How to Confidently Create a Monthly Content Calendar for your Brand 🎉
Most startups, small businesses, and nonprofits have so much they want to communicate to their target audience, but they don’t have a clear plan for how and when to say it. They’re not sure which messages are best suited for social media, and which ones would be better received via their podcast, blog, or email communications.
Without a consistent, strategic plan, many brands are just throwing out random content at the wall with no idea of what will stick. Their messaging comes across as confusing, or even worse, too pushy, to their current and prospective customers.
As we all know, people’s patience and attention spans are short, and they won’t hesitate to unsubscribe and unfollow if they’re feeling annoyed or pressured by what you’re saying.
This is where developing a monthly content calendar comes in! With all marketing tactics, having a strategic plan is a game changer for building brand awareness, affinity, and positive engagement.
1. Start with Solid Brand Messaging
Before you put any content out to your audience, it’s essential to clearly define your brand’s target audience and messaging.
Pro Tip: Write out your unique mission, vision, values, as well as your key characteristics, communication goals, style, and tone.
Develop clear and consistent brand messaging by asking yourself the following questions:
Who is my target audience, and what do they want?
What are my customer’s problems (keeping them from what they want)?
Have I positioned my customer as the hero and my brand as their guide?
Have I created a clear plan for the hero to win the day?
Are my calls to action clear?
(If this already sounds too overwhelming, reach out to meredith@confidentbrands.co to have a brand script and content calendar created for you. You’ll instantly see the effectiveness that brand messaging brings to having a strong marketing strategy.)
With your brand messaging in place, you can use it as a filter through which to run all your content. Before you plan or publish anything, check it against your brand messaging, ensuring that everything you communicate is in line with your brand’s identity, voice, and the messages you want your audience to receive.
2. Plan Content That Nurtures Before It Sells
As a best practice, 80% of the content you put out through your brand’s communication channels should nurture, or provide value, to your audience.
Pro Tip: Your customers are far more likely to engage with you when they know they can count on you to educate, equip, and inspire them with no strings attached.
Position yourself as a dependable resource on which your followers can rely. Provide them with free tools, engaging articles, and share-worthy posts. This builds brand affinity and loyalty, warming up your audience and increasing the chances for selling or promotion.
3. Consistency is Key
Now you’re ready to put a clear calendar in place. You’ll see the impact of having a central place where you can plan and track all the content your audience will see over the next 30 days.
Pro Tip: Try setting a theme or campaign to carry out each month, honing in on a specific product or service offering through all your communications.
This is where a lot of businesses struggle. They are on board with creating a content from month to month and excited to get started, but after 2 months go by, surely something comes up and your online presence takes a back seat to everything else you need to focus on. By being consistently publishing content, you will build trust with your audience and they will buy in to your services more often. If you ever need help with consistency with your content calendar, we would be more than happy to help.
Start by analyzing data. Decide how many episodes, blog posts, newsletters, and social posts are most effective for you, and set your cadence accordingly. For example, you may decide to publish a daily Facebook post, but maybe you only post to LinkedIn once a week. Your audience may respond to fewer emails, and more podcast episodes or blog posts. Figure out what your followers want (and how and when they want it), and then consistently deliver it to them.
Once you’ve developed a plan around the type of content your audience likes the most, refer back to your brand messaging to make sure every communication is in line with your brand identity and has a clear call to action. This monthly blueprint can keep you from spontaneously posting things that aren’t consistent with your brand voice, or could turn off your audience and derail your marketing goals. We’re all guilty of coming in a bit too hot on social media sometimes, and having this filter in place can keep you from publishing anything you may later regret!
4. Adjust Accordingly
Remember that your content calendar is not set in stone, and should be adjusted as your brand and audience grows and changes.
Pro Tip: Track and monitor all your content to figure out what’s working and what isn’t, and pivot accordingly the next month. Pay attention to key dates or news events that may be on your audience members’ minds throughout the month, and edit or reschedule content as necessary to avoid coming across as tone deaf, irrelevant, or insensitive.
Your content calendar should be an ever-changing work in progress. When executed well, this tool can help you deliver digital communication that takes your brand to the next level.
So, maybe this was helpful…
Or maybe you still feel clueless on how to create an effective content calendar that represents your brand well. HELP!
Don’t worry – That’s where we come in.
Our team of experts make it easy. Together let’s reach your audience with your own custom content calendar today. Email meredith@confidentbrands.co for details.
