Creating content is the most necessary annoyance most entrepreneurs and small business owners face.
If you’re managing your content yourself for your business, you know that creating, scheduling, and monitoring content is one of the most time-consuming things in the world. Even if you are the person in the company responsible for managing content, you can relate.
Consistency is the key to brand growth and awareness. So, having a strong content creation process is essential.
Here are five steps to planning your content for an entire quarter.
Review your marketing calendar.
The first step is to know what is going on with your business. Look to see if you have any special events, product launches, special announcements, etc. and place them on your content calendar.
Knowing where these things occur will determine where promotions may need to be or how supporting content can push momentum.
Choose a content theme.
The first thing most people think when they get to this step is to choose a topic. Your theme for the quarter does not have to be one topic. If that’s helpful for you, go for it.
Your theme can be things such as tutorials, service highlights, team member features, or company transparency. Choosing a theme will help you keep your content cohesive and purposeful. So, take some time and look at what’s on the calendar and what goals you have chosen for the quarter, and look to see what kind of theme supports making it all happen.
Brain dump.
I’m sure you weren’t expecting this as step 3. But, this step is crucial. Now that you’ve chosen a theme, now is the time to get all of your ideas out of your head. Don’t try to filter or edit your thoughts. Simply, get it all out. Some ideas may get done; others may not. Now is not the time to focus on which you will or will not execute.
Use this step to dream out loud. Make lists and pages of ideas, promotions, events, contests, or whatever your heart desires. We will make sense of it all later.
Choose and rank your marketing channels.
Now that we know what we want to present to our audience and have a ton of ideas to spread around, now it’s time to figure out what goes where.
List all the marketing channels you are using (Facebook, Instagram, blog, events, email marketing, etc.). Next, rank them from largest (or most involved) content needs to smallest. With this list, assign ideas from your brain dump to each channel.
For example, if your brain dump says “highlight testimonials from past clients,” you may assign that to Facebook. Knowing where it’s going will give you an idea of how long it will be and force you to stay on track. My highlights may then simply be text status with their quote or a graphic template that I’ll use for all testimonials.
If I were to choose to put this idea under blog, it might require a picture of the business owner and their logo, a written backstory on our relationship and the quote. Where you assign the idea determines how much work it will take.
Schedule content creation and content publishing.
Lastly, on the same calendar that you laid out your business happenings, layout when you’d like your content ideas to take place and the channel where they will be presented to your audience. Once you do that, you officially have a content calendar.
That’s not the end. Next, put on your calendar when you will do the work. If you want to plan a few days and knock it all out at once, do it! If you’d prefer to make content creation a regular happening weekly, schedule it out. It does you no good to have a beautiful content calendar, but don’t have a clue when it will get done or who will make it happen.
You should have a beautiful quarter of content that is cohesive and interesting for your audience to know, like, and trust you.
If you find you need help executing these steps, our team is more than happy to help! Schedule a consultation with us today!
GO BE GREAT!
