Why Is Using A Content Calendar Important?
Content marketing isn’t something that you can dive head first into without planning. With content becoming incredibly vital in 2014, hundreds of channels to spread your message, whilst meeting all of your business objectives, it’s a tough challenge. Planning effectively is an absolute necessity.
With so many digital agencies across the country offering content marketing as a service, how many of them are managing these campaigns efficiently?If you’re not already aware of what a content calendar actually is, let us explain briefly.
A content calendar (an editorial calendar to the old school media outlets) is a plan that shows the next 3-12 months of content including your overall objectives and much more. It shows the type of content (article, infographic, video etc), responsibilities, distribution channels and deadlines. The more people involved in creating content, the more important a content calendar becomes.
Here at Parallax, we love creating content calendars for managing campaigns so we’ve put together a few steps on why they’re so incredibly important.
What are the objectives?
This one is simple. What is your business trying to achieve? Are you wanting to try and increase conversions or leads? Or is it to raise the awareness of your brand? What about increasing your search engine rankings?
As a digital agency, this is the first thing to be thinking about. These are all key questions that need to be asked when creating your content calendar. Thinking about these from the get go will help you to understand what you need to include and what your audience will enjoy and engage with. When plotting ideas and creating your content, you need to ensure that what you’re doing will meet the objectives that you’ve set.
How do I create a calendar?
Think about what needs to be achieved each month, from there you’ll be able to start planning your content. Depending on the objectives, you can start working on titles, where it needs to be published and who is responsible for completing it.
Next it’s time to start jotting these ideas down. Some people prefer to use a good old Excel spreadsheet or a Google Doc. There are also some amazing pieces of software out there that will create the perfect content calendar. Everything from DivvyHQ, Kapost and even Trello can be used. It’s all about working out what works best for you.
Collaboration
Using a content calendar allows for easy collaboration between everybody involved in your marketing team. Whether it’s article writing, research, design, or even approval, a content calendar allows you to assign tasks to each team member and notify them when their particular deadline is. Not only that, it allows everybody to be involved in the ideation process. Think of all of the different backgrounds and experience that your team can bring to the table.
If your clients are involved from the early stages and kept up-to-date throughout the process, your digital agency will save a lot of time
Planning for the future
With your content strategy mapped out within a content calendar in advance, you’ll be able to plan your time effectively, defeat writer’s block and keep your ideas fresh. Whether it’s seasonal and cultural events or company milestones, you’re able to plan each and every piece of content down to a tee. As you’re planning what to write in advance, you can spend more time on research, gather any required assets and ensure everything is signed off by the necessary people.
Define where your content can be used
As well as planning when you need to produce content, a content calendar is also crucial in managing where it needs to be distributed. Do you have ten blog posts that need to be published that month? Or what about a series of images that need to be shared on Pinterest? Don’t forget about the series of off-site guest posts that an editor is waiting for. It’ll also give you an idea of whether you’re covering all of your online marketing channels enough. If your audience is particularly active on Facebook for example, your calendar should show whether you’re publishing enough content there.
Review previous content
As well as showing all of the content you have planned for the future, a content calendar also shows your previous work. Looking back over what you’ve done and analysing how successful it was will help you to identify what type of content your audience relates to. You may also find some of the content that you’ve previously created can be reused or repurposed.
At Parallax, we created an anti drink driving infographic for one of our clients. By updating the 2012 data to 2013 data, we were able to use the content again.
Keep a close eye on everything
Content calendars are vital for anybody managing a digital marketing campaign. As well as the above, here are a few key things to take on board –
Remember your audience – Have a clear understanding of who your target audience are, their personas, interests and much more. This will help you to create ongoing, successful, engaging content.
Objectives are key – Don’t forget what you’re trying to achieve. Every digital strategy needs goals.
Work together – Share your content calendar and ideas with all of the necessary people in the team. Keep them up to date with any changes
Keep it flexible – Planning in advance allows you to adapt your ideas for any particular events or changes in the future. Don’t be afraid to mix it up readjust your plan depending on what works and what doesn’t.
Do you use a content calendar? What’s your favourite thing about it? Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!