Marketing Content Planner and Calendar – get started in 5 easy steps

It’s time to get planning your marketing content for the new year!

I know… you might be thinking… NO! Not the marketing calendar again!

But I truly cannot stress how much this one tool will help you save time and money. Today, I am going to share 5 easy steps to get started using this tool. So don’t stop reading now. Stick with me. (You can also purchase this marketing planner below.)

Wasted Time!

It really is the biggest complaint I hear from consults with clients – how they feel they are wasting all their time on marketing. And, they are not alone. I bet if I did a survey of you all, many of you would indicate you DO feel that you waste time with your marketing.

(In fact, let’s see what everyone DOES say. Quickly visit this link – yes I made a short survey – and enter your answer! Then, come back here and finish this article!)

Back to wasted time. The biggest tip I can give you is to use a marketing content planner of some sort. It does not matter what tool or system you use, but you need to use something to keep you organized and looking forward to the next 90 days of what you will be doing. And, if all you do is a simple spreadsheet with dates and ideas, that is GREAT! To me, that is the easiest way to do it … and simple to use. Let’s get started.

First, I will share my secret path of marketing content. This is important so you know what venues you plan to put the marketing content on. My secret path goes like this:

Newsletter to Blog to Social Media.

This gives you the best bang for the content and it is easy to change along each step in the path.

If you want a ready made content planner that helps you plan out an entire year of content, check out the Pepper It Marketing Ultimate Marketing Content Planner. It will save you a ton of time and has over 500 posts you can copy and paste to use as your own.

5 Steps to Planning your Marketing Content

STEP 1: Create your Content Planner and Calendar (see sample image below).

In a spreadsheet, make the first column with the months of the year going down – start at row 2 though. Then, to the right add in more columns in the top row – Focus Topic – News / Events, Special Product to Promote and then Marketing Item 1 (I use Newsletter in the sample and add in 2, 3 or 4 depending on how many items you will publish per month). Then, add in a column for Keywords to Include, Blog, and Social Media if you plan to use these. If not, fill in where ever you want your content posted.

STEP 2: Make a list of any events, programs, or new things in the business.

Sort them in order of upcoming date. Place the info in Column 2 – Focus Topic – News / Events – by the month in which it will occur. Place any special sales or promotional items in Column 3 – Special Product to Promote – if they have a date specific sale / time to them. If not, you may want to simply list them out to save and add when you decide what fits with the main topic.

STEP 3: Brainstorm article ideas.

Look at the events and months, and brainstorm ideas for marketing articles to share with your readers or community. I like to have the Inner Circle members create a bucket of topic ideas: 6 main topics your ideal clients would want to learn more about. Then, come up with 6 subtopics for each idea. Now, you have a list of 24 article ideas. An entire year if you did a newsletter every 2 weeks. Write the idea in the column title for the first venue to share – i.e. Newsletter 1.

STEP 4: Fill in the marketing content planner with 3 months of the article ideas.

Even if it is not the final idea you end up with, you have looked at it, planned something and have an idea of what to use. When the time comes to prepare your content, it can evolve somewhat as long as it still fits with and supports the focus topic or the promotional item.

STEP 5: Create the content in time to market it.

Now you have the next 3 months filled with ideas and plans. The next big step is to create that content ahead of time so it is ready when you need it. Write the main article, then make a copy for the blog, ensuring it has the specific formatting it might need when it is put on a blog (ie. headline and subheading, call to action, etc). Then, you can pull out social media content from the articles to use. For social media, when I want to give my followers more info, I make the social media post lead the reader to the blog post.

BONUS STEP

CREATE A SCHEDULE AND BLOCK OFF CONTENT CREATION TIME IN YOUR WEEKLY CALENDAR.

You will want to create this schedule so you do not miss the time when content needs to be ready. I like to have my articles done at least 1 week before the newsletter publish date. Then, we prep the blog once that is ready and pull social media content from it to use.

The social media content MAY need to be published earlier depending on timelines. So watch for that and put it in the content creation schedule. For example, if I am promoting a bootcamp in a newsletter article that starts in 2 weeks, waiting a week or two to start making the social media content makes no sense. It will be too late.

These are the 5 main steps to making a Marketing Content Planner and Calendar work for you and your business.

Try it out. Follow the steps and create your planner, fill in the information and once you know what content you will be putting out there, making it is now a little easier. You have the focus topics – write down what you would share to someone face to face and make written article from that.

These steps will save you time in the long run. When you plan your marketing more efficiently that will save you time chasing around ideas and topics.

 

Get consistent with your content marketing and get it done in less time! Grab this ready-made content planner that comes with a mini training on how to use it along with content ideas, topics, sample schedules and even 500+ content you can copy, paste and use as your own.

Check out the Ultimate Marketing Content Planner today and kickstart the new year ready to plan and schedule your marketing content so you can save time and attract new clients with purposeful content!

​Click here for more details on the Ultimate Marketing Content Planner.