Steps

Excellent, you have your For specific instructions,

content plan and your check out our content
calendar ready! marketing strategy guide.

If you’re wondering what And it’s always a good idea

to do next, you now have all to refer to our GoodContent
the resources you need to put hub, which will be constantly
together a full-scale content updated with new guides
strategy document. and free tools for effective
small business content
marketing.

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