How to Create a Content Calendar
Every content marketing strategy should include creating a content calendar. This tool is a business owner’s plan and organizational system that allows you to think about your content strategy in advance. A content calendar helps ensure you are consistently creating and publishing high-quality content. Content that aligns with your business vision and mission. So, let’s make a content calendar that works for you!
A note on consistency - it's what you decide it is.
Consistency in marketing is a vital aspect of any successful business strategy. The definition of consistency can vary from business to business, depending on your company's vision and mission. Understanding that consistency can come in many forms in marketing is essential.
There is consistency in your creation and publishing of content regularly.
There is consistency in maintaining your brand's messaging, tone, and overall brand identity throughout your marketing efforts.
There’s consistency in your vision and mission, the foundations of your brand.
There’s consistency in the results/transformations you create/provide.
It is essential to align your marketing efforts with consistency. However, it is up to you to decide what consistency means for your business based on your vision and mission and then execute that plan with dedication. This will help you to build trust and credibility with your audience and ultimately drive business success.
Step 1: Check Insights from the Previous Month
The first step in creating a content calendar is checking the previous month's insights. Now which insights you measure will depend on your goals. Having pre-defined KPIs to track your performance accurately is a good idea. Some metrics to look at for your content:
Views/impressions
Engagement/content interactions
Shares
These metrics can help you understand your content's performance and identify improvement areas. The idea is to use this information to inform your content strategy for the new month.
Step 2: Define Your Content Goals for the New Month
Next, define your content goals for the new month.
What do you want to achieve with your content?
Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads?
Knowing your goals will help you create content aligned with them. By defining new content goals each month, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are aligned with your overall business goals. This also allows you to adapt to business environment changes, measure performance and track progress, continuously improve your content, and stay relevant and engaging to your target audience.
Step 3: Define Your Best Content Types to Repeat
Once your content goals are defined, it's time to define the content types that have worked well in the past. We want to BUILD on what we’ve already done; there is no reason to start from scratch! This could be:
Blog posts
Videos,
Infographics
Social media posts
Define your best content types and repeat them in the new month. By identifying your best content types, you can focus your efforts on creating more content that is most effective for your business. This will save time and increase your efficiency.
Identifying your best content types will allow you to create more content that resonates with your audience and drives results. This will increase the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. Repeating successful content types will help to build trust and authority with your audience. They will come to expect and look forward to that type of content from you. Repeating successful content types will help to increase engagement with your audience. They will become more familiar with your content and be more likely to interact and engage with it. By repeating successful content types, you can increase the reach of your content by repurposing it in different formats and channels. This will help to reach a wider audience and increase visibility for your business. When you repeat successful content types, your audience will start to recognize your brand and content, which will help to build brand recognition and loyalty over time.
Step 4: Create Content Based on Your Content Pillars
In addition to repeating your best content types, create new content based on your content pillars. Remember, content pillars are the main topics or themes that your brand focuses on. Use content pillars as a guide when creating anything new to ensure your new content aligns with them.
Creating content based on your content pillars is essential for several reasons:
Provides focus and direction: By creating content based on your content pillars, you can provide focus and direction for your content marketing efforts. Your content will align with your goals and values and help drive the desired results.
Establishes brand identity: Creating content based on your content pillars will help to establish your brand identity and differentiate you from your competition. Your content will be unique and memorable and help build brand recognition and loyalty over time.
Increases audience engagement: When you create content based on your content pillars, you address relevant and important topics to your audience. This will help to increase engagement and drive results for your business.
Builds thought leadership: Creating content based on your content pillars will help position you as an expert and thought leader in your industry. This will help to establish your brand as a trusted resource for your audience and drive more qualified leads to your business.
Increases consistency: When you create content based on your content pillars, you provide your audience with a consistent message and brand experience. This will help to increase consistency and credibility and make your content more memorable and impactful.
By creating content based on your pillars, you can provide focus and direction, establish brand identity, increase audience engagement, build thought leadership, and increase consistency in your content marketing efforts.
Step 5: Repurpose Your Evergreen Content
Repurposing your evergreen content can save time and effort while providing valuable information to your audience. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant for an extended period. So, when you repurpose it, you increase the chances of it being appropriate for your audience, and it's a great way to make the most out of your existing content.
Here's why you should repurpose your evergreen content:
Increases reach: By repurposing your evergreen content, you can reach a wider audience by sharing it in different formats and channels. This will help increase your business's visibility and drive more results.
Increases efficiency: Repurposing your evergreen content is an efficient way to create new content without starting from scratch. You can save time and resources by updating and reposting your existing content while delivering fresh, relevant content to your audience.
Increases engagement: Repurposing your evergreen content will help to increase engagement with your audience. Presenting the same information in a new format can grab your audience's attention and drive more interactions and conversions.
Builds brand recognition: By consistently repurposing your evergreen content, you can help to build brand recognition and loyalty over time. Your audience will come to recognize your content and associate it with your brand, which will help to increase the impact and effectiveness of your content marketing efforts.
Enhances thought leadership: Repurposing your evergreen content will help to position you as a thought leader in your industry. By consistently delivering fresh, relevant content on the same topic, you can establish your brand as a trusted resource and increase your credibility with your audience.
By repurposing your evergreen content, you can increase reach, efficiency, engagement, brand recognition, and thought leadership in your content marketing efforts.
Step 6: Update Your Content Bank
Once you've created new content, update your content bank. A content bank is a collection of all your existing content, and keep it organized and up-to-date so that you can easily access and repurpose it in the future.
Updating your content bank is essential in creating a content calendar because it helps ensure your content is organized, relevant, and easily accessible. A well-maintained content bank is a valuable resource for your content marketing efforts, allowing you to quickly find and repurpose content that is still relevant and valuable to your audience.
By regularly updating your content bank, you can keep your content fresh and up-to-date and ensure that you are consistently delivering high-quality content that resonates with your audience. Additionally, updating your content bank will help to track your content performance, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that your content calendar is aligned with your overall marketing goals and strategy. By updating your content bank, you can ensure that your content marketing efforts are consistent, efficient, and effective.
Step 7: Be Flexible to Jump into Trends as Needed
Being flexible with trends in your content calendar is crucial because it helps ensure your content stays relevant and engaging to your audience. By keeping an eye on industry trends and hot topics, you can identify opportunities to jump into conversations and provide valuable insights to your audience.
This will help to increase engagement and drive more results for your business. Additionally, by being flexible with trends, you can stay ahead of the curve and be one of the first to address important topics in your industry. This can help position your brand as a thought leader and establish credibility with your audience. However, it's essential to balance flexibility with consistency and ensure that your content aligns with your content pillars and overall marketing strategy. By being flexible with trends in your content calendar, you can stay relevant and engaged with your audience and drive more results for your business.
Creating a content calendar can help you stay organized, increase your reach and engagement, and ultimately help you achieve your content goals. Following these steps, create a content calendar that works for you and your brand. With some planning and effort, you'll be on your way to creating a content calendar that drives results.
Need help repurposing your content but not ready to outsource?
This guide will teach you the That Creative Girl Repurposing Formula your content to reach new audiences and drive traffic to your site. You'll discover strategies for turning a single piece of content into multiple assets and tips for repurposing your content on different platforms and formats.
Whether you're a blogger, small business owner, or content marketer, the Repurposing Formula is packed with practical, actionable advice you can practice immediately.
