How can I continually create and deliver interesting, engaging and relevant content to my current and potential customers? This question often worries marketing and communications professionals.
Even when a company’s staff includes talented writers and tech-savvy social media experts, constantly creating relevant new content can seem like a chore. challenging from time to time. A content calendar may be the solution you’re looking for.
Businesses tend to be motivated to create and share more content, but a shortage of time and human resources often gets in the way. Especially companies that handle digital marketing and content creation in-house may have trouble getting all the planned content done.
However, the root of the problem is not always the amount of resources itself, but instead, the inefficient use of those resources due to poor planning.
A content calendar is an easy way to combat this problem and make the most of your company’s scarce resources. It’s an effective tool for coordinating content creation and helps divide your team’s next workload into clear, easy-to-manage units.
By implementing this tool into your planning process, you’ll spend less time wondering what to write, and instead focus on the actual creation. Here are 10 tips to help you get started creating your own content calendar:
- Define your goals
- Create a calendar template
- Choose your channels
- Start with the calendar year
- Add your own content
- Keep permanent content handy
- Take advantage of older content
- Decide on posting frequency and set time limits
- Update and review your plan
- Monitor how your content is received
1. Define your goals
When planning your future content, start with the question: what is the main goal of your content? The answer to the question should be used as the basis for determining the correct channel and format.
Content is intended to:
- Produce new leads
- Direct readers to a website
- Gain visibility
- Increase your social media following
The goals you set have a substantial effect on who, where and with how often you post content Therefore, it is important that your team have a clear understanding of your goals before and during the planning process.
Therefore, defining your goals should be the first step in implementing a content calendar. Releasing content without a clear purpose will not benefit your business, it will only waste resources. The person working on each project or calendar item should have a clear idea of what the expected results are.
2. Create a Calendar Template
There are plenty of tools that offer calendar features on the web; feel free to choose the template that suits you best. However, since adopting new software can be time consuming, your content calendar can be as simple as a basic spreadsheet.
Your calendar should have a sharing option if you plan content together with the entire organization. For example, you can create a calendar template using the free Google Sheets tool, which allows anyone involved in the content creation to edit the sheet on their own computer to add comments and ideas.
Your content calendar can be built around your team’s specific needs, but should include at least the following information:
- The channel the content will be posted to
- The topic
- The type of content
- The date and time of publication
- The person in charge
- Follow-up: has it been published? the content as scheduled?
Here is an example of what a simple content calendar template might look like:
3. Choose your channels
Find out which channels your current and potential customers use. This will help you define the type of content you should focus on creating. Should you post articles on your blog? Photos on Instagram and Twitter? Videos on YouTube? A poll on Facebook? Short videos on Instagram and TikTok?
Posting content on several different platforms and in multiple formats can be beneficial as this will broaden your audience. However, make sure you have enough resources to focus on the platforms you choose to appear on. Prioritize your most important channels and focus on creating high-quality content instead of aimlessly posting to every platform you can think of. This way, you’ll keep up with producing quality content instead of participating in every trend in producing content that doesn’t even add value to your business.
Social media posts tend to be the easiest and least time-consuming type of content to create, but at the same time, it’s good to consider how you can use video content to promote your brand, even if planning and making videos means you need to invest more time and effort. However, make sure that your content calendar is not just a social media calendar, but also includes other, more detailed content.
Press releases, expert articles, and guest blogs should be included in your communications. and the marketing plan for the year, as they are likely to provide more value to their potential customers by giving them more information.
In addition, social media can be used as an effective way to cross-promote and share your content deeper. Posting a blog post infographic on your Instagram, or sharing an article on LinkedIn or Twitter will create more traffic and drive customers to your website. Also, using our existing video content in a shorter form on TikTok or Instagram can be an effective way to drive traffic to your other platforms.
4. Start with the calendar year
Use the calendar year as a base when you start planning your content. Check off all the important events you want to build your content around: holidays, trade shows, seminars, and training.
Christmas wishes are an easy way to produce content and consider customers.
This simple step will help you determine the type of seasonal content you will need in the future and help you estimate the next workload, allowing your team to prepare ahead of time.
5. Add your own content
Once you’ve written down all the important dates, start filling in the blanks with relevant content ideas. This content may include:
- Thematic posts: Are you participating in a trade show or seminar? Is something related to your operations the current topic of discussion? Follow the general conversation in your field and catch hot topics quickly.
