March 22, 2022
As an internet marketing company, we are continuously trying to drive home to our clients the importance of effective content marketing. It is one of the key foundations that make up a successful online marketing campaign. It is important to put out fresh, relevant content on a regular schedule, but it is equally important that the content offers something of value to the reader. Everything you publish needs to be relevant to your brand, align with your values, and educate, entertain or engage your audience. It is tricky to come up with content that fits these criteria on the fly! That’s why as an internet marketing company, we recommend taking the time to develop a content calendar to plan out your topics in advance.
One of the first things that an internet marketing company like ourselves does when developing an online marketing strategy is work with our clients to define their goals. What you expect to achieve is going to impact the approach. This is also a great starting point when developing your content calendar. Spend some time thinking about what the goal of your content is going to be.
Once you better understand the desired outcome for your content, you will know who it is aimed at, where you should publish it, and possibly even some of the topics you might want to cover. It could be that there is some crossover on some of these goals, and that is perfectly ok. Some people find it helpful to have one content calendar for social media posts and a separate one for blog posts. Others are happy to combine everything on one content calendar. The trick is finding which approach is going to work for you.
The next step is setting up a template for your calendar. There are several tools on the internet for creating content calendars, but some people prefer not to complicate things by introducing new software. Instead, they keep it simple with a spreadsheet or word document. Google Sheets is a great free option that will make collaboration with your team easy. Your content calendar layout will be unique to your needs, but some of the common information you will want to include are:
Once the outline is set up, you should start filing in any seasonal or holiday posts for which you intend to produce content since these will occupy specific dates on your calendar. If you plan to attend or even host any events, you may also want to mark off time to post content relating to those as well.
As an internet marketing company, it would be remiss of us not to remind you that quality matters far more than quantity does when it comes to content marketing. However, that doesn’t mean you can post sporadically whenever a great idea comes along! It is also essential to post on a reasonably regular schedule. Think about how often you want to post. Many factors might impact this, including your business size, number of employees, free time, your industry, and more. The important thing is to be consistent in your schedule. If you publish a weekly blog or YouTube video, many people would like to know it will go live at the same time each week. This helps them get into the habit of engaging with your content. On social media platforms, you will likely want to post more often to remain active on the platform as most will prioritize active business pages when showing content to users.
It is important to regularly update and maintain your content calendar to keep it fresh and relevant. There is no hard and fast rule regarding how far ahead you plan your content, but you will want to make sure topics chosen for the future are not stale. If you intend to plan a few months at a time, stick to evergreen content that you can use at any time. Although you are planning what content you are going to publish, it is also important to be flexible when necessary. If a hot topic suddenly emerges, you will want to jump on that immediately, which means adjusting the content you originally planned to use.
These are just a few of the basics that will help you create a content calendar for your business. If you need any additional assistance with content marketing or any other internet marketing strategies, you can always seek the help of an internet marketing company like bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®.
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To Your Best Online!
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Ingrid Maddox, Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant. bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented, and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn-Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online.
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