Before you start building your content calendar, I'm going to ask you to gather or create a handful of materials.

THE WHY

Having these materials on hand will let you hit the ground running—making the content calendar process much easier and more efficient.

THE HOW

Implement the Prep Steps below, using your brand's needs as a guide. No sales or customer service team? Skip Prep Steps 3 and 4, where we ask you to gather info from these teams. Already know exactly how much content you want to produce in the next three months? Then there's no need to complete Prep Step 1, which is to map out how much content you can reasonably create over the next quarter.

If you can accomplish all the Prep Steps that are relevant for your company, it will help you build a more robust calendar. (If you have someone to delegate to, you can hand off some of these tasks to that person.)

PREP STEP 1: CONSIDER YOUR RESOURCES

Think: how much time will you have available to execute on content over the next three months? How many team members are there to help you? Will employees outside of your team be willing to develop or fact-check content? Do you have access to contract writers who can create content? Use the worksheet 1. CONTENT RESOURCES in the Toolkit section to list your resources and decide how many content assets you would like to create over the next three months.

The big takeaway here is that you can scale up or down depending on your available time and resources. Do not plan 200 pieces of content if you don't have the resources to execute on them all! This is all about bootstrapping your way to a doable plan. The Playbook will support any size content calendar.

If you can accomplish all the Prep Steps that are relevant for your company, it will help you build a more robust calendar. (If you have someone to delegate to, you can hand off some of these tasks to that person.)

PREP STEP 2: GATHER YOUR BRAND INFO

Do you have customer personas, a written mission statement, a brand messaging platform, or other relevant business and planning documents? If so, add these (or the links to these pasted into one document) to a folder for easy access later. If not, don't worry. We'll explain soon why it's important to keep moving forward, even if you're missing information you think you need.

PREP STEP 3: REACH OUT FOR SUPPORT

Do you already have buy-in from other organizations within your business? If so, ask them to submit content topics that would help them do their jobs better, and find out if they'll be willing to help you create that content—whether as an SME or as a writer.

Use worksheet 2. STAFF SUPPORT EMAIL SCRIPT in the Toolkit section, which contains an email script to send to your stakeholders plus space to list the topics they send you. This script makes it easy for them to help you as it outlines exactly what you need from them—rather than just asking, "Hey, how can you help?" and leaving it up to them to figure it out.

If your stakeholders won't help or if you don't have these people in your business at all, it's OK—you'll soon see why it's not mandatory that you have this support. Remember, the Content Calendar Playbook is for bootstrappers!

PREP STEP 4: LIST CUSTOMER QUESTIONS

Ask the leaders of your customer-facing teams—sales, customer service, customer success, etc.—for the most common questions they hear from prospects and customers. As a Bootstrapping Content Marketer, one of the best places you can invest your content resources is in answering frequently asked questions in the form of blog posts, reports, whitepapers, and other content.

This practice not only makes your brand a trusted go-to for your audience—it can also give you an SEO boost because people who are searching on these questions are likely to find (and click on) your content. For example, if someone is searching on "How can I recruit better engineers?" Google may turn up your blog post called "How to Recruit Better Engineers."

(There are a lot of variables that determine whether your content will rank well, but clearly answering common questions is a good start.)

Use the worksheet 3. CUSTOMER FAQ EMAIL SCRIPT in the Toolkit section, which includes an email script and space to list the questions.

PREP STEP 5: KNOW YOUR FUTURE

If you don't already know, ask around: what new products/services is your company developing or launching over the next three months? Later you'll be developing monthly content themes, and it's only natural to create themes around product launches. Use the worksheet 4. PRODUCT LAUNCH EMAIL SCRIPT in the Toolkit section to email your product team and to list the products.

PREP STEP 6: SCOPE OUT THE COMPETITION

Later you'll be conducting a Competitor Content Audit, which is an important part of developing a content calendar because you want to ensure you create content that's different from (and better than) what the competition is publishing. You'll also look for what your competitors are missing and where they're lacking, so you can fill in the gaps with your own content.

Get ready for the Competitor Content Audit by listing the names and web addresses of your top five competitors. Slot the info into the corresponding spaces on the worksheet 5. COMPETITOR AUDIT in the Toolkit section of this training. You'll use this worksheet later to conduct your audit, as well.

PREP STEP 7: DOWNLOAD EDITORIAL CALENDARS

If pitching your content to media outlets or paying for content placement will be part of your content plan, make a list of your top five target publications and their web addresses. Then download their editorial calendars and add them to a folder. You'll use this information later to conduct a Media Audit, which will help you generate content ideas to place or pitch.

If pitching or content placement isn't part of your content plan, research the publications your customers and industry peers read and do the same as above. Auditing these publications will help you develop content topics that incorporate the most up-to-date information and that address your audience's biggest pain points and opportunities. I'll show you how later.

Use the worksheet 6. MEDIA AUDIT in the Toolkit section to record the names and web addresses of your five chosen outlets; you'll also use this worksheet later to conduct the Media Audit. (Some of the pubs or websites don't have an editorial calendar? That's OK; just grab anything they do have for advertisers, such as their media kit.)

If your audience tends to gravitate to other media, such as podcasts, feel free to add those to the list; some large podcasts and other outlets have downloadable media kits, editorial calendars, or pitching guides that can be helpful. While I focus on written publications for the Media Audit, much of the instruction will apply to other types of media as well.

When you're fully prepped, here's what you should have:

• • An accounting of your resources and an estimation of how much content you can create in three months.
  • A list of common customer/prospect questions about your product, service, work process, etc.
  • A list of your top five competitors and their URLs.
  • Five editorial calendars and the URLs of the five publications.
  • Your company's mission statement, brand messaging platform, and other relevant documents if your company has them.
  • A list of staff members who are on board to help and any content ideas they share.
  • A list of the products your company will be developing or launching over the short term.

Remember, don't stress if you can't get something you need. Any amount of prep-work you accomplish will help you hit the ground running.