- Serials: Do you specialize in a service you’d like to tell your clients more about? Serials are a great way to educate and develop your expertise.
- Expert articles and guest blogs about your services and current topics in your field
- Press releases about a new product launch, research results, or internationalization of your company, to name a few
- Seasonal or holiday greetings
- Videos or images of events, campaigns, products and projects
- Customer stories and interviews in the form video or case example
- Interesting and fun details about the organization: Who visits the office and what happens during a coffee break?
Make sure you have enough relevant ideas to fill your agenda. Add variety to your content to keep it interesting.
6. Keep evergreen content handy
Content that isn’t tied to a certain date or time will always be useful to both your customers and your business. Since contemporary topics remain relevant and are constantly searched for online, this type of content is likely to continue to receive clicks and views even after the initial buzz after publication.
It’s also easy to re-introduce your oldest articles and blogs. Publish your audience by adding links to them to your newest content related to similar topics.
Timeless content can also save you in times when there are delays in your schedule. Since it can be created and published at any time, it’s nice to have ready-made content stored somewhere to use at times when your team needs to prioritize other tasks. There should be a place on your calendar for timeless content ideas that can be used at any time.
7. Use older content
You don’t always have to create content from scratch. Most companies have stored useful content that has not been used, such as CRM system data and customer survey results.
Old blog posts can also be reused and updated through different channels. , how to turn them into short videos. Your potential customers may be looking for information on several different platforms, so it may be a good idea to present similar ideas in different formats. This way, you will make the most of all the valuable content you have created to reach different target groups.
It is also important to ensure that the content on your website is up to date, as many potential customers may browse through your older blog posts or articles. Checking and updating them occasionally to ensure your content is accurate will make you look professional and trustworthy.
Mark articles up-to-date to let your readers know your content is up-to-date and that you want to make it more valuable to them.
Your customers will know their articles are up to date when you mark them as updated.
8. Decide how often to post and set time limits
Think about how often you can realistically post new content. Since content creation takes a lot of time, it’s important to choose a posting frequency that works for you. Understanding your own limits is crucial to calendar efficiency. If it’s too full, the content will suffer. However, there must be enough content to drive traffic to your website and add value to your customers on a regular basis.
A content calendar will help you identify the busiest times for your business. Planning ahead will help both individuals and the entire team prepare for the busiest months of the business by ensuring that projects start and finish well in advance of the release date. In other words, planning should always have a time limit to ensure that deadlines are met. Another step to ensure content creation stays on track is to schedule blog posts in your CMS platform and social media posts in a separate publishing tool like Semrush.
However, your content calendar It should not be set in stone: a certain degree of flexibility in programming should be considered and allowed. There may be times when your business needs to be able to respond quickly to external events or news in your field. Therefore, it can sometimes be a good idea to move originally planned and less urgent content to later and react to the latest news.
9. Update and revise your plan
There is no definitive answer on how far in advance to plan your content. Planning ahead depends on multiple factors, such as the volatility of your field of business and perhaps some factors specifically related to your company.
You should keep in mind, however, that the further ahead you plan your content, the better the flow of content without interruptions. A simple guideline is to plan the main content for the entire year, and then plan the more detailed weekly and daily content for the following month.
There should be a chance for people to share their thoughts and update their plans when necessary. It might be a good idea to review the content calendar regularly with the whole team. This will help you stay on track and adapt to possible changes.
10. Monitor how your content is received
One of the great things about digital marketing is that almost everything is measurable. However, after a business spends a significant amount of time creating and sharing high-quality content, measuring the actual effects of the content often takes a backseat.
You must spend some of time to examine their own operations. and data, and consider them in your future plans. Which social media posts have sparked the most conversation? What blog posts have been shared? How much visibility have your press releases gotten in the media?
With the help of Google Analytics, you can monitor how your blog posts are received.
You can track these metrics in your tools:
- Newsletter tool: open rate, click rate, subscribers
- Press release tool: open and click rates
- Media tracking tool: the number of mentions and what, where and how it is said.
Many social media metrics can be tracked in the tools themselves because many of the platforms have built-in analytics tools that help you measure the success of your content.
Once you know what kind of content your readers are interested in, you can evolve and create even more interesting and engaging content in the future.
Read our guide on how to measure the results of your communications to learn more about how your content is performing.
Download the guide
Read more about marketing and communications on our blog:
- 3 Ways To Start Listening On Social Media
- 6 Reasons Why Media Monitoring Is Important For Your Business
.