How to Create a Content Calendar For Your Small Business

As a small business owner, you know how challenging it can be to consistently create and publish high-quality content that resonates with your audience. That’s where a content calendar comes in – it’s an essential tool for planning, organizing, and scheduling your content in advance. A well-crafted content calendar can help you stay on track, ensure that your content aligns with your business goals, and ultimately take your content marketing efforts to the next level.

But what exactly is a content calendar? Simply put, it’s a centralized schedule that helps you plan, organize, and publish your content in advance. By mapping out your content strategy and creating a timeline for your blog posts, social media updates, email newsletters, and other marketing materials, you can ensure that your messaging is consistent, timely, and tailored to your target audience.

Importance of Content Calendars for Small Businesses

An editorial calendar is valuable for small businesses with limited resources and competing priorities. It allows you to:

• Save time by batching your content creation and avoiding last-minute scrambles
• Maintain a consistent brand voice and messaging across all channels
• Align your content with key events, promotions, and product launches
• Collaborate more effectively with your team and external partners
• Measure your results and optimize your strategy over time

The Benefits of Using a Content Calendar

Investing time in creating a content calendar can pay off in multiple ways:

1. Increased organization and productivity: By planning your content, you can work more efficiently and avoid missed deadlines or gaps in your publishing schedule.
2. Improved content quality: When you’re not rushing to create content at the last minute, you have more time to research, write, and edit high-quality pieces that resonate with your audience.
3. Better alignment with business goals: A content calendar helps ensure that your content supports your overarching business objectives, whether that’s driving traffic, generating leads, or increasing brand awareness.
4. Enhanced collaboration: With a centralized content calendar, it’s easier to collaborate with team members, assign tasks, and keep everyone on the same page regarding your social media strategy.
5. Greater flexibility and agility: By planning, you can also build flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances or jump on timely opportunities as they arise.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of content calendars and why they’re so crucial for small businesses, let’s dive into the steps you can take to create your own.

Define Your Content Goals

Before filling in your calendar, step back and define your content goals. What do you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts? Some common goals include:

• Increasing brand awareness and reach
• Driving traffic to your website
• Generating leads and sales
• Engaging and retaining customers
• Establishing thought leadership in your industry

Use the SMART framework to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, instead of a vague goal like “increase website traffic,” aim for something more concrete like “increase organic website traffic by 25% over the next quarter.”

Once you have clear goals, you can create purposeful content aligning with your business objectives.

Identify Your Target Audience

To create content that resonates with your ideal customers, you must deeply understand who they are, what they care about, and where they spend their time online. Conduct market research to gather demographic and psychographic data about your target audience, including:

• Age, gender, location, and income level
• Job title, industry, and company size
• Pain points, challenges, and goals
• Interests, hobbies, and online behaviour

Use this information to create detailed audience personas representing your ideal customers and inform your social media strategy. Give each persona a name, a photo, and a detailed backstory to bring them to life. Tools like HubSpot and Xtensio can help you create professional-looking persona templates.

Keep your audience personas front and center as you plan and create your content. Ask yourself questions like:

• What topics will this persona care about?
• What format and tone will resonate with them?
• Where and when are they most likely to engage with this content?

By tailoring your content to your target audience, you’ll be more likely to attract and retain their attention over time.

Choose Your Content-Type:

You can create many types of content, each with strengths and best practices. Some popular options include:

Choose a mix of content types that aligns with your goals, audience preferences, and available resources. You don’t need to do everything at once – start with one or two core types and expand your social media presence over time as you build your content creation muscles.

Consider each piece’s best format and structure as you plan your content. For example:

• Blog post formats: How-to guides, listicles, opinion pieces, interviews, roundups
• Video styles: Talking head, screen share, animated explainer, live-action
• Infographic layouts: Timeline, process, comparison, geographic

Varying your content formats will help keep your audience engaged and allow you to experiment with different creative approaches.

