If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout years and years of content marketing strategy and execution, it’s that your strategy is only as strong as your processes.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear says “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Documenting your marketing strategy with templates and standard operating procedures (SOPs) makes onboarding new team members, working with contractors, and outsourcing a breeze. You can delegate without putting quality on the line or sinking unecessary hours into onboarding and training.
I know how time-consuming creating those content marketing templates and SOPs can be. During my early career, I was so busy doing the work that I didn’t have time to document how I did it. So, I’ve created this master list of all the content marketing strategy templates you might need to run a strong marketing team.
As with anything strategy-related, be sure to tailor these templates to suit your business, goals, and processes. These templates should be a guideline for creating your own stellar content strategy processes, rather than strict guard rails.
Content strategy templates
Out of 894 respondents to Content Marketing Institute’s annual B2B content marketing research, 53% of the top-performing content marketing teams attributed their success to having a documented strategy.
Here are the templates that can help you create a strong content strategy:
- Marketing strategy planning
- Ideal customer profile
- Content marketing goals
- Marketing budget tracker
I’ll share links to templates you can use for each of these below. Along with sharing how I use these and why they are important.
1) Marketing strategy planning template
A marketing strategy planning template helps outline all your planned marketing activities. You can split the marketing activities by type such as SEO, newsletters, or partnership marketing.
I like to track this on a spreadsheet that shows a full-year view. That way, you can get an instant snapshot of everything in your marketing pipeline. You can then create separate tabs for each type of marketing activity, and a KPI tracker to monitor actual month-on-month performance against your marketing goals.
This marketing strategy planning template gives your marketing team a clear roadmap. It makes sure everyone stays aligned on what activity needs to be done and which goals need to be achieved, avoiding any random or uncoordinated activities from occurring. You’ll also be able to plan resource allocation better and see when you might need additional support for key marketing months throughout the year.
Template: Create a copy of my marketing strategy planning template.
2) Ideal customer profile template
An ideal customer profile (ICP) template helps define the characteristics of the perfect customer for your business. This is a high-level overview of your target customer, meaning that it doesn’t go into the specifics of the individual user. Rather, it outlines your target customer on a company level.
By clearly defining and documenting your ICP, you can ensure your marketing is tailored toward the right people, minimizing the likelihood of your marketing activity attracting poor-fit leads. Plus, you can share this ICP template with other customer-facing teams such as sales and customer support so they also understand who your target customers are. This helps refine not only your marketing strategy, but also your broader business strategy and operations.
You could build on this ICP template to include your buyer persona and user persona. This would give you a more holistic view of your target audience, as well as highlight how this compares to your actual customers (your user persona).
Template: Create a copy of my ideal customer profile template.
3) Content marketing goals template
A content marketing goals template is used to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your content marketing efforts.
Once you have these goals mapped out, you can assign the appropriate marketing strategy deliverables and key performance indicators (KPIs) to them. This will ensure your marketing strategy has been created with these goals in mind.
I recommend setting goals based on the various stages of the marketing funnel — setting goals for the top, middle, and bottom of the marketing funnel. Your marketing goals and content priorities will change depending on the marketing funnel stage.
This content marketing goals template helps ensure every piece of content created serves a purpose. It also supports task prioritization, allocating resources, and justifying marketing decisions.
Template: Create a copy of my content marketing goals template.
4) Marketing budget tracker template
Nailing down how much money you have to spend on marketing activity is a crucial part of your marketing strategy. A marketing budget tracker template helps you plan, allocate, and monitor your marketing spend.
In this marketing budget tracker, you can add new sections for expense categories, allowing you to track specific expenditures under each category. You may want to track the tools and software you use for marketing. Here, you would include any tools you pay for such as webinar software or keyword research tools.
A marketing budget tracker lets you see exactly where your marketing budget is being spent, and how much money you spend overall. This helps you see where you could cut costs to prevent overspending. Comparing this marketing budget tracker to your marketing performance will also help you ensure you’re getting the best return on investment (ROI) from your marketing strategy activities.
You can decide whether you want this marketing budget tracker to track spending across the actual or fiscal year. For ease, I’ve set this template to run from January to December.
