Firstly, CONGRATULATIONS on your new role! I’m sure you can’t wait to get started (and neither can I!). Having sat on your side of the table, I have firsthand experience of the stress and pressure that comes with being a marketer, because you essentially shoulder the responsibility of brand awareness, lead generation, and business growth.
BUT don’t feel overwhelmed. Follow this plan and you’ll make a BIG impact in 30(ish) days.
Let’s imagine you’re past the first day introductions, employee onboarding, and you’ve finally got access to the company’s systems, so we can jump right in…
Start with a content audit
Your company will already have a wealth of content that you can still make use of. Make a list of everything. For example:
Once you’ve compiled your database, identify:
🧁What content was most effective?
🧁What content didn’t perform as expected?
When you look at your best/worst performing content, ask yourself if there are any trends emerging. For example:
🧁Same content type
🧁Same subject
🧁Same sector
🧁Same author
🧁Same call-to-action (CTA)
🧁Taps into the same emotion
Next, take a moment to consider the wider campaign that each piece of content was part of, and if there are any trends. For example:
🧁They’re all tactical blogs that were written just for SEO
🧁They’re all driving towards a point in time, such as a webinar, new product release, or introduction of new legislation
🧁The flow of the campaign, for example, social > article > case study > white paper > assessment
By now you should have a good understanding of where you’re starting from, the type of content that resonates with your audience, and potentially some red flags you need to address asap!
Map your content
In my experience, the best ‘models’ to map your content to are:
🧁The SEO strategy
🧁The sales cycle
🧁The business plan
Rather than theoretical marketing models, these 3 documents are strategic forces within your organisation. Therefore, doing anything that aligns to them will have an impact on the business.
Mapping your content to the SEO strategy
Firstly, look at the target keywords your website is optimised for. Make a note of the content you have that supports these search terms, and how well that content is performing. For example:
Next, identify the keywords that actually direct traffic to your website and note the bounce rate (I use Google Search Console to do in my business). For example:
For any relevant keywords, look at whether you have any existing content that could be tweaked or refined to align to them, which will help to improve your conversion rate.
Mapping your content to the sales cycle
For this activity you’ll need to book some time with someone in your sales team – it doesn’t necessarily need to be a senior leader.
Ask them to help you understand what the sales cycle looks like for your organisation, mapping out each stage and what happens to make them convert. For example, mine looks like this:
After your meeting, look back at your content audit and start to map it to the different stages of the sales funnel. For example:
Once you’ve done this, book a second meeting to share your map with the sales team. Specifically, ask them:
🧁What’s missing that would support them in their role? For example, one-pagers, battlecards, follow-up email templates, explainer videos, case studies…etc.
🧁What are their top 3 content priorities?
🧁What questions do prospects commonly ask at each stage of the cycle? This information is invaluable to help inform your messaging and the theme your content needs to focus on.
Mapping your content to the business plan
For this activity you need to book time with someone in the senior leadership team. Your objective is to uncover where the business is heading over the next 12 months:
🧁Is the company pushing specific products/services to align with changing market conditions?
🧁Is the company launching a new product/service?
🧁Is the company entering into new markets/sectors?
🧁Is the company focus simply on continued growth?
It’s likely you’ll cover a lot in this session, so before you leave, be sure to ask 3 key questions:
🧁What’s the #1 priority? (because clearly you can’t do everything at once)
🧁What do they want to know? (because some managers want a highlight report while others need to see the detail)
🧁What do they want to get involved with? (because marketing is exciting and they’ll want to tinker, so you need to control their meddling!)
Then as before, look at your content audit and identify:
🧁Existing content that supports the business plan – and specifically the senior leader’s #1 priority.
🧁Content that can be repurposed.
🧁Any content that is missing.
By now, your to-do list will be quite substantial, but it’s not quite time to start creating content…
Plan your resourcing
You come to the role with specific skills, and we’ll assume you’ve been given some sort of budget. But there are 3 factors you need to account for in your plan:
🧁Knowledge
🧁Capabilities
🧁Tools
Knowledge from your subject matter experts
It’s no secret that much of the value an organisation possesses resides in the people who work for it. Within your content, the knowledge from your subject matter experts is the reason why your audience will read, engage, and continue to come back.
Looking at your to-do list, start to group the assets that need to be repurposed or created from scratch, and identify the right person in your organisation to talk to to get the information you need. Subject matter experts are notoriously busy people, so when you finally pin them down for a meeting, you’ll want to extract as much information as you can to help you create as many assets as possible.
