Business Blog Marketing Plan: Rocking the Contract!

Whether the online marketing assignment is for a multinational company program or niche small business campaign, over the last five years RSS feed marketing by blog and associated content strategies have become essential SEO tactics.  Now more than ever it’s easy to see why. Without authority social users rebroadcasting links to a website’s content, the site risks seriously low discoverability in critical social, news and search channels. Obviously, compelling third-party users to rebroadcast your content, requires marketers to actually publish recurrent content!

This post shares programmatic tips and excerpted verbiage from AIMCLEAR‘s business blog marketing plan product, which we’ve refined over the years to offer end-to-end content publication strategies and feed management for clients. It is the “sister” product to our community management services, and suitable for inclusion in contract scope-of-services exhibits.

When building a business blog marketing plan, the goal is to actualize the client’s natural footprint, in search and social spaces small enough to dominate and large enough to yield fruit. With thoughtfully-executed programs, marketers help sites attain crucial discoverability in tightly associated content areas. The plan’s goal is to blueprint the process to build turnkey, client-owned authority publications.

The focus is to:

• Create a reasonably attainable ramp-up plan
• Work hand in hand with other team agencies, especially community management and promotional groups
• Focus on data-driven, outbound blogger, publication, community, and other outreach
• Frame SEO expectations
• Set ongoing scheduling expectations
• Conduct and provide ongoing research to support content creation/goals/targets, and partner agencies efforts, I.E. community management, etc…
• Be the team’s ongoing eyes and ears, regarding inevitable paradigm shifts in search, social, (de)evolving channels, etc…
• Build in clear reporting expectations
• Include AIMCLEAR‘s feedback on “sharing” materials created by other team members, in advance and forensically
• Plan interactions between team agencies production teams, in advance and forensically
• Define interactions between team agencies executive teams, in advance and forensically
• Accommodate other team-generated articles and other assets
• Specify the costs, all inclusive

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AIMCLEAR will provide:

Month One

• WordPress or other platform feed development and/or assistance to team agencies, to adapt, implement and deploy team-provided design
• Advance and ongoing search and social research, to support feed content and  ongoing community management
  • Identify and recommend target bloggers, communities, publication and other targets
  • Identify and recommend, topics in accordance to MOM’s priorities

• One business day “retreat” with team and partner agencies’ teams to develop foundational feed and content concepts
• Create publication calendar and planning for month two launch

Months 2-12

• Launch publication
• Monthly publication calendar each for each next month, starting with month 3 calendar,  in advance on third Monday of each month
• Provide associated research and input for community management team at the time each content block is posted
  • Targets briefing
  • Demographic research
  • Ideas and recommendations

• Weekly check-in phone meetings, inbound/outbound briefings to/from partner agencies, at the production team members level
  • Topline results from previous week
  • Review upcoming week’s production schedule
  • Handle inevitable modifications of team’s priorities
  • Provide advance input and feedback on team-created “sharing materials,” videos, audio, infographics, etc…
  • Monthly in-person meetings, executive level
  • Review previous month’s results,
  • Provide feedback to other teams
  • Receive briefing on team’s upcoming priorities
  • Brief team on important developments, at the industry and mainstream communities level, regarding search and social paradigms
  • Discuss team-created “sharing materials. This line item is designed to support the team, in creating social media assets AIMCLEAR believes will work.

• Weekly and monthly reporting
  • Results impacting SEO
    • Links
    • Organic prominence
    • Traffic
    • Conversion,when team agrees on conversion goals
    • Technical SEO recommendations
    • Semantic SEO recommendations, including evolving social mashup tools, widgets, etc…
  • Results impacting social
    • Outbound referrals to social
    • Video views generated
    • On and off page engagement surrounding content (PostRank type metrics)
    • Written input for CM team

• Approximately 96 hours per month production, 3-5 content blocks per week (authors will use pseudonyms or, if agreed to by team, their bylines)
  • Minimum of 3 “features,” 450-900 words, well researched, targeted, etc….
    • Edutainment
    • Human interest
    • Topical and niche’
    • Non editorial reviews
    • Other
  • 1-2 serialized “convention” posts, designed to engage 5-8 targets each by aggregating content with added value
    • Link roundups
    • Video roundups
    • Important and complimentary news items
    • Conference coverage (travel and other expenses not included)
    • Featured bloggers, communities & companies (with team’s pre-approve)
    • Other as team concurs
  • “Package” (write setup, headlines, etc…)  and release team-created sharing materials
  • Rewritten releases, linking to original PRWeb and/or other releases
  • collateral promotions materials
  • Additional team-written materials as teams agree
• Approximately 16 hours per month executive publication management to provide thought leadership and management to the project
  • Internal leadership at AIMCLEAR
  • CEO to CEO phone and other strategic contact with team member agencies, in person and by phone

Feel free to use, excerpt and modify this language in your contract scope documents, with attribution, © 2011 AIMCLEAR ®.