Template: Create a copy of my marketing budget tracker template.
Content planning and research templates
Templates can help streamline content creation by standardizing your planning and research efforts. This helps ensure all your content planning and research is carried out to the same (hopefully high) standard.
Effective content marketing requires a deep understanding of your audience, competitors, and the wider landscape. With the right content planning and research templates, you
1) Customer interview question bank
Customer interviews are one of my favorite ways to gather juicy information for content. They let you get to the heart of your customers’ motivations, goals, challenges, and experiences… then, you get to turn those conversations into valuable content.
If you’re not sure where to start with customer interviews, creating a go-to customer interview question bank can be a helpful resource. This template equips you with a set of tried-and-tested questions you can ask when interviewing customers.
I’ve fine tuned my customer interview question bank over hundreds, if not thousands, of hours spent chatting with customers. My customer interview question bank starts with easy questions to open the conversation and warm the customer up. Then, it dives into a variety of questions tailored to specific scenarios:
- Motivations
- Discovery
- Selection
- Activation
- Use cases
- Retention
- Communication
You don’t need to ask every customer every question. Pick the ones most appropriate to your marketing strategy, goals, and content. Be sure to ask more probing questions such as “…and why?” to get deeper insights from your customers too. A customer interview question bank is a valuable tool for creating content that resonates with your target audience on a deeper level.
Template: Create a copy of my customer interview question bank.
2) Guest post pitch template
A guest post pitch template can make it easier for you to reach out to publications and potential partners and secure coverage for your brand.
Whether you’re looking to expand your reach, build backlinks, or establish thought leadership, this email template for guest post pitching helps you get more eyes on your business and content.
A well-crafted guest post pitch needs to be personal and strategic. My guest post pitch template has personalized elements where I can tailor the email messaging to suit the person, brand, or publication I’m emailing. This helps me build a more personable relationship while clearly articulating my value proposition to increase my chance of securing guest post opportunities — all while saving time as I don’t need to write my pitch email from scratch every single time.
Template: Create a copy of my guest post pitch template.
3) Competitor research template
A competitor research template is a holy grail document for keeping an eye on your competitors’ content strategies.
Use my competitive analysis template to monitor everything your competitors are doing. By analyzing your competitors’ content marketing strategy, you can see what works for them — and what doesn’t — so you can spot the gaps and opportunities in your own content plan.
My in-depth competitive analysis template helps you stay ahead of the competition by knowing exactly what they’re doing, and how to create content that differentiates you from the rest.
If you want to create your own competitor research template, here is my 8-step process for conducting competitor research.
Template: Create a copy of my competitor research template.
4) Keyword research template
If you want to create an intentional content marketing strategy that gets your website seen for relevant search terms, you’ll want to conduct keyword research.
Use a keyword research template to find the search terms and phrases your target audience is looking for. In my keyword research template, you can note the monthly search volume for the keyword. You can also pinpoint the topic, cluster, and intent. This gives you a solid understanding of how often your audience searches for this keyword, and what type of content you need to create to get their attention.
Finally, you can keep track of whether your website ranks for this keyword and, if so, which position you hold in search engine result pages (SERPs) and which page on your website ranks for it.
This keyword research template is a core part of any robust content planning strategy, allowing you to create content that is both engaging for your audience and strategically aligned with your business goals.
Template: Create a copy of my keyword research template.
Content creation templates
Content quality matters. If you’re creating content, make sure it’s helpful, reliable and people-friendly. There are a few ways you can ensure you’re creating high-quality content and getting it in front of your target audience.
First, use a brief to capture all the key information your content needs to include. Once you’ve created your content, you can then self-assess the content quality using checklists. Finally, don’t forget to distribute your content far and wide, making sure it has the chance to be seen by your target audience.
The content creation templates I swear by are:
- Content project brief
- On-page SEO checklist
- Content distribution template
1) Content project brief template
Whether you’re in charge of content creation, you’re managing a team of content writers, or you’re working with clients to create content, a content project brief template is a must-have tool.
It’s good practice to get in the habit of outlining the key details of any content project before it begins, regardless of who is creating the content. A content project brief template ensures you kick off your project on the right foot.
