How to Build a Strategic Content Calendar and Stick With It

Content marketing continues to be one of the most powerful ways to communicate to your target audience by distributing relevant and consistent information, graphics, video, articles, and other thought-provoking material. The content you produce can serve as a valuable source of lead generation for your organization, establishing your brand as the go-to expert for a variety of products, services, or advice. According to research by ProfitWell, companies with blogs attract 67% more leads. Plus, nearly 50% of buyers view three to five pieces of content before actively engaging with a company. It works! So why is it so tough to produce interesting content consistently? One of the main culprits is strategy and planning.

To see measurable results for your organization, content marketing needs to be planned and organized in a thoughtful manner. There are many different forms of content, including articles, social media posts, whitepapers, podcasts, video explainers, case studies, and more. To keep your content consistent and interesting, one of the most important steps in content strategy and planning is the creation of a content calendar: the tool you’ll use to stay on task each week and to hold various parties accountable for getting the information you need to your company’s content curators.

Let’s cover how your business can implement a content calendar that actually works and add some successful content marketing tips.

Start With Content Strategy

Your content should be a reflection of who your company is and what it has to offer. Beyond communicating your products and services, you should also establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Consumers base loyal relationships on trust, and your tone and personality should shine through your content as a knowledgeable, caring, and expert source for your target audience.

While you’re providing content to existing clients, you’re also speaking to important prospective customers. Whether your target audience is niche, such as freelance workers in the Midwest, or widespread, such as anyone working in the financial services industry, you should always keep your target audience in mind to better tailor your content and keywords.

A sound content strategy shows a thorough understanding of the value you’re providing to your audience. In your content strategy plan, you should include the following:

• Objectives
• Categories
• Target audiences or personas
• Ideas
• Formats
• Distribution channels

A major factor of a successful content strategy is planning ahead for research, writing, and evaluation of content, so you can continue improving your content and avoid spreading yourself too thin.

Building Sustainable Blocks In A Content Calendar

Once you’ve defined clear goals for what you aim to achieve through your content, such as providing financial advice, improving product knowledge, or highlighting current industry trends, you can start putting your strategy into action. You can organize your goals by content categories, such as company news, financial knowledge, or team and culture.

Once you’ve decided on content categories that accurately portray your offerings and organization, you can create a list of formats that are best suited for your categories. An example of how categories and formats flow together is a piece on your financial institution’s culture and recent news. Your company could publish a short video in which a team member explains how to use a new product. This format allows viewers to get a feel of your team’s culture, receive answers to anticipated questions, and have a step-by-step experience so they can be more comfortable when trying your product or service.

If you wanted to focus on a financial advice piece, you could write a short, listicle-style article that shares ten tips for money management for recent college graduates. Once you brainstorm a list of content ideas you want to produce, the topics naturally fall under a category and format that best represents your idea.

When putting together your calendar, you should organize your ideas into a regular cadence. The columns can be separated by planned publication dates, topics, a short description, the category and format it falls under, distribution channels, and extra space for comments and status updates.

An evergreen factor of successful content marketing is fresh and intriguing content. While translating your ideas into a calendar that spans the next three to six months, you should aim for a mix of content categories and formats that are not repetitive and keep your audience engaged. Your FI or fintech can create a steady pattern that rotates categories and formats so that your audience won’t feel like they’re reading the same content over and over again.

Putting Your Content Calendar Into Action

It’s your responsibility to decide on the allotted time it takes to thoroughly research, write, and edit your various types of content. A short article might be ready for publishing in a week, but a whitepaper takes much longer, sometimes 6-8 weeks from research to a designed, landing page-loaded piece.

To hold your content team and partners accountable, you can follow some tips that are centered around your calendar:

TIP 1: It’s helpful to set aside weekly or biweekly meetings to go over your content calendar, discuss current and upcoming content, and evaluate past projects for feedback and improvement. These check-ins ensure that your team is on the same page, so your content is manageable and published on time.

TIP 2: Set a reminder to revisit your content calendar strategy once every 4-6 months; you’ll have a new perspective on what works and what doesn’t with your audience.

TIP 3: Setup your analytics so they tell you a meaningful story. Looking at top article page views doesn’t necessarily tell your “top performing” content. If your goals were centered around organic traffic generation, look at the pages showing the highest lift in organic traffic or use an SEO tool to monitor what pages are indexed higher in search results pages. If your goal is lead generation or account application entries, be sure to setup event tags to appropriately attribute your pathing from content to conversion.

A well-organized content calendar is the key to success. By following these tips for content strategy and calendar creation, you’re on the way to publishing consistent, high-performing content that generates leads and distributes thought-provoking material.

Accountability plays a critical role in your content’s longevity, and it’s important to schedule regular check-ins to evaluate past, present and future content projects’ performance. HIFI Agency helps financial institutions and fintechs across the world with content marketing. Reach out to us if you’d like to discuss how to improve your content’s performance.