Module 8 workshop: a content calendar for one season

A step-by-step workshop that turns Module 8 into a 13-week content calendar for your own business, using Lantern & Lane's winter calendar as the worked model. You will set a goal and time budget, choose pillars, map raw material and key dates, and schedule every piece by job and channel.

Read the transcript

Module 8 workshop: a content calendar for one season.

A content calendar is not a list of things to post.

It is a decision about what clients need to see, in what order, during the weeks when they are deciding.

Step 1: Choose the season and its goal.

Pick the 13 weeks that matter most for your bookings, then decide the single result the content should support.

Be specific about who you want to reach and what you want them to do.

Step 2: Turn hours into pieces.

Start with the time you can protect, as in the Module 7 workshop.

Lantern and Lane commits three hours a week: 3 x 13 = 39 hours, or 2,340 minutes.

Step 3: Choose pillars and set the balance.

Pillars are the three or four themes all your content returns to.

They keep the calendar coherent and make ideas easier to find.

Step 4: Gather raw material and key dates.

List what you already have, before you plan anything new.

Lantern and Lane's folders from the fall hold three fully captured weddings, including the October rain-plan wedding from Lesson 6, plus behind-the-scenes clips from a dozen other events.

Step 5: Build the calendar.

Lay out 13 weeks.

Give each week one anchor piece, the most important item, then fill in supporting pieces around it.

That is the lesson. The worksheet and the quiz are just below this video.

What you will be able to do

• Set a seasonal content goal and convert a weekly time budget into a realistic number of pieces
• Map raw material, anchor events and GTA calendar dates onto a 13-week plan
• Produce a dated content calendar balanced across show, teach and prove, with a batching routine and checkpoints

A content calendar is not a list of things to post. It is a decision about what clients need to see, in what order, during the weeks when they are deciding. Built well, it turns the work of this module into a routine you can keep through a busy season. By the end of this workshop you will have a 13-week calendar for one season, with every piece dated, assigned and tied to a goal.

Step 1: Choose the season and its goal

Pick the 13 weeks that matter most for your bookings, then decide the single result the content should support. Be specific about who you want to reach and what you want them to do.

Lantern & Lane chooses January to March. Their goal: “Help couples who got engaged over the holidays understand what a planner does, and book consultations for summer and fall weddings.” They want 30 consultation requests over the 13 weeks, up from 22 the previous winter. Every piece in the calendar must serve that goal or support the referral relationships that feed it.

Your season and goal depend on your business. A corporate caterer might choose August to October, with the goal of booking holiday parties. A kids’ entertainer might choose March to May for summer birthdays and camps. A tent rental company might choose February to April, when backyard wedding couples are pricing.

Step 2: Turn hours into pieces

Start with the time you can protect, as in the Module 7 workshop. Lantern & Lane commits three hours a week: 3 x 13 = 39 hours, or 2,340 minutes.

• Reserve a quarter for replying to comments and messages and for the unexpected: 2,340 x 0.25 = 585 minutes.
• That leaves 2,340 – 585 = 1,755 minutes for creating content.
• Three full guides at about 270 minutes each, using the workflow from Lesson 7: 3 x 270 = 810 minutes.
• Remaining: 1,755 – 810 = 945 minutes. At an average of 21 minutes per repurposed piece, from Lesson 6: 945 / 21 = 45 pieces.

That gives 3 guides and about 45 other pieces, or roughly four pieces a week. Write your own version of this arithmetic. If the result is two pieces a week, plan two pieces a week. A calendar you can keep beats an ambitious one you abandon in February.

Step 3: Choose pillars and set the balance

Pillars are the three or four themes all your content returns to. They keep the calendar coherent and make ideas easier to find. Lantern & Lane’s four pillars:

1. What a planner actually does (teach): process, timelines, vendor management.
2. Weddings that join two families (show and prove): their positioning from Module 3.
3. Planning in the GTA (teach): venues, seasons, logistics, costs.
4. Client stories (prove): event stories, quotes, reviews.

Then set your show, teach and prove balance from Lesson 1. Lantern & Lane uses 35 percent show, 35 percent teach and 30 percent prove for this season, because couples in January need teaching more than inspiration. Of 45 pieces, that is roughly 16 show, 16 teach and 13 prove, plus the 3 guides, which are teach.

Step 4: Gather raw material and key dates

List what you already have, before you plan anything new. Lantern & Lane’s folders from the fall hold three fully captured weddings, including the October rain-plan wedding from Lesson 6, plus behind-the-scenes clips from a dozen other events. That is enough raw material for most of the season without a single new shoot.

