Content Planning: How to Create a Content Plan (2025)

In 2024, top-performing content marketers attributed their success to, among other factors, producing high-quality content, setting goals that align with their organization’s objectives, being able to measure and demonstrate content performance effectively, and having a documented strategy.

All of these factors live within the content planning process—meaning that taking the time to develop your content plan is an essential step toward success. Here’s how content planning works, plus six steps to build a content marketing plan for your business.

What is content planning?

Content planning is the process of turning your content strategy into an actionable schedule. It involves generating specific content ideas, deciding where and when to publish content, outlining content creation processes and timelines, setting distribution strategies, and identifying the metrics to track success.

Content planning ensures that your content provides value to your target audiences, builds authority within your industry, increases brand trust, and keeps you top of mind with customers.

Content planning vs. content strategy

Content strategy and content plans work together but serve different purposes. A content strategy is a high-level, purposeful framework showcasing how a business will use content to meet its goals. Content strategies typically include information about a business’s target audience, the broad subjects it will cover or major campaigns, and various channels selected for content distribution.

A content plan is a tactical road map for how your business intends to implement its content strategy during a specific time period. It includes specific topics, formats, and publication dates.

An effective content plan outlines the entire content production and distribution process, from idea generation to publishing scheduled content. It can keep you organized and set clear expectations for any other team members involved.

Here’s how to build your own content plan in six concrete steps, with insights from Hotel Lobby Candle founder Lindsay Silberman:

1. Start with a content strategy

Content strategy is the practice of planning marketing content—which can include blog posts, emails, posts on social media platforms, videos, and podcasts—that speaks to your audience and serves your business goals. It extends farther and broader than any specific content planning cycle.

Consider these key elements that help strengthen your content strategy:

Goals. Content marketing goals synergistically support your larger business and marketing goals; if your business goal is to boost brand awareness, you might set the content marketing goal of increasing traffic to your blog by 20% in the next calendar year, for example.
Budget. Will you need to write in-house, pay for ads, hire contractors to do your creative, or have any other expenses to account for when building your content plans?
Target audience research. Content strategies outline findings from your target audience research, collecting data about preferred content channels, content consumption patterns, customer buying processes, and interests.
Content topics. Businesses use persona research findings and business goals to outline the topics that their target audience cares about, which may be grouped into content pillars.
Content types. Examples include how-to guides, explainer videos, blogs, customer profiles, and infographics.
Distribution channels. Content is valuable only if it’s read, so content strategies also specify distribution channels (Facebook, Instagram, email, etc.).
Publication cadence. Many content marketing strategies specify publication frequency by channel.

Hotel Lobby Candle, for example, focuses its content strategy on TikTok and Instagram, while also considering its broadcast channel, blog, and email newsletter. Lindsay’s team looks for opportunities to get maximum value from each content piece by repurposing it across channels.

“I like to ask, ‘How many places, and in how many different ways, can this one piece of content live?’” she says. “For example, we recently hosted a brand trip and filmed the creators sharing their favorite HLC scents. We used those clips on TikTok and Instagram, then typed up their responses to create both a blog post and an email newsletter.”

2. Determine your planning window

Define how far ahead you plan content, which depends on your industry dynamics. If your industry is evolving quickly (like artificial intelligence), has a short trend cycle (like beauty), or is highly responsive to current events (like financial planning), you might create a content plan for the next month. If it’s more stable, you might consider a quarterly content plan instead.

The important thing is having a plan, while leaving room for flexibility. Hotel Lobby Candle, for instance, usually works three to four weeks out. “I like to plan key things, but I also leave room for spontaneity,” Lindsay says. “You never know when a brilliant idea might strike based on a trending moment, so we always want to leave space for that.”

3. Set your tentpoles

Lindsay recommends starting with content topics based on your business’s calendar of tentpole marketing events, such as sales, product launches, and in-store events. “Typically, we use upcoming launches and promotions as the main subject matter, and then fill in evergreen content around those key dates,” she says.

You can also include community events or holidays relevant to your customers. A plant store, for example, might use Earth Day as a tentpole event, with a content campaign built around it.

4. Brainstorm content ideas

Generate a list of specific evergreen content topics, using your content pillars and tentpoles to maintain strategic focus. Then broaden the lens to include relevant trends.

Lindsay also recommends paying attention to trending topics. “We jump on trends that feel appropriate for our brand, and we like to mix educational, entertaining, and inspiring content into everything we do,” she says. You can follow influencers in your space, use social listening tools, monitor trending keywords, and read industry publications to keep up with current trends.

Hotel Lobby Candle uses customer conversations for inspiration. “Our followers also play a huge role. We treat them like a focus group, using their feedback and interesting conversations from our DMs to spark new ideas,” Lindsay says.

If organic search is a prominent channel, you can consult your company’s keyword research for content ideas anchored in what your target audience is already searching for online.

5. Build your content calendar

Content calendars, also called editorial calendars, are digital tools that plot when and where content will go live. They gather all your ideas in one place, allowing you to visualize your publication schedule, identify gaps, and plan ahead.

You can build a basic content calendar in a content management system (CMS), calendaring application, or even spreadsheet, depending on your vision and budget. Many project management systems also offer editorial calendar templates with built-in content planning functions, allowing you to assign responsibilities to content team members and view all the tasks associated with your content marketing strategy in one place.

Social media management tools are another option. Many applications enable one-click publishing across a range of social media platforms and some content management systems. You can use them to build content calendars and publish content across channels from a centralized location. Hotel Lobby Candle uses Dash Social, for example.

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6. Execute your workflows

Once you’ve planned your content, build out your content creation and content publication workflows with enough time for each step before the target publish dates. Specify who is responsible for designing and writing content, reviewing pieces and approving them for publication, and scheduling content on your publication platform of choice.

Include performance monitoring in your publishing workflows and line up your next cycle’s content planning session to prevent any gaps in your publication cadence. You might run proprietary content software or quarterly Google Analytics reports, for example, setting a date for a strategic regroup and planning session with your team.

Hotel Lobby Candle holds monthly postmortems. “We do an end-of-month reporting meeting where we review how all of the content performed,” Lindsay says. “After major promotions or launch events, we also do postmortems to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and what we could do differently next time.”

Lindsay encourages small business owners to use their judgment when adjusting strategy. “Of course, I care about the numbers, but even more, I care about the quality of the content,” she says. “Before posting anything, I ask myself, ‘Is this something I’d be proud to share with my audience?’ As long as the answer is yes, I don’t worry too much about the performance.”

Content planning FAQ

What are the steps to planning content?

Here’s an overview of the content planning process:

Create a content strategy.
Select a time frame.
Brainstorm content ideas.
Build a content calendar.
Plan production and distribution workflows.
Monitor performance.

How is a content plan created?

To create a content plan, align with a content strategy—or develop one first if you haven’t yet. Then brainstorm content ideas, build your content calendar for a specific period of time, and outline content production workflows. The plan should be strategic, timely, and adaptable across multiple content channels.

How do I find content ideas?

Here are four ways to find content ideas:

Use a social listening tool.
Review search volumes.
Expand on existing content pillars.
Communicate with customers.