Is it too early to whisper Christmas in your ear? With the festive season just around the corner and 2020 following shortly behind, it’s time to think about your calendar. No, I’m not talking about an Advent Calendar, (even the ones with tiny bottles of gin inside), which I’d love to have BTW, just in case my family are reading this. I’m talking about your 2020 Content Marketing Calendar. So, in this article, I thought I would share five tips to help you develop yours.
5 Tips to help you develop your Content Marketing Calendar:
Know who you’re writing for… And why:
Before you even get started on your content marketing calendar, be sure to know the persona of your ideal client or customer. You can craft the most fabulous content ever, but if it doesn’t speak to your audience or answer their questions, it counts for nothing. Once you’ve established precisely who you’re writing for be sure to pinpoint your content goals. You may wish to drive sales, increase brand awareness or just retain existing clients. It’s possible that you want to do all of these things. But the more specific you can be about your end goal, the more you’ll be able to knuckle down the type of content you need to create. If you want to increase brand awareness, you may ask an influencer to review a new product. But if you’re aiming to retain existing clients, you might want to update them on new services or upgraded products.
Set up the starting blocks:
Before you begin to plan your content marketing calendar, it helps to know where you are in terms of search engine rankings. There are plenty of tools out there that will help you determine your current position. But one that we use is SE Ranking.
Planning makes perfect content, but prepare to change course:
Always plan your content marketing calendar ahead of time. If you have a rolling schedule mapped out at least three months in advance, you’re more likely to get stuck in and create your content. That said, don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan. Sometimes things will pop up in your business or industry that are so newsworthy you simply have to share the news or your opinion.
Determine your channels:
Since Internet immemorial, social channels have come and gone. There’s always a new kid on the block, and some are more popular than others. It seems that at the moment Podcasts are making a huge resurgence. My advice to clients has always stayed the same; you don’t have to ‘do’ every channel. Pick a few content marketing channels that you know your audience uses or even the ones that you enjoy using. Better to build an engaged audience using two or three channels than spread yourself too thinly across five or six, and end up speaking to nobody. Yes, I know there are scheduling tools you can use, but there’s not much point in scheduling unless you can monitor the conversation.
Talk to us:
We work with clients in a variety of ways. Sometimes we develop our client’s content marketing calendars on their behalf. But sometimes, especially with sole traders, we develop calendars in conjunction with them. Sometimes it helps to brainstorm ideas. And when you think there’s nothing to write about, we find a nugget and help you expand on it!
We are currently working with clients on their content marketing calendars for 2020. If you’d like help with yours, contact us HERE.
