Content marketing advice is frequently aimed at businesses with dedicated marketing teams, significant production budgets, and the luxury of publishing multiple times per week. Most small businesses have none of these things.
What most small businesses do have is genuine expertise in their field, real relationships with their customers, and a need to stay visible to potential clients without spending their entire marketing budget on paid advertising. A simple, realistic content plan addresses all three.
Here’s how to build one in under two hours.
Step 1: Define Your Content Pillars (20 Minutes)
Content pillars are the three to five themes that your business has genuine authority and relevance to speak about. They should sit at the intersection of what you know well and what your potential customers actually care about.
For a residential builder, these might be: renovation planning, building quality and materials, council approvals and regulations, design inspiration, and project management. For an accountant: tax planning, cash flow management, compliance, business structure, and technology for small businesses.
Your pillars give every piece of content a home and prevent the trap of producing random content that doesn’t build towards anything.
Write down three to five pillars for your business. These should feel natural - topics you could discuss confidently for an hour without preparation.
Step 2: Map Content to Your Customer’s Journey (20 Minutes)
Not every potential customer is at the same stage of their decision. Some have just realised they have a problem. Others are actively comparing options. Others have already decided to buy but need to choose who from.
Content that serves each stage looks different:
Awareness stage: Educational content that helps someone understand a problem or opportunity. “Signs your hot water system is about to fail.” “What to look for in a commercial lease.” This content is useful before someone knows they need you.
Consideration stage: Content that helps someone evaluate their options. “Hot water system: heat pump vs gas - which is right for your household?” “Questions to ask before hiring a commercial solicitor.” This content is useful when someone is actively researching.
Decision stage: Content that helps someone choose you specifically. Case studies, testimonials, specific service explanations, pricing transparency. This content is useful when someone is deciding who to contact.
Aim to have content across all three stages. Most small businesses produce only decision-stage content - which is invisible to the 80% of their potential customers who aren’t ready to buy yet.
Step 3: Identify 12 Topics (20 Minutes)
Four topics per month, across your pillars and the customer journey. Twelve topics for a 90-day plan.
Work through each pillar and ask: what are the two or three most common questions our customers have about this topic? What’s something people consistently get wrong? What decision do they need to make that we could help with?
Write them down without filtering. You’re looking for things you could genuinely write something useful about - not things that sound impressive. Practical topics consistently outperform aspirational ones.
Step 4: Choose Your Formats and Channels (20 Minutes)
You don’t need to be everywhere. Choose the one or two channels where your customers actually are and where content production is sustainable.
Blog / website articles: Highest SEO value, longest lifespan, highest production effort. Ideal if you can commit to 500-800 words per piece, once a month.
Email newsletter: Direct to an audience you own. Works well for existing client communication and staying top-of-mind with warm contacts. Monthly is achievable for most businesses; fortnightly is better.
LinkedIn: Best for B2B businesses and professional services. A once-weekly post from your 12-topic list is a realistic starting point.
Instagram/Facebook: Better for visual businesses - trades, hospitality, retail, design. Requires photos, which requires some production thinking.
Pick what’s realistic given your time and existing assets. A consistent presence on one channel outperforms sporadic presence on four.
Step 5: Schedule It (20 Minutes)
Twelve topics, 90 days, one or two channels. Block the time in your calendar now - not as a vague intention but as a recurring appointment. An hour and a half, once every two weeks, is enough to produce and publish one piece of content.
The businesses that publish consistently aren’t the ones who feel inspired more often. They’re the ones who made it a scheduled appointment rather than an optional activity.
The One Thing That Kills Content Plans
The most common failure mode isn’t choosing the wrong topics or channels. It’s setting an unrealistic pace and abandoning the plan after six weeks when life gets busy.
Start conservatively. One piece of content per week is better than four pieces per week for three weeks and then nothing. A 90-day plan that you actually complete will outperform a year-long plan that collapses in February.
If you need help building a content plan that drives traffic and builds trust with the right audience, get in touch to find out how YourStuff can help you today.
Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash
