Transcript: [ModMarketing] Step-by-Step Process to Create a Quarterly Content Calendar

Can you really create a 3-month content calendar in just a few hours? I say yes, it can be done. I know because I do this for not one but two companies. And, in today’s special ModMarketing episode I’m going to show the steps to create your own quarterly content calendar.

This is a jam-packed episode, so grab a cup of coffee and pen and paper to take notes. I’m going to walk you through the same step-by-step process I use for both Full Sail Partners and Marketers Take flight to plan our three months full of content – in just a few hours’ time. This process will save you time, headaches, and frustration, not to mention getting the internal approvals needed or being able to work way ahead to get the technical content you need from your busy subject-matter experts.

So, if you’re ready to have the next quarter’s content planned out, including the content you’ll release each week, and your social media posts, I’ve got you covered.

[intro music]

Well hey there marketers are you ready for this episode to change your life? You’ve learned that content is the fuel that gets your ModMarketing strategy fired up. And, creating content is often a chore, that get created in between proposal deadlines. I think we call know that.

But in this episode, I break down this down into a simple step-by-step approach that will ensure you know exactly what you’re creating, when you’re creating it, and how to get it created, even with proposal deadlines. I’ll cover exactly how to fill out a content calendar so you’re aware of all of your events, any holidays, and anything else that may influence your content; and the two ways to make sure your content gets done and gets released every single week. Then I share how to plan out your social-media posts to align with your weekly content. I’ve got it all in this episode for you. Plus, I’ve put together a free resource for you. So when you’re ready to start planning out your content, go download the quarterly content calendar, and it’s like a plug and play with your dates and your content so you’ll be set. It’s the exact one I use for both Full Sail Partners and Marketers Take Flight.

And really quickly, would you do me a quick favor? Would you share this episode with one of your AEC marketing friends? Or if not this episode, whatever episode of Marketers Take Flight that you love the most. As you do with your own content, for this podcast, I work really hard to create it, and I want to make sure that it supports and reaches as many marketers who need it as possible. So if you could share it with one, two, or ten, I’d be forever grateful.

All right, friend. Let’s do this.

Now, when I’m talking about a content calendar, when I say the word content, I’m talking about the content that you are creating every week, your original content—so your ideas, your insights, your message. For AEC firms this is typically in the form of a weekly blog article, YouTube video, or possibly even a podcast. You want your firm to be creating original content every week. And, using this system you’ll be able to plan out what that weekly content will be far in advance, so you can begin creating it in advance.

And then, we add some social-media posts around that, you’re planning that in advance. So that’s why this episode is so important, because you’re planning out your weekly original content, whether it be a podcast; a blog; a video, prerecorded or live.

Okay. So, let’s get to this.

This first step to creating your content calendar is all about identifying ideas that your ideal community wants to learn, wants to know, and wants to hear about. Give yourself a little time to work on this in the next seven days. Deal? I’ve talked about a few ways to do this in the ModMarketing podcast series. Specifically episodes 76, 78, and 80. 

Through that idea brainstorming and topic creation, you may also discover some common themes. Identifying and setting themes really helps you to narrow down and decide on topics that would entice your audience. So if you need a little help, all you need to do is Google “national holidays.” Take a look at all of the holidays that pop up. There are a ton of food related holidays, but there are also that could work for AEC firms. 

Now, using those holidays or just themes in general that pop up for you will help guide your content and make it easy to come up with topic ideas. You can even look for fun holidays or, hashtag holidays. For example, July 1 was National Joke Day and for Full Sail Partners, I asked employees to send me videos of their best dad jokes. I created put them together and posted on July 1. You could take that even further and do your weekly content around jokes – like a blog post could be Times when Accounting Reports are no Joke or something like that. 

Okay. So once you have all the holidays and the themes or fun national days written down, do another brain dump. How can you use this information to plan your content? 

And another way to come up with topic ideas is to revisit old content that you’ve posted that’s done well in the past. Now, set your timer for twenty minutes here. Head back into your weekly content; heck, even your social-media posts. What resonated and got a lot of engagement? And look at your comments. What was shared in the most popular social-media post that you’ve done? Choose a topic or two that you can expand on and shed new light on or dive deeper or put a different spin on it. 

