How to Create a Content Calendar that Works
I’ve spent the last 10 years of my career in content roles. I’ve lead content marketing teams at big ecommerce groups, started new content functions from scratch, and helped brands big and small refine their content efforts to get the results they need.
A lot of the issues or inefficiencies I’ve seen throughout my career lie in lack of planning. It’s amazing how many teams rely on doing things last-minute, without much time to think about what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.
I’m a big fan of planning. It keeps teams focussed, ensures you’re always thinking strategically, and prevents spending hours of your day trying to think of what to do.
With digital content, it’s important to be flexible. Sometimes things happen and you need to adapt. Something might happen in the world — like, say, a global pandemic — and suddenly the content you’ve planned isn’t relevant or appropriate, so always have your wits about you. But having that plan in place helps you quickly spot where you might need to change something and stops that panic from setting in when you do.
Enter the content calendar
What’s a content calendar, I hear you ask? Essentially, it’s a documented plan of what you’re doing on what channel and when. This can be shared amongst your team so everyone knows what’s going on and will know to expect a spike in sales of a certain product if you’re pushing it, or an increase in traffic to certain pages on your website.
Some people like to incorporate their content calendar into their marketing calendar, some like to create a separate one that purely focuses on content. For the sake of this article, I’ll focus purely on a separate monthly content calendar.
Here’s what to include in your content calendar:
- Key seasonal dates (e.g. holidays such as Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, if they’re relevant to your brand)
- Key brand dates (e.g. a new product or collection launch)
- Content focus per channel
The below table is how I set up a content calendar, with fictionalised examples and dates. This looks at a week but you could keep it going for as long as you’d like. At the top of the calendar, I lay the week out day by day, followed by any key dates underneath (note: some weeks there won’t be any ‘key’ dates, which is fine. You actually don’t want too many key dates or you’ll end up trying to focus on too many things).
Underneath that, I include a row for laying out what content pillar it falls under. This helps you make sure you’re not deviating from your pillars and helps you see if you’re focusing too much on one or two pillars, or if there’s a relatively even split.
I then break it down per channel, with a description of what’s happening on that channel each day. Your channels may look different to this, depending on which ones you’re focusing on or using.
It’s up to you how far in advance you create your calendar. I’ve worked at big global brands where plans are done three or even six months in advance, and small brands where plans are done a week in advance. I’d suggest creating a skeleton plan per quarter and mapping out the ‘big’ moments each month so if you want to do a big campaign that involves a bit more leg work, you’ve got plenty of time to get it done.
Remember that production of some (not all) content can take a while, especially if you’re engaging influencers or content creators who may have other work commitments. Also factor in time to write your briefs, approve the content and make any amends if necessary, and get all your ducks in a row before going live. Once you’ve got your bigger projects in place, you can be a bit more flexible with how far in advance you plan your other day to day content.
Parts of this article are taken from my book, ‘Making Content Work: Tips, tools and templates for your brand or business’. Available now on Amazon, in paperback or Kindle.
