If you’re like most entrepreneurs, when you start thinking about your marketing plan, you probably feel a bit overwhelmed. I get it. It can be confusing and complicated. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You just need to get organized, and using a content calendar is a great way to simplify your marketing plan.

What is a content calendar?

Whenever I talk about marketing, I’m really talking about content marketing. Content marketing is the act of creating any type of content to promote your business. Content can be in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media posts, and even traditional advertising.

A content calendar is simply a tool to help you plan out and schedule all of your content.

Some people might call it an editorial calendar or social media calendar. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, the important thing is to use it.

So how exactly will a content calendar simplify your marketing?

Why use a content calendar?

Getting organized and planning out your marketing in advance has a lot of benefits. Here are a few reasons why you should be using a content calendar:

* It takes the guesswork out of content creation. You won’t be staring at a blank computer screen wondering what to post or when to do it. When you use a content calendar, your whole marketing plan is laid out for you.

* You can see your whole plan in one place. Most of us are visual learners. Seeing everything in one place brings your whole marketing plan into sharp focus. Everything suddenly becomes clearer and makes more sense.

* It saves you a ton of time. You’ll fill out your content calendar once a month so you won’t be wasting time coming up with ideas for what to post every day.

* You’ll get better results from your marketing. When you create and execute an actual marketing plan instead of flying by the seat of your pants, your marketing will be more consistent and more effective.

How to create a content calendar

Your content calendar should be a simple tool, it should not feel complicated. It should help make your marketing plan easier to create and easier to execute.

Here are a few simple steps you can take to get your content calendar off the ground:

1. Choose your channels

The first thing to do is determine what marketing channels you will be using. Every business is different and the channels you use will be based on your particular goals and needs.

Here are a few of the most common marketing channels:

* Website

* Email

* Blog

* Podcast

* Video

* Social media

* Advertising

2. Choose your tool

The next step is to choose the type of tool you want to use for your content calendar. You can do this the old-fashioned way with a paper calendar or go full-auto with a powerful app like CoSchedule. Again, choose the tool that works best for your business.

Here are a few common content calendar tools to choose from:

* Paper calendar. If you like to write things down on paper then, by all means, do it. You might use a wall calendar or a monthly planner. Just be sure you can see a whole month at a time to make your content planning easier.

* Spreadsheet. Excel or Google Sheets are perfect tools for this task. You can get as creative as you like and even find pre-made templates to get you started. One of the benefits of using Google Sheets is the ability to share your calendar. This can be useful if you have other people on your team.

* Apps. There are a lot of content calendar apps out there these days. They all work pretty well, but I’ve recently fell in love with