Then mark the dates that shape attention in the season: the winter wedding shows they attend, Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, Family Day weekend, March break, and the date their summer availability usually starts to fill. Each date is a reason for a piece, or a reason to avoid posting something unrelated that week.

Finally, note any events inside the season worth capturing fully, so new raw material keeps arriving. Lantern & Lane has two winter weddings and a corporate retreat booked. Each gets a capture list from Lesson 6, and each will feed the following season’s calendar as well as this one.

Step 5: Build the calendar

Lay out 13 weeks. Give each week one anchor piece, the most important item, then fill in supporting pieces around it. A section of Lantern & Lane’s calendar:

Weeks 8 to 13 follow the same pattern, ending with the third guide in week 10 and a “summer dates are filling” piece in week 12 that is honest about real availability.

Step 6: Batch, publish and check

Set a weekly production block. Lantern & Lane uses Monday mornings: Priya edits and writes, Marco schedules posts and checks permissions. Every second Monday they batch two weeks of social posts. Guides get their own half-day each month.

Add three checkpoints, at weeks 4, 8 and 13. At each one, record consultation requests by source, guide visits from Search Console, and the three pieces that drew the most saves, shares or messages. At week 13, compare consultation requests with the target of 30, and write what to keep, what to drop and what to try next season. Then print the calendar, pin it up and start on Monday. Adjust as you go, but never skip a checkpoint.

In Canada and the GTA

The GTA calendar, season by season. Build your key dates from the local calendar, not a generic one. In winter, many couples get engaged over the December holidays and start planning in January, and the major GTA bridal shows run through the winter months. Lunar New Year falls in late January or February, Valentine’s Day and Ontario’s Family Day weekend in February, and March break in March. In spring come graduation, prom, Mother’s Day and the start of outdoor wedding season, and many families book milestone birthdays and cultural celebrations. Summer brings Pride Month in June, Canada Day, and the festival and backyard party season. Fall carries Thanksgiving, Diwali, Halloween and the corporate holiday party season, with Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations in December. Religious holidays that follow lunar calendars, such as Eid, Vaisakhi and Diwali, move from year to year, so check the dates each season.

Treat cultural dates with respect. Mark cultural and religious occasions in your calendar when you genuinely serve those communities, and create content that shows real experience: the event types you have worked, the traditions you understand, the vendors you collaborate with. Do not turn a religious holiday into a sales hook if you have no connection to it. GTA audiences notice the difference immediately.

Corporate buying cycles. If corporate clients are part of your season, remember that many companies set event budgets in the last quarter of the year or the first quarter of the new one, and holiday party decisions are often made in late summer and early fall. Content aimed at corporate buyers, on LinkedIn and your website, should run ahead of those decisions. A holiday party guide published in November is too late.

The rules that come with a calendar. Several pieces in a typical calendar carry legal requirements, so build the checks into your production routine:

• Newsletters and follow-up emails to wedding show visitors are commercial electronic messages under CASL. Business card contacts and show sign-ups can support consent, but every message needs identification and an unsubscribe mechanism, and unsubscribes must be processed within 10 business days. The CRTC’s CASL frequently asked questions are the reference.
• Music in reels should come from the platform’s business music library or be your own audio.
• Partner and gifted content needs clear disclosure of any material connection, upfront in the caption.
• Prices and availability claims, such as “summer dates are filling”, must be true. The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards judges truthfulness by the general impression, and Clause 4 addresses bait and switch. See the Code online.
• Alcohol: if you are a licensee, holiday and summer party content must follow the AGCO’s advertising guidelines, and private events under a Special Occasion Permit may not be publicly advertised.

French and accessibility in the plan. If you serve francophone clients, schedule French pieces as their own items rather than translating at the last minute. Build captions for videos and alt text for images into the production time, so they are never skipped when the week gets busy.

Wedding shows inside your calendar. If you exhibit at a GTA bridal or event show, treat the show weekend as an anchor week. Plan content before it, so visitors who look you up find a current feed, and plan the follow-up for the week after, while your booth conversations are fresh.

Plan for the GTA weather. A calendar that depends on outdoor shoots in February will fail. Use winter for content from saved raw material, studio and process work and guides, and plan new outdoor shoots for late spring, when the light and the weather cooperate.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check the official sources or a lawyer for your situation.

Worksheet

Download the worksheet and complete it for your own business, using Lantern & Lane as the model where it helps. Keep it with your marketing plan. It takes about 15 minutes.

Download the worksheet (PDF)