This entire ModMarketing series is an example of this concept. Last year I presented how to develop an online marketing program for several SMPS regional conferences and got great feedback. But I knew I could expand on that presentation by breaking it up into separate podcast episodes. So I am doing just that.

This is just a reminder that you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch, and you can get inspiration from others in your industry and from revamping and expanding on your own content. If you always feel like you have to create something new or talk about something new, you’re going to run out of ideas fast. So I want you to toss that thought to the curb and reframe how you think about content creation. 

All right. The next portion of content-calendar planning should really only take thirty to forty-five minutes, so set your timer and let’s go. At this stage, you’re going to start to fill out your calendar, so be sure you have all those awesome topic ideas that you just came up with from the other exercises we did, along with important dates, and let’s get to work. You can either create your own calendar or, if you’d like, head to the free resource with this episode, because I made a content calendar for you that you can just plug and play. You can find that link in the description wherever you’re listening or go back to my show notes at marketerstakeflight.com/82. 

So first things first, put in the dates of the upcoming three months. If you’re using the content calendar I’ve provided for you, you’ll start with month one and fill out the dates for each week. Now let’s fill out important dates. So that’s everything from your project milestones and conferences/events to holidays to themes and anything else you might be celebrating within those three months. So fill that out for each month. 

Now, it’s crucial that you put your project milestones and conferences/special events dates in at this time because this is going to guide a ton of your content. And/or any specific marketing campaign promotions. For example, if you’re planning to unveil a new service offering or open a new office, you’ll want to note those dates along with pre-event/launch excitement and follow up into the calendar.

For example, when I am getting ready to open my Proposal Pro Course, for the 5-6 weeks before that opens, my weekly content theme is related to that course. This time and content is focused on the basics of proposal management and being a new proposal coordinator. So that’s the theme that I’ll use. So any podcasts that fall within that timeline, you bet, are going to align with the course I plan to sell. 

Look at what you’re firm will be promoting for the quarter. Are you going to be announcing a new service offering? Are you chasing a big project where the RFP is coming soon? Is there a major conference that your SME is speaking at? Take a few weeks before that event or launch and use your weekly content to talk about different aspects of it.

All right. So you’ve got your topic ideas, you’ve got your calendar all marked up with important dates, now it’s time to fill that bad boy out. Now, this should be fun, so be playful and get creative. And in the content calendar I’ve provided or on your own, go week by week and add the specific topic that you’ll create your core content around. You’ll also want to add the exact date you’ll be releasing that piece of core content. And remember, you’re using the ideas you’ve already brainstormed here. 

So, for example, at Full Sail Partners we publish a new article every Wednesday. So on the content calendar, I fill out every Wednesday with that week’s blog article topic.

And for Marketers Take Flight, a new podcast episode drops every Wednesday so I do the same for that content calendar.

At this point your calendar has the national and/or hashtag holidays noted, any major promotional or event dates, and your weekly content themes filled out for the next three months.

The next step for me is the fun part! It’s deciding what type of social media posts to create and schedule for the rest of the days.

To do this, decide where you’re going to share your social posts, maybe LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It’s okay to have multiple, but it’s also okay to just focus on one or two platforms, especially if you’re just starting out. And yes, you can post the same thing to multiple platforms if you need. Ideally, it’s good to change up the text to align with the specific social platform. But if you’re strapped for time, that isn’t a must. 

In the content calendar that goes along with this episode, you’ll see where you can add what social platform or platforms this post will be going to. I have three social-media post boxes in the calendar that I’ve provided for you, as I think you should at least aim for posting a minimum of three to five times per week. But if you can post daily, that’s great, too. 

From there, it’s time to assign content types. For the sake of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to tell you what content pillars I’ve established for both Full Sail Partners and Marketers Take Flight. You are free to use these or create pillars that work for your specific firm and goals.

