How do you make a content calendar?

1 Define your content goals

Before you start filling your calendar with topics and dates, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your content. Do you want to increase traffic, engagement, conversions, or awareness? How do you measure your success? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will track and report? Having SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals will help you create content that is relevant, valuable, and effective.

2 Identify your target audience

The next step is to understand who you are creating content for. Who are your ideal customers or readers? What are their pain points, needs, interests, and preferences? How do they consume content? What channels and formats do they prefer? You can use tools like buyer personas, customer journey maps, and surveys to gather and analyze data about your audience. This will help you create content that resonates with them and solves their problems.

4 Choose your content types and channels

Based on your goals, audience, and audit, you can decide what types and channels of content you want to create and distribute. For example, you can choose from blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, videos, infographics, webinars, social media posts, newsletters, and more. You can also choose from different platforms and networks, such as your website, blog, email, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more. You should consider the strengths, limitations, and requirements of each type and channel, as well as how they fit your budget, resources, and timeline.

5 Create a content calendar template

A content calendar template is a framework that helps you organize and visualize your content plan. You can use tools like Google Sheets, Excel, Trello, Asana, or CoSchedule to create and manage your content calendar. You can customize the template to fit your needs and preferences, but some common elements that should be included are the content title or topic, type and format, channel and platform, goal and KPI, deadline and publish date, status and progress, owner and team members, and notes and comments. With a content calendar template, you can easily track your content plan's progress to ensure it meets your objectives.

6 Fill and update your content calendar

The final step is to fill your content calendar with your content ideas and details. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic, or HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator to generate and validate your content topics. You can also use tools like Grammarly, Hemingway, or Yoast to optimize your content for readability, SEO, and tone. You should aim to create a balance of evergreen and timely content, as well as a mix of content formats and channels. You should also update your content calendar regularly to reflect any changes, feedback, or results.