Save the date! If you work in business planning or marketing there are bound to be countless events throughout the year that you need to remember and there is nothing worse than to have these all important dates sneak up from out of the blue.

With this in mind it is vital that you create a content calendar early in the year to notify you that a special event is right around the corner.

Why you need a content calendar

You may be thinking to yourself that you have more than enough time to prepare for the events that pop up throughout the year, but the bottom line is that a content calendar helps you to keep control.

There’ll be no more winging it and coming up with ideas at the last minute. Your content calendar will give you plenty of warning and if you earmark out countdowns to specific events you’ll find that you start planning for them much further in advance than you normally would, and that can only help you to come up with some fantastic unique content ideas that are really going to hit the spot.

If you need further convincing about the importance of planning, these inspirational quotes will surely help to change your mindset.

Making your content calendar

You can design your content calendar in whichever way you like, just make sure that it is organised and easy to understand.

Many people who work in marketing today tend to lean towards technology. They’ll have a fancy spreadsheet or make use of a calendar app that sends them a notification a few weeks in advance of each event so that they have more than enough time to prepare.

If you want to have a stab at creating a content calendar in Microsoft Excel, take a look at this plain English step-by-step guide.

The choice is yours. If you aren’t into computers and you prefer to be a bit more artistic, there is nothing stopping you from getting a sheet of A3 paper and creating a visually appealing calendar that sits above your desk so that you can see it each and every day.

Events to include on your calendar

The events that you include on your calendar will largely be dictated by the industry that you are working in. Let’s say you are working in the gifts industry, there are bound to be certain dates that are extremely important to you but less important to other businesses.

Father’s Day is a lucrative time for gift businesses but for other companies such as accountancy firms it’s more of a time to create a quick social media post to wish their followers a great day. You can instantly see how one business will have to spend more time planning content for Father’s Day than the other.

As a gift company you’ll probably want to start planning your content for Father’s Day well in advance. It’s a time to create promotions, visual guides centered on specific gifts and more.

Say you are selling cigars. You’ll want to create social media posts and utilize other forms of content that illustrate them being the perfect gift for a dad.

Other events to include on your content calendar are:

• Christmas Day
• Boxing Fay
• Mother’s Day
• Easter
• Sporting Events

Don’t forget to include any important dates that are specific to your business, such as attendance at a major conference or consumer trade show.

So there you have it. Whilst a bit of spontaneity can sometimes be good in life, creating a well thought out content calendar is a must if you work in business planning or marketing. You never want to be stuck with thinking of last minute ideas and we are sure that you’ll notice a considerable difference in the quality of your content if you begin planning early.