When I say content pillars, this is what I mean for Marketers Take Flight. On Mondays, it’s something with motivation/encouragement in a short video or Reel type format. Tuesdays, I share photo. Wednesdays is podcast day so it’s a graphic or soundbite to promote podcast. This is my weekly core content. On Thursdays, post something that is a key takeaway from the podcast episode usually in the form of a short video or Reel or caurosel type post. And, then Fridays is a photo and encouragement.

And, Full Sail Partners follows a similar format – Mondays is all about motivation with a graphic. Tuesdays is a webinar promotion. Wednesdays is when the core content is released. And, we are just starting to do short videos or Reels to highlight the blog posts on Thursdays. I have our marketing intern helping me with these! And on Fridays we have been featuring employee spotlights on our Facebook and Youtube channels as part of our year-long 10^th anniversary celebration.

Now, these schedules do change based on what content actually gets completed and/or if we are promoting something specific. But having these content pillars identified and filled in for the next quarter helps keep us on track.  

And if you haven’t guessed this yet, I try to actually use my weekly core content—so, the topic from my podcast—to inspire most of those posts, which is exactly what I want you to do as well. So I want to repeat that. I’ve got a weekly podcast, and so I actually plan my weekly content around the topic of my podcast. 

So, here’s a real-life example. I just did a podcast episode about going from an individual contributor to a manager of a proposal team. So that week, I had a Reels video about the tool I use to find imposter syndrome and distractions on Monday – a challenge that new people managers often face. On Tuesday, I shared my AEC Recruiter’s Starter Kit that includes AEC marketing job descriptions, interview questions, and performance goal examples. Something a new manager would find valuable. Wednesday, the episode was published. On Thursday, I created a reel that highlighted a key point from the episode. And, on Friday, I shared a photo of my explaining “my why.”

And, quick tip. A really easy way to create an audio clip for social media is through a platform called Wavve. W-a-v-v-e. I’ll link to it in my show notes.

Also, make sure your social calendar aligns with your business development, pursuit, marketing campaign calendars, if you have them. You’ll want to make sure that if you have something big coming up, you’re social media content is aligned to help amplify that message and/or you’re not asked last minute to post something without having time to fully create it.

All you have left to do is create your weekly content, and then write your social-media posts, too.

Next up, I’ll walk you through how to utilize the free quarterly content calendar that I’ve provided for you in the show notes. 

All right. Time to take action. Head to the show notes at marketerstakeflight.com/82, and grab the free quarterly content calendar. I know I mentioned it a few times that you’ll use it throughout today’s episode, but let me break it down for you. 

First, you’ll start with month one. You’ll fill out all of the days and dates for each week in columns A and B. Do the same for month two and month three. Then decide what day your weekly content will publish and fill that topic or title in the corresponding row. Next, I fill in any of the upcoming holidays – national or hashtag type holidays on those corresponding dates/rows. Now you should start to see where there are gaps.

Column D indicates the special theme or topic. I fill these out on the Mondays for each week based on the core content for that week. This will give you ideas for social media post ideas around that theme.

Column E is the visual or media type. This is a great way to ensure that you’re using a variety of media types and gives you enough notice of what to create.

Column F is the opt-in or CTA. What do you want viewers to do with this piece of content? Comment, like, share the post, visit a certain link? I like to think through this while I am planning my calendar because it helps with the social media caption writing and graphics creation.

Columns G and H are links to the actual landing page or blog post if you want that to be in the CTA and notes.

Last is columns I – M. This is where you can indicate what social media channels you’ll use overall and more specifically, where each piece of content will be posted by placing an X in the desired columns.

All right, friend. Let’s recap. 

First off, you’ll fill out your content calendar, transfer any holidays, themes, or promo dates over, and finally start filling out what your weekly topics will be, using your brainstorming ideas. After that, decide how you’re going to create your weekly content.

Again, head to the show notes to grab that free resource. It’s really good. I think you’ll find it so incredibly valuable. Just listening to this is one thing, but listening to this when you have your guide to walk you through it, it all comes to life. So now that you’ve gone through this episode once, go grab the free resource, and then listen to this episode again with the guide in front of you. Believe me, it’s going to make so much sense, and you’re going to go through it really quickly. 

All right, my friend. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.