Okay, well we both already know that you’re putting together a content map and looking for a template to fill out. I’ve picked up 8 templates for different occasions.
But first, let’s break down what components a content map should definitely include. For what? To make sure you get the results you want.
And here they are 👇
1. Buyer Persona/Customer Avatar
A buyer persona is a fictional character that represents the ideal customer for a business. It is based on real data and research about the characteristics, behaviors, and goals of the target audience.
The buyer persona also helps businesses identify the best channels and tactics for reaching and engaging their target audience. By creating a detailed buyer persona, businesses can create more targeted and effective marketing strategies that are more likely to convert prospects into customers.
2. Consumer Journey
The consumer journey doesn’t require an airline ticket or packing a suitcase. This journey refers to the various steps that a consumer goes through when considering, purchasing, and using a product or service.
The consumer journey can be divided into several stages, including the awareness stage, consideration stage, decision stage, and post-purchase stage. At each stage, the consumer may engage with various marketing channels and touchpoints, such as social media, websites, email, or physical stores.
3. Content Funnel
A content funnel is a strategy for guiding potential customers through a series of steps, with the ultimate goal of converting them into paying customers. Your content funnel typically starts with awareness, where your goal is to attract the attention of potential customers and make them aware of the product or service you’re offering.
Next is the consideration phase, where the goal is to educate the potential customer about the benefits and features of the product or service and persuade them to consider making a purchase.
Finally, there is the decision phase, where the goal is to convince the potential customer to take the final step and make a purchase.
Many small businesses and even a few larger organizations lack a structured content plan. This can make all the difference between a company and its competition.
Here are my favorite content map templates from which I’ve gotten the most insights.
| Name | What’s Inside | User Case |
|---|---|---|
|
If you need to focus on KPIs for measurable results | |
| 2. HubSpot’s Template |
|
You need to integrate your digital marketing tools with your content planning |
| 3. Ahrefs’ Template |
|
You need to score your content pieces according to their business potential |
| 4. LocaliQ’s Template |
|
You need to make your customer persona more than just a two-dimensional profile |
| 5. Smartsheet’s Template |
|
You need to test multiple customer personas |
| 6. CMI’s Template |
|
You need to flesh out your customer persona completely, including frustrations and thoughts they have |
| 7. Tribute Media’s Template |
|
You need to consider how different people react differently to each lifecycle stage and adjust your plan accordingly |
| 8. SeoClarity’s Template |
|
You need to structure a plan according to the spot your prospect is on the customer journey |
So, let’s talk more about each example, shall we?
1. Semrush Ultimate Content Mapping Template
Semrush is a software company that offers a suite of digital marketing tools and services for businesses, professionals, and individuals.
The company’s flagship product is a search engine optimization (SEO) tool that helps users track and improve the ranking of their websites on search engines like Google.
What Got Me Hooked on the Semrush Template
The Ultimate Content Mapping Template by Semrush is written by a company that knows how important it is to be successful in the search engine game. The template is broken down in a way that is not only clear and concise but with a result-driven direction in mind.
Semrush draws from its massive experience with helping websites rank and offers a template that’ll change the way you view content creation.
Key Takeaways
- Emphasize targeted messaging
- Focus on KPIs for measurable results
- Semrush offers a useful Buyer’s Journey template
2. Hubspot and Litmus Content Marketing Planning Template
Hubspot is a software company that provides a variety of tools for marketing, sales, and customer service.
Their platform includes features such as email marketing, social media management, content management, and customer relationship management (CRM).
What Got Me Hooked on the Hubspot and Litmus Template
This template is more of a tool than a static checklist. The spreadsheet breaks down your planning into monthly, quarterly and campaign-specific sections. Its flexibility allows you to tailor your output in a way that fits your specific offering.
If your products or services sell seasonally or if you want to regularly tweak your strategy to get the best results, the Hubspot and Litmus option is worth adopting.
Key Takeaways
- Break down content tasks according to applicable teams
- Stratifying your goals by monthly, quarterly and campaign-specific tasks can offer added insights
- Integrating your digital marketing tools with your content planning allows for maximum optimization
3. Ahrefs Content Map Template
Ahrefs is a company that offers a tool used for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. It is a comprehensive suite of SEO tools that allows users to analyze and improve their website’s search engine rankings.
Ahrefs is widely respected within the SEO industry for its accuracy and depth of data and is used by professionals and businesses of all sizes to improve their online visibility and search engine rankings.
What Got Me Hooked on the Ahrefs Template
I’m always a contrarian when researching effective digital strategies and the Ahrefs way of doing things is right up my alley! Rather than the more static approach of tying pieces of content to specific layers of your funnel, the Ahref model takes a dynamic approach.
By focusing on your offering, the Ahrefs template allows you to use pieces of content according to their effectiveness. Why bog down a post for a single purpose if it can take your visitor from engagement to purchase?
Conversely, if you need multiple pieces of content to fulfill a specific task, you don’t have to sell yourself short by using one post.
Key Takeaways
- Score your content pieces according to their business potential
- Use diagrams that link content pieces with specific KPIs or objectives
- Make customer loyalty part of your content creation equation
4. LOCALiQ Template
LOCALiQ is a digital marketing solutions provider that helps local businesses reach and engage with their target audience.
The company offers a range of services including search engine optimization, social media management, email marketing, and website design.
