If your brand is committed to content marketing, you need a content calendar. This valuable tool will help focus your marketing efforts. Without a calendar, you risk wasting your budget on ad campaigns that don’t address your goals or turning off potential leads with emails that don’t address their needs or concerns. A content calendar is critical to building an effective content marketing strategy for your business.
What is a content marketing calendar?
A content marketing calendar organizes your marketing campaigns in date order. It includes your target audience(s), the platforms you are using, the messaging and design of your content, and the metrics you’ll use to evaluate each campaign. Most marketing calendars stretch for an entire calendar or fiscal year. In addition to the campaigns you’ve already planned, you can use the marketing calendar to discover other marketing campaign ideas like seasons, holidays, or awareness days. Your content calendar will serve as both a checklist and a timeline for all your marketing activities for the year.
Why do I need a content marketing calendar?
I am a huge proponent of strategic planning. Nothing but disaster comes from knee-jerk reactions or making guesses on the fly. Also, marketing decisions should always be made with your business goals in mind. They are not mutually exclusive. It’s important to plan ahead so that your content and tactics don’t compete with each other. Consistent and clear marketing is crucial to building brand recognition. The bottom line is that a content marketing calendar keeps you on track.
How will I use a content marketing calendar?
It is a tool for managing your marketing strategy. Share your calendar with your marketing staff or freelancers like me to collaborate on campaigns, share ideas, and monitor results. You can set deadlines and other milestones so that each campaign is created and launched as planned. With your entire marketing strategy mapped out, you will be more efficient and better equipped to meet your strategic goals.
What do you mean by content?
I’m using the term “marketing content” here to describe a type of marketing in which a business uses educational content to promote its product or service and the type of copy used for advertising and promotion. For more details on the differences between content and copywriting, I’ve written several blogs and LinkedIn posts.
What will be in a content marketing calendar?
For your content marketing calendar, all forms of marketing should be noted. This includes:
- each marketing campaign, including the theme and your target audience
- the content and visuals for each campaign
- the dates each campaign will run
- the marketing channels used
- the KPIs assigned for each campaign
- the leader or employee assigned to each campaign
One of the most important benefits of a content calendar is that you can schedule your marketing strategies so they don’t overlap messaging and cause confusion. It also allows you to develop integrated marketing campaigns to use different channels to reach more people. You can also collaborate and keep track of others who may be sharing the workload.
While a calendar will set your marketing strategy for a year, I suggest leaving a little bandwidth so that you can react to unforeseen events like a news story that highlights your sector or a pandemic shutting down your storefront business. With some wiggle room, you’ll be better able to change or update your marketing strategies temporarily to address the issue.
Building a content marketing calendar is crucial in your strategic marketing plan. A detailed calendar is a visual workflow that will keep you organized and focused on the important task of promoting your brand.
Need help building a content calendar or a content marketing strategy? I’m here to help! Contact me today!
