Is your content creation team struggling with staying on top of marketing content? If so, you need a comprehensive digital content calendar. Every company, from start-ups to Fortune 500s, can benefit from the structure of a content calendar, so if you’re not using one, you can start to fall behind. Making sure you have planned content posts in advance is one of the best ways to make sure you are providing the consumer with current and relevant information.
Here are our top 5 tips for creating your digital marketing content calendar!
1. Decide what you want to post
When your content creation team begins to build the calendar, they need to decide what kind of content your company would like to post. If you want to post pictures, social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter would be your best options. If you would like to share information about your company’s services, blogs and emails may be best. Do your research on the times that are best to post for each outlet, as you don’t want your posts to get lost in the abyss of social algorithms.
Another question you need to think about is who your ideal audience is going to be. Your content creation team will want to target the content to your audience, so you need to make sure it’s relevant and interesting to get them coming back for more.
2. Decide how often you would like to post
When deciding how often you are going to be posting your content, you have to keep into consideration your bandwidth and goals. If you have a small content creation team and want to garner awareness of your brand, decide a day when your team spends a good amount of time producing content for the whole week. Pre-planning your content not only saves you time, but it can provide insight on how much your team is able to commit to each week.
3. Utilize Marketing Automation Tools
Utilizing a marketing automation tool such as Pardot will make your job even easier because you can schedule out when you would like it to post on your behalf! From social media to email newsletters, a marketing automation tool can effortlessly improve your content output in order to keep consumers engaged all hours of the day. Making sure your content creation team has enough content while they are away from their desk is important, so do some research about which automation tools would provide the best digital marketing assistance.
4. Figure out what’s important
This goes back to the question about what your goals are. For example, if you want to gain awareness for your brand, you may want to focus on using relevant keywords and creating content that shows off why you’re unique; this will keep people engaged and willing to share with others. If you’re looking to gather leads or subscribers, you should focus on gated materials and call-to-actions. These will allow you to attract customers and provide them with a reason to fill out your forms.
On our content calendar, we have factors such as the author, review/approval dates, daily hashtags, and call-to-actions so that we can make sure every area is accounted for. The great thing about creating your own content calendar is the fact that you get to choose what to include, so decide what factors are absolutely necessary to keep your content factory running smoothly.
5. Stick with it!
Your content creation team must stay consistent with posts if you want to stay consistent in your following. Planning out posts in advance is a great way to make sure you stay on top of them, and it also saves time in the long run. You should consider whether or not your topic/theme is something that can always be relevant; hopping onto trends and fad topics will only make your content insignificant in a few months. Having quality content is one of the main ways to create a loyal following and customer base.
Now create that calendar!
Creating a content calendar is a great way to keep your content creation team on track and aware of your daily output. With marketing automation tools you can plan posts in advance, and with most tools, you can track conversion rates and other important stats to report to your team. Deciding what and how much you would like to post is the hard part, so make sure to stay true to your company values and what sets you apart from your competitors. Once you’ve figured that out, all you have to do is make sure you stay consistent!
If you need any digital marketing assistance to set up your content calendar, we are here to help! Contact us to learn more.
