As a small business owner working in the pool and spa industry, you know how important it is to keep your customers interested, engaged, and coming back for more. You’ve probably felt like you could be doing more to make that happen—maybe taking a more active role in things. You want to create content your audience wants to read—but where do you start? How do you ensure your posts reach people who are interested in what they have to say?

Luckily, we’ve got the scoop: A content calendar is exactly what you need!

Whether you’re just starting or looking to take your content marketing game to the next level, we’ve got some great tips and tricks. Learn how to create a content calendar for your business to help you engage with customers and grow your brand.

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Content Calendars Explained

A content calendar is like an outline for your entire marketing strategy—it helps you plan your content to stay relevant and exciting to your audience, ultimately enabling you to gain more customers and increase your brand recognition.

The point of a content calendar is to ensure you’re constantly publishing new content relevant to your audience or responding to their needs with appropriate content, so they keep coming back to your site. 

With a good content calendar, you’ll be able to stay on top of what kind of information people are looking for, what they want from you, and how often they want it. When someone lands on your site, they’ll then be able to find what they need quickly and easily. Hopefully, become a customer!

Keep Your Business Growing: Strategies for Content Calendar Success

A well-organized calendar will help keep things running smoothly and efficiently! By planning ahead, you can ensure that every piece of content you publish is relevant, timely, and valuable to your audience.

How do you develop a content calendar for your pool and spa company? Here are five strategies that make it easy to get started:

1. Get Organized

The first step is to create a system for storing content ideas and keeping them organized. If you’re using a calendar app like Google Calendar or Outlook, that’s great! You may also want to create folders on your computer or tablet so you have access while you’re out and about (and not just at the office).

2. Set Your Goals

Next, you’ll want to define your goals. What do you expect to accomplish with your content marketing? This will help guide what kind of content you create and when it’s appropriate to publish. For instance, if one of your objectives is to increase brand awareness, blogging about new products or services may be helpful. If another goal is getting more sales staff leads, creating a brochure-style ebook might be the way to go!

3. Develop a Content Strategy

Now that you know what kind of content you’re creating, it’s time to develop a strategy. How will this content be distributed? What format will you use? How can the content be optimized for search engines? All of these questions should be answered before you begin working.  

When developing a strategy, keep the following tips in mind:

Know your audience: Who is your target audience? What are their goals and interests? How can you create content to help them achieve their goals while giving them something fun to read?

Choose your channels: Will you publish your content on social media, or will you create a blog? The best place to publish your content is where your audience already hangs out.

Select your keywords: What keywords and phrases do people search for to find your product or service online? Use these terms in your titles, headers, and meta descriptions to optimize your content for search engines.

Monitor your competition: How often do they publish new material? What types of posts tend to get the most engagement? Use these insights to guide your own content creation.

Lastly, you’ll want to set up a workflow that helps ensure your content is consistent in quality and style. It should include steps like brainstorming, drafting, editing, and publishing. And cover questions like, what tools will you use? How often should you publish new content? If you’re on a team, who is responsible for what? Once your strategy is set up, stick to it. Consistency is vital when building an audience for your brand.

4. Craft Quality Content

Once your strategy is in place, it’s time to create content that keeps viewers engaged from start to finish. High-quality content is essential if you want people to pay attention! Focus on the reader’s needs. Provide valuable insights, tips, pro advice, or resources that readers can use immediately. Write in plain language—don’t use industry jargon or complicated sentence structures unless it’s necessary to make your point. Remember that content is a conversation between you and your audience. Be genuine and transparent about what you know and don’t know! Offer real value, not just “fluff” or clickbait.

5. Track Performance

After you’ve mapped out your content strategy, it’s time to organize your calendar so that you can track results and make adjustments when needed. You need to know how well your content is performing—and what changes might help keep it effective over time. 

To measure the success of your content, determine what metrics are most important and then set up “key performance indicators” (KPIs) that will allow you to track how well each piece is performing.

Standard KPIs to track include:

Traffic (source, number of visitors, bounce rate)

Engagement (time on page, social shares, email list signups)

ROI (leads generated, conversion rate, average order value)

If you’re just starting out with content marketing, focus on tracking the above KPIs for each piece of content. As you grow, add more. Use this data to gauge progress and determine what content works best for you.

Start Building Your Content Calendar Today!

Content calendars are essential to your content strategy—they can help you spot gaps in your content marketing plan, focus on goals, and improve quality. But they’re also one of the most underused tools in many small businesses’ tool belts. So, if you’re not using one yet, now’s the time to start. 

Ironing out your content strategy and the calendar is much easier said than done – while you might be capable, it can also feel overwhelming if you’ve never done it before. Don’t have a content strategy or know how to put one in play? It can feel like you’re juggling more balls than you have hands for – and that’s where we come in. 

Small Screen Producer’s experienced team knows about the ins and outs of content, what does well, and how to plan things out – we know how to take the reins when you don’t want to. That way, you still get the content your audience needs to stay engaged, but you can focus on your business, doing what you do best. Not sure what you need? Reach out for a consultation. We’d love to help you dive in! 

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