Use a content project brief template to outline working titles for your planned content, set key goals, and identify target keywords or phrases — don’t forget to refer back to your keyword research template for this! In the overview section, you can also specify the action you want readers to take, the target word count, and the deadlines within the project.
My content project brief template also includes sections for:
- Audience – Summarize your target audience and the key pain points this content will address
- Channels – Specify which marketing channels you plan to use to distribute this content
- Competitors – Identify any competitors to avoid mentioning or linking to
- Key points – Outline the key points the content should cover
- External sources – Highlight any relevant external sources you can cite
- Internal backlinks – Identify the internal links you should aim to include in this content
- Team members – Name any team members who should be involved in this project
My content project brief template takes approximately 15 minutes to complete but saves so much more time when it comes to writing, revisions, and content approval. Plus, it results in a faster turnaround time and higher quality content.
Template: Create a copy of my content project brief template.
2) On-page SEO checklist template
Make sure every page on your website is written to a high standard with an on-page SEO checklist. This checklist is your go-to companion for ensuring your website content is optimized for search engines — and, ultimately, for people too.
From writing an SEO-friendly and engaging title to adding alt text to media, my on-page SEO checklist template guides you through the necessary steps to improve your content quality. Whenever you create content, arm yourself with this on-page SEO checklist and work through each task, checking them off as you complete them.
Following an on-page SEO checklist means you can have confidence that your content can drive more traffic to your website, improving your SEO performance.
Template: Create a copy of my on-page SEO checklist.
3) Content distribution checklist template
Creating great content is only half of the job. The other half is ensuring that content reaches the right people. A content distribution checklist is your secret for systematically distributing your content far and wide.
Use a checklist to outline all the channels where you could share your content, covering owned, earned, and paid channels. This approach makes sure you don’t only focus on channels you control but also leverage any connections, partnerships, and paid networks you have access to.
Use my content distribution checklist template for a handy list of all the channels where you can repurpose your original content. By following this checklist, you can maximize the reach and impact of your content.
Template: Create a copy of my content distribution checklist.
Content management templates
Being able to effectively manage content projects is crucial for maintaining consistency, meeting deadlines, aligning team members, and executing your content marketing strategy to the best possible standard.
When working as part of a team, make sure you have foolproof content management processes in place. At the most basic level, use a project management board to coordinate projects and create a RACI chart to define everyone’s roles and responsibilities. These tools help you run smooth content projects as a team.
1) Trello board for content projects
Trello is my go-to project management tool for managing content projects. There are lots of project management tools out there so choose the one that’s best for your needs.
Whichever tool you choose, use it to manage your content workflow from idea to publication. My Trello board for content projects is a Kanban-style board with columns for:
- Idea bank
- To-do
- Being written
- Ready for review
- Sent
- Scheduled
- Published
- Externally published
You can add cards for each content project, and then easily move these from column to column as your content progresses through each stage. You can also edit the card information to suit your needs. You can, for example, add deadlines, assign team members, attach files, and engage in discussions on the cards.
I like that Trello shows the activity history too. This is useful for monitoring content progress, spotting any bottlenecks, and seeing how you can improve project management going forward.
This Trello board template helps keep your content projects organized, encouraging strong team collaboration and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Template: Create a copy of my Trello board for content projects.
2) RACI chart template
A RACI chart is a simple but effective way to identify the roles and responsibilities within your content team. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed, and this chart assigns these roles to each task within a project.
Use my RACI chart template to clarify the roles and responsibilities within your content marketing team. Be sure to tailor the tasks to your content projects and add as many people, or teams, as required.
By clearly defining who does what concerning each task, this RACI chart template helps prevent misunderstandings and ensures smooth project execution. It can speed up content creation by providing clarity when working with a larger team or on complex projects where roles overlap. With a RACI chart, you can ensure everyone is on the same page and effectively working together.
Template: Create a copy of my RACI chart template.
Event marketing templates
Event marketing is a powerful way to engage and amplify your audience. With event marketing, you can also generate leads, build brand awareness, strengthen authority, and foster strong partnerships within your industry.
However, organizing and promoting events requires careful planning. In this section, I’ve collated the templates I use to simplify event planning and marketing. These templates help you run well-organized, well-promoted, and well-attended events.
