What is a content calendar and how to create one.

Summary/Overview

In the changing marketing landscape, it is essential that marketers have a clear strategy. One of the best ways to achieve it is with a content calendar. In this article, we answer the question, what is a content calendar, with concrete tips for designing one that works well for your business, whether you are a solopreneur, marketer, or communication professional. With Adobe Express, you can choose from hundreds of calendar templates, or create your own according to your brand style.

Why is a content calendar essential for content marketing?

Whether you are a marketer, solopreneur, or creative communicator, you know that having a content calendar is a key element of your marketing strategy. This bird’s eye view framework helps you stay organised and is touted by marketers as helping to reduce stress, among its other benefits.

A content calendar helps marketers stay organised and on track to meet their content marketing goals. When shared with a marketing team, it can help improve communication and align on strategy, given they can share insights and ideas in a single location. This can in turn improve efficiency, mitigate information loss, and ensure teams are on track to meet deadlines.

Whether you are creating a calendar on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, a content calendar can be a necessary element as you track KPIs (e.g., number of likes, comments, or shares per post — or a number of website visits from social media) or aim to achieve your SMART goals or OKRs. As a result, you will be better equipped to make data-driven adjustments and enhancements to your strategy. In the future, you will be able to prioritise tasks and plan content that works best for your marketing needs.

A content calendar helps you keep track of a number of elements: date, topic, author, person in charge of posting, publishing status, audience, platform, SEO information. As a visual aid, Adobe Express offers a range of options to customise the colours and design so it is visually appealing. This information can be used as a basis for tracking KPIs by leveraging analytics. Globally minded marketers can align their posts around major events and celebrations. In addition, they can schedule themed posts related to upcoming industry events and launches, and around bank holidays.

Step-by-step guide to creating a content calendar.

What is a content calendar? Like a desk calendar for school or work, it is personalised and can come in many forms and with many designs. Here we will break down how you can make the most of a content calendar, whether you are a solopreneur, business owner, or marketer.

• Define your goals, aligned with your marketing strategy.
• Outline the key headings you wish to include on your content calendar.
• Discover the free Adobe Express templates and the library of design elements.
• Explore the free Adobe Express calendar templates, to help you create your calendar in a snap. Or narrow down your search to just marketing content calendars.
• Discover professionally designed templates or create a theme using photos, icons, logos, personalised fonts, and other customisable elements from the all-in-one tool.
• Include your brand logos and colours, and resize them to create consistency across assets.
• Start creating in the all-in-one editor—from scratch or media, or use a template for free.
• No expertise needed. Adobe Express is intuitive to use, with a variety of blogs and videos to aid both beginners and design pros alike, to create the perfect calendar.
• Need help outlining your goals or headings? Check out the Adobe Express templates that include marketing and content tips in compelling visual formats.

Next, save and download your calendar, share it with teammates or keep it on file. Re-use it at the next scheduling cycle. New or existing projects can be turned into shareable, editable, layerable templates. And if you’ve found inspiration along the way, try creating a “swipe file” for inspiration drawing up the next calendar or post.

Editable content calendar templates.

How you can personalise your content calendar.

Now that you know the steps to create a content calendar, why not personalise it? Adobe Express makes it easy to design one according to your business or campaign. Explore the library of free images and graphic assets and find the one that resonates.

Before visiting the library, consider your content calendar design goals, whether they are to:

• Design a calendar from scratch.
• Create a weekly, monthly, or yearly calendar.
• Select from one of the hundreds of Adobe Express calendar templates.
• Include personal text or images, or those from the library.
• Design a logo.
• Add graphic elements.
• Achieve colour consistency.
• Select particular colours to evoke a feeling.
• Opt for neutral or vibrant shades.

If you have a colour palette in mind, remember that colour conveys meaning and evokes feelings, often differently depending on the culture. If you are designing a logo or aligning brand colours with your localisation strategy, this is a key point to consider.