Build Your Content Creation Workflow

Once you have a handle on your content goals, audience, types, and formats, it’s time to build your content creation workflow. You’ll follow this process to ideate, plan, create, and publish each piece of content.

Your workflow will likely involve multiple steps and stakeholders, which may include:

• Ideation: Brainstorming topics, conducting keyword research, and gathering inspiration from industry blogs, social media, and customer feedback.
• Planning: Outlining your content piece, identifying key takeaways and calls to action, and assigning roles and deadlines are essential for an effective social media content calendar.
• Creation: Writing, designing, and editing your content, incorporating stakeholder feedback, and ensuring alignment with your brand voice and style guide.
• Optimization: Adding metadata, tags, and other elements to optimize your content for search engines and social media.
• Scheduling and publishing: Loading your content into your content management system or social media scheduling tool, double-checking links and formatting, and scheduling it to go live at the optimal time.
• Distribution and promotion: Sharing your content across your owned and earned channels, engaging with your audience, and monitoring performance.

Documenting your workflow will help ensure that everyone on your team knows what’s expected of them and can work efficiently to create high-quality content consistently.

Choose Your Content Calendar Tools

With your content creation workflow in place, it’s time to choose the tools you’ll use to plan, organize, and publish your content. Many options are available, from simple spreadsheets to robust content marketing platforms. Some popular tools include:

• Google Sheets: Utilize it to create a social media content calendar template for better organization. A free, web-based spreadsheet tool that allows for easy collaboration and sharing.
• Trello: A visual project management tool that uses boards, lists, and cards to help you organize your content pipeline.
• Asana: A comprehensive project management platform with features like task assignments, deadlines, and calendar views.
• CoSchedule: An all-in-one content marketing platform with a drag-and-drop calendar, social media scheduling, and analytics.
• Airtable: A flexible, spreadsheet-database hybrid that allows you to create custom content calendars and track progress.

Choose a tool that fits your team’s needs, budget, and technical expertise. Look for features like:

• Customizable views (e.g. calendar, kanban board, spreadsheet)
• Collaboration and commenting
• Integrations with other tools (e.g., social media channels) can enhance your overall strategy. Google Drive, WordPress, social media platforms)
• Mobile apps for on-the-go access
• Analytics and Reporting

Many tools offer free trials or freemium plans, so don’t be afraid to experiment until you find the right fit.

Plan Your Content Mix

With your tools in place, it’s time to start filling in your content calendar. As you plan your content mix, consider:

• Content themes: What topics, questions, or pain points will you address monthly or quarterly? Consider creating content pillars or buckets to help you generate ideas and maintain a cohesive narrative across your social media channels.
• Key dates: What seasonal events, holidays, or industry milestones are coming up that you can create content around? Use a tool like Google Trends to identify relevant search terms and plan your content accordingly.
• Content cadence: Consider aligning it with your social media content calendar for better engagement. How frequently will you publish each type of content? For example, you might plan to publish one blog post per week, three social media posts daily, and one monthly email newsletter.
• Promotional vs. educational content: Aim for a balance of content that promotes your products or services and educates, entertains, or inspires your audience. A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should be valuable and informative, while 20% can be more promotional.

Use a tool like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords and topics to target in your content. Aim to create a mix of evergreen content (timeless pieces that will continue to drive traffic and engagement) and timely content (pieces that capitalize on current events, trends, or seasonal themes).

As you plan your content mix, be realistic about your team’s bandwidth and resources. It’s better to consistently publish a smaller amount of high-quality content than to overcommit and struggle to keep up.

