It’s a new year, so it’s time to kick off your digital marketing strategy for 2019. There’s something so refreshing about starting a new year. It’s a time to try new things, reflect on the past and grow your business’s potential. An essential part of your business is creating a content calendar that reflects your brands overall strategy.

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A content calendar is exactly what it sounds like… a hub of content reflecting a specific timeline, usually a month ahead. It’s a way for you to plan the month to come, right down to your Social Media captions. It enables you to create a long-term strategy, in a visually appealing and easy to understand way.

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Here are five reasons why it plays a key part in your success.

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Stay organized

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Plain and simple. Having a content calendar enables you to stay organized and on track on a daily basis. Having all your content from blogs, to Social Media posts, to reminders all in one document helps you have a clear understanding of what each day has planned. It gives you the opportunity to organize your content in a way that will best engage your clients.

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Plan ahead

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It takes time to create a strategic content calendar but the results will be well worth it. One of the main benefits is to plan your entire month - to visually see the strategy behind the posts. Are you piling on too much in a week? Are you lacking engagement? Are you missing key dates? All these questions and more will be answered as you lay all your content out. Another benefit to planning ahead is that you will be able to reflect back on what worked well and what didn’t in previous months to tweak your strategy going forward.

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Save yourself time

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Creating a content calendar correctly and strategically will take some serious ‘heads-down’ time. There’s a lot that goes into it to make it what it needs to be. You need to take your pictures and edit them, write your blog posts, create engaging captions and the list goes on. No one has time to be doing all of these things on a daily basis as you manage your business. Hunker down for a couple days and create a strong content calendar – you’ll thank yourself in the long run when you’ll have a ‘grab and go’ style document while posting every day.

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Create quality posts

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There’s nothing worse than feeling rushed and posting something that isn’t quality for your brand. As a business owner, it’s safe to say you very rarely have down time. If you don’t get in the habit of creating a solid content calendar, you risk having sloppy posts. If you give yourself the time to plan ahead, you’ll be able to ensure that every post, no matter how big or small is filled with high quality content that represents your brand in the best way possible.

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Consistency is key

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One of the benefits of creating a content calendar is the ability to stay consistent with your content. You’ll be able to keep the tone of voice, the editing and the theme the same throughout all your online channels. People are more engaged with a brand when their content has a consistent theme and meaningful posts. Planning ahead will give you the ability to ensure everything you are doing online flows and is aligned with your brand.

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A content calendar is only as good as the work you are willing to put into. It’s daunting at first to plan ahead a whole month when you have a long list of to-do’s just for today. But the benefits to having a strategic content calendar will benefit you in the long run. You’ll be able to see your digital marketing plan in a big picture format and see the flow of your brands success. Not only will you have quick access to your daily posting but with everything done and finalized, you remove the stresses that come with managing all your online platforms.

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Need help creating a content calendar that works for your business? We’d be happy to help! Send us an email at hello@mintandpoppy.com.

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