Check out the photos, design assets (like brushes, frames, and overlays), backgrounds, and text layouts in the all-in-one editor. You can use these if you’re creating from scratch or adding to a trending template. Search by aesthetic, style, keyword, or colour. Another way to personalise your calendar is to add motivational quotes; affirmations; or reminders in a font that is pleasing to the eye. You can use small logos to represent social platforms or tasks on your weekly or monthly calendar.

Discover all the tools in Adobe Express, whether you want to resize or crop an image, enhance an image, remove or blur a background, make a logo, or convert file types. There are endless possibilities.

Pro tips for creating an effective content calendar.

The idea of designing may feel overwhelming at first, but creating a content calendar in Adobe Express’ all-in-one tool is as intuitive as it is satisfying. In just a few clicks, you will be on your way to effectively managing your marketing content.

These “pro tips” are not just tips from seasoned pros with years of marketing experience under their belt. In fact, one top tip is just to look for branding or design inspiration on colleagues’ or competitors’ marketing materials. Or take the plunge—you’ll be a pro in no time with Adobe Express.

More than a design tool, Adobe Express also provides a library of expert advice—blogs and tutorials to help get your creative juices flowing. No matter what stage you are in your content calendar journey, you can browse topics such as design advice on how to pair fonts, or even starting a brand, plus get tips on how to use the tools. Search the Adobe Express blog and website, plus find tips, tricks, templates and more on Adobe Express’ YouTube, like this Adobe Live.

Once you have created your content calendar, rest assured that you can edit it and update it to reflect any changes in your branding, refresh it each quarter, or change it to match your aesthetic. This will ensure overall coherence and continue to schedule posts in a way that works for your business.

Build your own content calendar with templates from Adobe Express.

Creative design ideas for your content calendar.

The Adobe Express template library is a great place to start searching for inspiration. Perhaps you might browse the library, enter a keyword, and see what templates catch your eye. You can also search by industry (e.g., hospitality) or seasonal themes. If you are creating a content calendar from scratch, the possibilities to customise your calendar are endless.

There are various formats that can be used for a content calendar, including:

• Grid format: you can customise the headings to match any or all of your key elements in (e.g., date, topic, author, person in charge of posting, publishing status, audience, platform, SEO information).
• Traditional weekly or monthly format: you may want to include any or all of the elements in each of the squares for the days of the week.
• Goal content calendar templates or blank templates: these are ideal for listing your broad content strategy objectives, noting plans, or more informal lists.

Here are some other creative ways to customise your content calendar:

• Build a brand kit to create coherent messaging.
• Add a cool background for winter, and warmer backgrounds for spring, summer, and autumn.
• Colour code different publication statuses, topics, or platforms.
• Use colours to evoke feelings surrounding certain events or topics.
• Add social media buttons corresponding to the platforms where you will be sharing content.
• Note times when you can repurpose evergreen content, which stays relevant over time. This can include timeless topics, advice, wisdom—when there aren’t special events.

When designing your content calendar, staying relevant and on trend is easy with Adobe Express. Here are the best templates for Q3 and graphic design trends for 2025.

Try Adobe Express for free now

Useful things to know.

Does Adobe Express offer AI features?

Yes, AI features are integrated, allowing you to customise your calendar with AI images.

Type the prompt in the AI chatbot, and Adobe Express creates imagery based on it.

If you have an idea for a calendar design, try the AI template generator. Fine-tune as needed.

Can Adobe Express help with other content marketing tasks?

Adobe Express offers help through many stages of your marketing journey, with blog posts on marketing strategy, editable marketing tips templates, and target audience templates. In the template gallery, you will also find a number of templates in a checklist format, offering a helpful visual aid. Adapt them to suit your content marketing needs.

In addition, Adobe Express offers a content scheduler to create, plan, preview and schedule your content with an easy and intuitive calendar.

Do I need special design skills to make a content calendar in Adobe Express?

No experience necessary. While any design background is sure to be helpful, creating a content calendar in Adobe Express is a breeze even without a design background. The video library and easy-to-use tools give you what you need, all in one spot, to create your calendar. Plus, once you design one calendar, it becomes more intuitive to update it for the next period.

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