What Got Me Hooked on the LOCALiQ Template
The LOCALiQ template asks what your audience’s biggest concerns are in the various stages of the content’s lifecycle. From their first contact to the decision-making phase, the specific template asks you to tap into your emotional intelligence.
By dedicating time to your audience’s desires, you can empathize with visitors and appeal honestly to their emotions.
Solving an audience’s pain points with your content is a crucial aspect of digital marketing. If your content planning process keeps this at heart, it will show in your results.
Key Takeaways
- Make your customer persona more than just a two-dimensional profile
- Appeal to your prospects’ inner desires rather than their surface wants
- Let customer concerns guide your content brainstorming
5. Smartsheet Content Mapping Template
Smartsheet is a cloud-based project management and collaboration tool that enables organizations to plan, track, and work on various projects in a more efficient and organized manner. It offers a range of features such as task assignment, real-time collaboration, file sharing, and data analysis.
What Got Me Hooked on the Smartsheet Template
The template’s presentation accounts for multiple customer personas. It takes my content creation process through each stage as seen by the customer with their pain point and potential questions, all the way to the call to action.
I also like the fact that Smartsheet gives you the opportunity to test out its template for free. This shows confidence in their approach and helps you get a taste of what to expect.
Key Takeaways
- Test multiple customer personas to streamline your content creation
- Break up your customers’ interest into wants and desires to further enhance your content
6. Content Marketing Institute’s Mapping Process
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is a leading organization dedicated to helping businesses and marketers develop and execute effective content marketing strategies. Founded in 2007, CMI provides a range of resources and services to help marketers understand and implement best practices in content marketing.
In addition to its work with businesses and marketers, Content Marketing Institute also engages with the broader content marketing community through its events, online resources, and partnerships with other organizations.
What Got Me Hooked on the Content Marketing Institute’s Template
While a dynamic approach with many variables often seems appealing, a linear process that covers all bases can be more hassle-free. Content Marketing Institute’s template gives you a vision of your content’s journey from defining your customer persona to auditing the process and creating content to patch any holes in your narrative.
The variables that identify your customer persona are extensive and I especially like how the template calls for you to write a quote from the potential prospect’s perspective.
I also appreciate the preemptive approach to planning content for needs your audience may not be fully aware they have yet.
Key Takeaways
- Plan for content that helps your audience uncover needs that coincide with your offering
- Take the time to flesh out your customer persona completely, including frustrations and thoughts they have
- Help your audience evaluate their options. Don’t just push your offering on them
7. Tribute Media Content Mapping Template
Tribute Media is a content marketing agency that helps businesses create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. The goal of their content marketing efforts is to drive profitable customer action.
Tribute Media’s team of content marketing professionals has experience working with businesses in a variety of industries, and they are skilled at creating custom solutions that meet the unique needs of each client.
What Got Me Hooked on the Tribute Media’s Template
Did I mention it’s free? When a successful and reliable content expert offers me a tool that’ll help my content creation for free, I click the download button.
While many digital marketing agencies offer downloads that are of little use as a hook to get your attention, Tribute Media shares a content mapping and brainstorming system that is worth your time.
The template helps you integrate your customer persona into your lifecycle stages so you can create a plan that resonates loudly and clearly with your audience.
Key Takeaways
- Consider how different people react differently to each lifecycle stage and adjust your plan accordingly
- Contemplate where your audience goes for information in creating your customer persona
- Objections prospects may put forth should be part of your plan
8. SeoClarity Template
SeoClarity is a software company that provides a range of tools and services for search engine optimization. Its platform includes features for keyword research, content optimization, and technical SEO, as well as analytics and reporting tools to help businesses understand and improve their search engine performance.
What Got Me Hooked on the SeoClarity’s Template
I found SeoClarity’s topic authority map idea to be useful in strengthening the signal I put out to my audience. By structuring a plan according to the spot your prospect is on the customer journey, you can anticipate questions and offer relevant content.
Key Takeaways
- Create topic clusters that tie keywords to specific pieces of content for optimization purposes
- Rank your top pieces and top-performing keywords for benchmarking
- Structure your content plan by customer questions to better define your customer personas
How to Develop a Rich & Engaging Content Map
When planning my digital marketing strategy, I always contemplate the Blue Ocean theory of marketing. This theory talks about how avoiding highly competitive, shark-infested waters (so to speak) can offer you tremendous advantages in your marketing.
In this video, Jacco van der Kooij talks about how out-educating, rather than outselling your competition is a key differentiating factor. He goes on to draw out a content map that leverages emotional content in creating the customer journey.
How to Improve User Flow with Customer Journey Mapping
Content mapping templates can only get you so far without understanding how visitors interact with your content. Ensuring your audience can optimally navigate your web presence is as important as the content you serve it.
A customer journey map can help you enhance your visitors’ experience. If you account for visitor behavior data, you will make your content decisions more of a science by removing most of the guesswork.
At this UXPressia session, Tiziana d’Agostino, UX Psychology and Interaction Design Consultant, shares how she improved the language school website user flow using customer journey mapping.
Integrate Content Map Templates Into Your Strategy Today
Content map templates make my life a whole lot easier; from allowing me to conveniently plan the structure and hierarchy of my content, to making it easier to visualize how different pages and pieces of content fit together and how they will be accessed by users. Give one of the aforementioned templates a try and, even better, grab the most valuable takeaways from each and mold a strategy of your own.
