If content is the King, and distribution is the Queen, then the content calendar is one of the highest ranking Generals. The success of a content strategy hinges on your content calendar. It should be used for you for organization, and to establish goals, team management and provide a method for measuring results.

1. How a Content Calendar Helps All Marketers
If content is the King, and distribution is the Queen, then the content calendar is one of the highest
ranking Generals. The success of a content strategy hinges on your content calendar. It should be
used for you for organization, and to establish goals, team management and provide a method for
measuring results.
Knowing that a content calendar is of prime importance, here are a few guidelines for you to
consider when you’re creating a new, or adding to an existing, content calendar.
The Value of a Content Calendar
A robust content calendar is extremely valuable to help your content work harder and smarter so
that you can achieve your marketing goals. Content, consisting of articles, videos, infographics,
presentation decks and webinars should be created and then categorized based on a specific goal.
Those goals could include the following:
• Branding
• Engagement
• Sales
• Lead generation
• Other KPIs (such as email opt-in, white paper downloads, demo downloads, etc.)
Some content may achieve multiple goals, but be aware that each one should establish a primary
goal. This goal categorization is an important factor when you measure and monitor the
effectiveness of your content and the campaigns you wage.
Content Organization
Before your team starts to create your content, you must evaluate the resources that are available
along with the over-arching goals of your sales and marketing departments. The development,
creation and final promotion of content will typically require time and attention taken from other
team members. When building your calendar, be sure to consider how many departments in your

2. organization may need to view a single piece of content, and then schedule time accordingly.
A content calendar should accomplish more than just scheduling the release of your content. Here
are a few activities that can also be managed from your calendar:
• List of topics to research
• Allocation of people/resources and types of content to be produced
• Production assignment and timeline
• Promotion schedule (product launches/seasonality)
• Monitor and Measure
Once a piece of content has gone live, either on your company’s website, in social media spaces or
elsewhere, it is going to be critical for you to monitor and measure the effectiveness of the content.
When you categorize and assign goals for each piece of content at the beginning, it provides
perspective and expectations as to how the content should be received by your audience.
After you establish these specific targets, the analytics team can quickly track the performance of
the content. Then, over time, they can provide actionable analysis for numerous future pieces that
are based on the results from the past.
A content calendar can make the difference in effectively marketing your company’s products or
services. It will create an efficient content workflow and happy team members. The end result will
be a smoother operation that leads to more customers and higher sales for your company.