Your internal capabilities
Next, think about your marketing skills, and those of the people in your team:
🧁What can you do in-house?
🧁What skills will you need to outsource?
🧁What agencies/freelancers do you currently use? And are they the best people for the job??
It’s useful to know where your weaknesses are upfront, so you have time to either invest in upskilling internally, or finding reliable people to outsource to.
Sidenote: I genuinely want to see you do well, so if you want recommendations for agencies or freelancers, I’m more than happy to make introductions – just contact me and let me know where you need help.
Download your free books…
| The Little Book of…Content Strategy | The Little Book of…Thought Leadership Content |
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| Download your copy… | Download your copy… |
Tools that support your marketing efforts
Marketers love to play with shiny new tech, which is why our infrastructure tends to get a little messy, and the IT team (understandably!) a little upset. As you’re new to the role, now is the perfect time to take an inventory of all the tools you’re signed up to:
🧁What do you have, what does it do, and what does it cost?
🧁What do you use, does it do everything you need it to, and does it integrate with your other tools?
🧁What can you get rid of? (don’t forget, free versions of SaaS applications are often forgotten but still collect data, which is both a security risk and a compliance issue)
Make your first deliverable something that cannot be ignored…
A resource library.
Ok, it’s not the most exciting sounding thing in the world, but I guarantee everyone will find it useful. AND because it’s high-profile, it’s going to earn you a good reputation early on as someone who delivers great work.
Bonus! This resource library is also going to make your life easier in the long-term.
Your resource library should include:
🧁Templates: to make sure every document and every presentation is ‘on brand’ – and consistently on brand.
🧁Brand guidelines: nothing heavy because it won’t be read, a simple 1-page overview will do.
🧁Company overview: write different versions with 50/100/250 words.
🧁Image library: containing headshots, logos (for your company and your clients), and stock images
🧁Pitch deck: with testimonials, product/service overviews, links to useful resources on your website.
Download your free assets…
| The Little Book of…Baking a Brand | Template: messaging framework |
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| Download your copy… | Download your copy… |
Time to get started…
Week 1: preparation
By the end of week one you should have completed:
🧁Content audit
🧁Mapping your content
🧁Planning your resource
Week 2: quick wins
We want people to feel excited you’ve joined the company and the best way to do that is to show them what you can do. The quickest and simplest way to do that is through the creation of:
🧁Your resource library
🧁Your 3 sales content priorities
Week 3: #1 business priority
Remember the #1 priority from the senior leadership team? Start planning what the campaign will look like, for example:
🧁Launching a new product/service
🧁Lead generation for sustained growth
When you know what new content assets you need to create:
🧁Book time to interview the relevant subject matter expert
🧁If you need to outsource, write a brief detailing exactly what you need
Remember! Always start with the biggest thing first, like a white paper. It makes delivery easier because you can repurpose it into different formats, like articles, emails, or social posts.
Download your templates…
| Template: written brief | Template: repurposing content |
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| Download your copy… | Download your copy… |
Week 4: tactical web work
Start with some general housekeeping. Go back to your list of target keywords and for the content that isn’t performing well:
🧁Tweak the H1, H2, H3 structure to ensure you have the keywords in the right places.
🧁Work on your internal linking structure to ensure you’re showing Google that your company is an expert in the field.
🧁Check your images to ensure there’s alt.text on every single one (yes, it feels like a chore, but it really does have a massive impact on your ranking).
Next, start to plan any tactical SEO copy that will help you rank for the all-important longtail keywords.
Download your templates…
| Template: keyword analysis | Template: SEO checklist |
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| Download your copy… | Download your copy… |
End of month
You’ve made it to the end on your first month, and if you’ve followed this 30(ish) day plan, you’ll be able to demonstrate tangible outcomes:
🧁Happy colleagues because you listened to what they wanted and delivered content to meet their needs.
🧁Stronger brand through your resource library, because now everything will look and feel the same.
🧁Web stats to show some initial movement on your keyword ranking.
🧁A content plan in action to deliver on the company’s top priority.
Download ‘The Ultimate Guide to Content Creation‘…
Still have questions?
I’ve been a professional copywriter since 2014, and before that I spent nearly a decade working as a B2B tech marketer – so I know what to do to have a quick impact on your marketing strategy, as well as how to plan for the long game and create that constant drip-feed of leads.
I’m genuinely an open book so you are more than welcome to ask my anything. All you need to do is…
