Generating valuable content for any business means organizing and producing the content on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Content marketing is a broader term for your marketing strategies where you create meaningful content on a regular basis for a variety of channels (like blogs, website, video, etc); both offline and online.
In our Free Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing, we have been sharing various chapters stating that content marketing is the only type of marketing the helps marketers to create custom content for marketing strategies on regular basis as per the schedule.
So far, we have shared how content marketing can be helpful for your business, how to identify your audience and how you can create your own content marketing strategy?
In chapter 5 our beginner’s guide to content marketing, we will talk about what is content marketing calendar, how it can help to prioritize to create valuable content and how to create a content marketing calendar for your business?
What is the Content Calendar? Why you need a content calendar for marketing strategy?
A content calendar is simply a kind of calendar that contains all the details of the content topics and ideas you need to generate valuable content in a given time.
It seems very easy to create or plan a calendar, however, sticking to same is the real challenge for content marketers. It is, no doubt, an absolute recommended tool to organize your content marketing strategy but you need to follow it on regular basis with determination and patience.
The purpose of any content calendar is to save your time and energy. Once you create a calendar, you become more organized when it comes to create meaningful content and keep a track on your daily content related marketing activities throughout your hectic work days/months.
Most importantly, it helps to keep your readers, visitors or audience engaged by preventing your content from inactive or getting repetitive or overly random.
Also, there is “n” number of content marketing tools available in the online market that can help you to create your kind of content calendar as per your business and working style as well.
For example,
- Google Docs. Sometimes the best tool isn’t the most expensive or complicated
- Kapost
- WordPress Editorial Calendar
- SocialCast
- HubSpot Editorial Calendar
- Marketing.Ai
- DivvyHQ
- Trello
How to create a content marketing calendar?
Creating a content calendar is an easy task only if you know what are your content marketing audience interests and the types of content you are looking forward to creating.
You should follow these basic steps to build a great content calendar.
Brainstorm your content ideas that fit your business persona & niche
- Do you have an online brand persona?
- Will your content reflect your business persona? If so, how?
- What type of questions did you have when you decided to start your business? Can you answer them now?
- What are various types of issues do your customers asked to be addressed?
- Are these issues frequent changes in your industry? If so, are you a trusted source of information?
If you need some ideas for content marketing, consider the following:
- A theme-based weekly or daily post as per your content team management (like #DigitalTuesday — keeping people up to date on industry news)
- How-to, List of, What is, etc kind of articles on marketing, customer retention, customer acquisition, etc based on your business persona.
- How-to webinars or videos with financial advice, recipes/top tips, fashion how-tos, etc
- Case studies
- Product-related success stories
- Business-related infographics, statistics, press releases
- Travel guides, product how-to guides, real estate buying/selling guides
Create a calendar for at least 1 to 3 months prior
- Schedule content for social media as well as emails far in advance as possible.
- Share latest events or news in the form of webinars, Q&As/interviews, ebook/product releases & conferences that can be scheduled as soon as you’ve locked down a date.
Test & Discuss your content with your marketing team before adding content to your calendar
- Does your content go hand in hand with your content marketing brand profile?
- Is your content valuable as well as engaging?
- With the rise of social media optimization (SMO), does your content engaging enough to encourage Facebook Likes, shares & comments? Would you consider it to share it myself?
Keep an eye on the latest news & updates in your industry
- Its always recommended to follow Content calendar; however, don’t rely on your calendar completely. Be sure to check up on current trends to take advantage of news stories which you can add as a surprising element on weekly basis.
- Don’t consider your calendar as the ultimate strategy to follow. Watch your progress and content analytics. If your current content strategy is not working, change it or pull it!
- Watch the movements of your competitors: online marketing is an ever-changing world. Be sure you’re watching your competitors for new ideas or strategies
Conclusion
Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the benefits of content calendars & what they should include.
Good luck with your calendars, and let us know if you have anything to add in the comments below!