1) Webinar planning template
A webinar planning template is the backbone of any successful webinar. This template covers every aspect of preparing for a webinar from collating relevant resources to identifying speakers, outlining the webinar topics, noting key dates, and answering commonly asked questions to go over with your webinar team.
You can use my webinar planning template for solo or partner webinars. This webinar planning template will help you coordinate a successful, engaging webinar that delivers outstanding results for your brand.
Template: Create a copy of my webinar planning template.
2) Email outreach templates
When inviting guests and speakers to participate in your events, it helps to have a strong email outreach strategy. Using well-crafted email outreach templates can save time and increase your chances of getting a strong “Yes!” to your request.
You can use my email outreach templates to invite existing partners or reach out to potential new ones. This set of email outreach templates helps you communicate your event marketing request and persuade them to get involved.
Template: Create a copy of my email outreach templates.
3) Event promotion checklist template
An event promotion checklist features every possible task you need to complete to run a successful event. Use an event promotion checklist template to ensure you cover every base, developing a strong system for event marketing.
I have created an event promotion checklist template that you can use to run smooth, successful events. This checklist covers key tasks such as creating an event landing page, writing dedicated email announcements, and adding registration pop-ups to your website.
As you work through this event promotion checklist, you can check off each task once completed, add a link to the deliverable, or identify who or what it is blocked by. There’s also a note section so you can add any key information you or your event marketing team need to be aware of for each task.
An event promotion checklist creates a structured, repeatable approach for marketing your events and increasing sign-up numbers.
Template: Create a copy of my event promotion checklist template.
Partnership marketing templates
Anyone who knows me will know I speak loudly and proudly about partnership marketing. Building strong partnerships is a lucrative way of amplifying your marketing efforts, performance, and results.
While partnership marketing can be a brilliant move for your business, it requires careful management. I have created the following templates to help you find potential partners and track your past, present, and future partner activity. These templates will help you maximize the value of your partnerships so each collaboration aligns with your marketing strategy and goals.
1) Brand partnership research template
Finding the right partner can feel overwhelming if you don’t have an initial starting point. A brand partnership research template gives you a foundation for finding the perfect partners for your marketing activities.
I have created a brand partnership research template to identify and evaluate potential partners. Use this template to keep track of details about prospective partners, including any notable products/services they have, their target audience, and how to contact them.
You can even note the type of partnership you’re interested in pursuing and what activities they would be suitable for. Capturing this information means you can strategically reach out to potential partners and engage them in meaningful activities.
Having a document where you can research and identify potential partners is a powerful way to ensure any engaged partners align with your brand’s values and goals.
Template: Create a copy of my brand partnership research template.
2) Partner activity tracker template
If you want to make partnerships a key component of your marketing strategy, you need to be organized. Managing multiple partners can be challenging, especially as you engage in various collaborative activities.
I created a partner activity tracker template on Trello that helps you keep a detailed record of all past, current, and future partners. This Trello is a little black book for building and maintaining strong relationships with your partners. It also helps you keep all your partnership marketing activities running smoothly.
This partner activity tracker has an initial card where you can record all the key details about your company that are useful for outreach. There’s also a column for keeping an up-to-date list of your partners.
In this Trello template, you’ll find columns for different partnership activities such as a newsletter swap, guest blog exchange, or joint webinar.
Finally, there’s a column for partnerships that have been sunsetted. Here, you can explain why this partnership is no longer active, helping you choose better-aligned partners and improve your future partnership marketing efforts.
Template: Create a copy of my partner activity tracker template.
Wrapping up — Use these tried-and-tested content marketing templates to scale your marketing strategy
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you create new content, plan projects, or organize events. You simply need to develop and follow proven methods for success.
Creating and using templates is a simple but effective way to streamline your content marketing strategy, all while making it highly goal-oriented and ensuring it stays aligned with your business values and goals.
Weave content marketing templates into your workflow to create content that is more focused, effective, and impactful.
Finally, don’t forget to tailor these templates to suit your brand or create your own. Everyone does things differently. What works for one brand may not work for another. So, take these templates with a pinch of salt — and combine them with your marketing expertise and processes to amplify their impact.