Create Compelling Content

Now it’s time to start creating your content! As you write, design, and edit each piece, keep these best practices in mind:

• Hook your audience: Start with an attention-grabbing headline and opening paragraph that draws readers in and encourages them to keep reading.
• Provide value: Focus on creating content that educates, entertains, or solves a problem for your audience. Use examples, case studies, and data to back up your points.
• Write for the web: Use short paragraphs, subheadings, and bullet points to break up your text and make it easy to scan. Optimize your content for search engines by including relevant keywords in your headlines, subheadings, and throughout your copy.
• Use visuals: Incorporate images, videos, infographics, and other visual elements to break up your text and reinforce your key points. Use high-quality, branded visuals that align with your brand aesthetic.
• Incorporate calls to action in your posts: End each piece of content with a clear call to action that tells your audience what to do next, whether that’s subscribing to your newsletter, downloading a resource, or making a purchase.
• Edit and proofread: Before publishing, review each piece for grammar, spelling, and formatting errors. Consider using a tool like Grammarly or Hemingway to help you catch mistakes and improve your writing.
• Collaborate and iterate: Encourage your team to provide feedback and suggestions for improving each piece of content. Use version control tools like Google Docs , Google Calendar, or Dropbox to keep track of changes and ensure everyone is working from the latest draft.

Remember, creating great content is an iterative process. Don’t be afraid to experiment, learn from your successes and failures, and continuously refine your approach over time.

Distribute and Promote Your Content

Once your content is created, it’s time to get it in front of your target audience. Use a mix of owned, earned, and paid channels to distribute and promote your content, including:

• Your website: Publish your blog posts, videos, and other content to drive traffic and engagement.
• Social media: Share your content on the platforms where your target audience is most active. Use hashtags, mentions, and tags to increase visibility and reach.
• Email: Send your content to your email subscribers as part of a regular newsletter or as a standalone email blast to promote your social media presence.
• Guest posting: Reach new audiences by publishing content on other relevant websites and blogs in your industry.
• Paid advertising: Use paid social media advertising, Google AdWords, or other advertising platforms to promote your content to a targeted audience.
• Influencer outreach: Partner with influencers in your industry to co-create content or promote your content to their followers.
• PR: Pitch your content to journalists and media outlets to earn press coverage and backlinks.

Use your content calendar to plan and track your distribution and promotion efforts. Consider using a social media marketing scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to automate your posts and free up time for other tasks.

Measure and Adjust Your Results

Finally, use analytics and reporting tools to measure the performance of your content and adjust your strategy over time. Some key metrics to track include:

• Traffic: How many people are visiting your website or landing pages? Use a tool like Google Analytics to track your traffic sources and identify your most popular content.
• Engagement: How are people interacting with your content? Track metrics like time on page, bounce rate, comments, and shares to gauge the effectiveness of your content.
• Conversions: Is your content driving leads and sales? Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics or your marketing automation platform to measure the ROI of your content marketing efforts.
• SEO: Is your content ranking well in search engine results pages? Use a tool like Google Search Console or Ahrefs to track your search engine rankings and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Social media: How is your content performing on social media? Use the native analytics tools each platform provides to track your reach, engagement, and follower growth.

Use your content calendar to track your metrics and identify trends over time. Look for patterns in your top-performing content and use those insights to inform your future content planning and creation.

Remember, content marketing is a long-term strategy. Don’t expect overnight results, but commit to consistently creating and promoting high-quality content that provides value to your audience. With time and effort, your content calendar will become a valuable tool for driving business growth and success.

Conclusion

Creating a content calendar may seem daunting, but it’s essential for any small business looking to build a successful content marketing strategy. By setting clear goals, understanding your target audience, choosing the right tools and content types, and consistently planning, creating, and promoting high-quality content, you can establish your business as a trusted and authoritative voice in your industry.

Use this guide as a starting point to build your content calendar and workflow. Start small, experiment with different approaches, and continuously measure and refine your efforts. You’ll be well on your way to content marketing success with patience and persistence.

Need more help creating a winning content strategy? Contact the experts at Online Boost for personalized guidance and support in developing your social media strategy. We’ll work with you to develop a custom content plan that drives results for your unique business needs and goals.