Planning content

Creating your dream brand is an ongoing journey, and it’s important to allow yourself to make changes as you evolve. To do this you will need to take time to understand your online community, the more you create visual content for your customer behaviours the more you will build a successful niche.

A common challenge  in fashion  e-commerce in particular ) is content planning. 

Let’s be realistic, the day-to day life of a fast-paced business can leave teams juggling reactive business needs and prioritising very little time for content preparation.

The amount of content that needs to be churned on a weekly basis most of the time need to be produced at speed and of high quality.

It’s impossible to ‘plan’ weeks of content and campaigns and expect it to run smoothly.

But you can create a roadmap with a goals to guide you. This road map can help designers prepare in advance which will equal faster turn around.

So how can we prevent content planning blockers and conquer content creation planning?

Thinking ahead doesn’t have to be stressful, and once you have a process set out, it will become so easy to hand over to someone else with minimal explanation.

A good content planning system requires

1. Keeping all teams involved in the loop

2. Having a content calendar that outlines campaigns throughout each quarter

3. Briefing designers with dates and times for photography, video and copy delivery

4. Creating automated processes for fast turnarounds using the brand design system

For the majority of the time a single campaign will run across all online channels at one time and will be localised. As designers we can plan out campaigns ahead of time.

8 things to think about before planning

1. Your customer, community and audience

Every piece of content that you deliver must personally resonate and solve a problem to a particular group of people to be successful. As much as we feel like we know our audience, the reality is we only know as much as we think we know until we have carried out hard research, tests and interactions.

Keep I mind:

• Your customer needs

• Whether they are potential, new, existing or loyal

• The types of content they react well to

• How can you find out more about what they want

• The end usage and desired results of any content that you plan

• The core purpose that attracts your customer and drives your business.

• Proven data that strengthens your decision making

2. Content usage and duration

It is useful to divide your content ideas into campaigns. Some campaigns may be large and run for a long period of time. Other campaigns maybe shorter and run in mini bursts of weekly content. Decide how long each campaign will run for and how long it will be visible to your audience. Think about the result you would like from the campaign and how long you need to run it to achieve it.

It’s a good idea to create a suite of design assets to support your content creation. This is beneficial in creating brand familiarity for your audience a faster turnaround for you. However it is important to keep your designs message fresh to avoid fatigue.

3. Visibility

In one single campaign it’s great practice to have one set creative design that will feature across all of your online channels. If your campaign runs for a lengthy period of time, it’s also beneficial to introduce a few variations of the design to keep your message fresh. Users respond to consistency, so if your campaign looks and feels consistent it firstly presence a strong brand identity and secondly will leave a lasting impression. You have 3 seconds (if that) to make an impression. 

When planning your content consider using a simple hierarchy: 

1. Always show your brand logo – unless your design features in a social post that has your logo as your profile picture. In that case you don’t need branding overload!

2. Include a brand message that emulates your brand tone of voice. Limit this to one or two lines.

3. Include your main marketing message and limit this to two to three lines.

4. Have a clear call to action button with an urgency prompt message that stands out. 

5. Use your strongest most engaging image in the background.

4. Story-telling

Story-telling reflects how you sell the lifestyle of your product. Show and tell your customer in your own brand voice why you’ve created this product and why its good for them. Give them an incentive to make a purchase. Make the online journey easy for them.

Depending on how long you are running a campaign, it is good practice to think about how you can tell a story over a period of time. This ties in with having a variety of design assets to support long running branding and marketing messages.

For example, your campaign strategy over 3 weeks for a single campaign might look like this:

1. A pre launch 

2. Launch

3. New products added

4. Limited time offer

5. Offer ends soon

6. Last Chance to buy

At this stage of your content planning it is useful to think of the customer journey touch points. Think about where they first hear your story. Is it through a social post or email for example? You don’t want to relay the same message over and over again through all of your online channels at the same time. You may consider tweaking it a little to avoid repetition. relation to design

5. Imagery assets and copywriting

Copy and images work hand in hand and to work they must connect.

Always pick your best imagery for your content. Do not make-do. Pick your best!

Make sure your product is showcased in the best light and highlight the details. Pick two to three of your strongest images or video assets to keep your campaign engaging and fresh. Your imagery and choice of copy will work successfully when they are in alignment. 

Bring out your brand personality in your copy writing. Make a connection to the image, create the feeling!

Have you ever seen a perfume advert on TV? We can smell the product, right? But the imagery, moving image and voice over sell us a feeling! A feeling that will make us look out for that scent the next time we shop.

Words and images are powerful in creating a feeling.

6. Alignment

As well as aligning your imagery and copy, think about your brand principles and how they are reflected in your story telling. Maintain the same level of memorable design throughout your campaign journey.  

7. Planning a Launch

Whether you have a tight turnaround time to produce content or not - a top tip is to work your way backwards. Pick a date that you’d ideally want to launch and think about all of the things you need to do before you can get there. Allocate time for things like  web development, the design time,  photography and product availability. Give yourself a realistic timeline to work your way backward from. Prioritise your content in order of importance to make sure you don’t overwhelm yourself.

8. Budget

At the start of content planning, set your budget expectations early. List all of the assets you may need, copywriting that needs doing and any outsourcing and overheads that you require and then prioritise what you can and cannot do. If the budget feels a bit tight, perhaps you could launch  your campaign in stages or focus on a smaller number of online channels at one time.

Filling out a content plan

When planning your content it’s a good idea at the start to set timeline expectations between the people who are involved in creating your content. This helps with time management and project prioritisation and brings and element of calm to a any tight deadlines.

Every time you create a piece of content consider:

Working to a timeline

Assessing what is manageable 

How you will prepare 

Transparency for everyone involved in the process of creation 

There are many fantastic online workflow tools to model your content plan on. Many of these tools are great for cross collaboration and time efficiency.