If you want to make sure you are publishing high-quality content at a regular or suitable pace, then you will need an editorial calendar. Put simply, that’s because content marketing runs on editorial content. With a high-quality calendar, you will be able to:
- Manage all content production and publication
- Distribute content on multiple digital marketing channels
- Fill any content gaps
- Ensure team members with different roles in content production and promotion are up to date with a campaign
- Produce content that is fully aligned with your content strategy
We’re going to give you a step-by-step walk-through to help you create an editorial calendar that will achieve all of the above. We know the most common questions that are asked when it comes to building an editorial calendar – so we will cover those here.
Where should I create my calendar?
First things first, where will you create your editorial calendar? The type of calendar you choose will depend on things like your goals, industry, and organisation. For example, some companies will already have access to a content marketing platform, or even have their own.
If you already use a content marketing platform – it is likely it will have an in-build calendar. These let you create workflows for various pieces of content, such as blog posts or articles. They should also cover everything from writing, editing, publishing and distributing.
Don’t worry, if you don’t currently have access to an existing platform – there are other options. You can look for an appropriate platform such as CoSchedule or Hubspot. If not, you could simply use a Google sheet or Excel spreadsheet. It is then up to you how you decide to format your calendar. You might want to designate a tab for each month, each type of content, or each objective.
How often should I update and use my editorial calendar?
There is no wrong time to start building an editorial calendar. If you decide you want one in the middle of a campaign – there is still a high chance it will help you going forward. Of course, we do recommend starting a calendar sooner. This is because to will provide you and your team with enough time to thoroughly plan upcoming content.
The strongest calendars are the ones that start at the beginning of the year or at the start of a long-term campaign. It’s a great way to start things off and make sure everyone is working towards the same content marketing goals. In terms of referring to a calendar and updating it – we strongly recommend doing so.
A calendar should allow flexibility as opposed to a set-in-stone plan. If something hasn’t worked, use the calendar to take note of this and change the plan. If multiple people are using a calendar, we would recommend having a weekly touch-base, to ensure it is fully up to date and fresh.
How do I align my calendar with my content marketing strategy?
This is one of the most important steps because your strategy makes sure all of your content will lead your towards your goals and result in a good return on investment (ROI). When you created your strategy – you essentially created a guide for your editorial calendar.
Things such as content pillars and content types are a key part of both your strategy and calendar. A pillar is a broad topic you’re targeting, for example as an agency, a content pillar would be digital marketing. Then, we’d have any related topics such as SEO, PPC, conversions and more.
Content types refer to the content format you use based on your buyer journey. Things like blog posts and infographics are often seen as top-of-funnel content – meaning they work to drive initial traffic and awareness. Then, we have middle-of-funnel content that should encourage more engagement through things such as interactive content. Then finally we have bottom-of-funnel content that should be conversion-focused, i.e. focused on those that are closer to the point of purchase.
These things should be considered when creating your calendar. Are you creating content to meet people at different part of their journey? Is your content aimed only towards conversions?
As well as content pillars and formats, we have listed a few more things that will influence your strategy and calendar:
- Keywords: Content and SEO very often come hand-in-hand. Think about the search terms you want to target. You can use your calendar to ensure you’re posting content that is specifically targeting those words and helping you to improve your rank organically. Things like long-form, SOE optimised blogs are crucial if you want to be more visible on SERP.
- Major marketing campaigns: Do you have any big events or initiatives planned? For example, if you are hosting an annual event or launching a brand-new product – then it’s likely you will have some content promotion to work on around this. This is exactly when an editorial calendar comes in useful. You could potentially have to think about promotion articles, live reporting on the day and post-event content. You can use your calendar to plan all of this and access photos, videos, and data afterwards.
- Seasonal content: Are there any key dates throughout the year that will benefit your content marketing performance? Depending on your industry – different dates will influence the type of content you share. For example, a clothing retailer may have special promotions around Christmas, Black Friday or the start of summer. As a digital marketing agency, we’d take note of any upcoming significant industry changes. You can use Google Trends to find out which holidays or occurrences are important to your target audience. It shows the current interest in any search term:
How do I slot my ideas into my calendar?
Before you start, we would recommend a combination of thorough research as well as a team brainstorm. Once you have enough ideas to work with – you can start to map out which ideas align with content pillars and types. Of course, keep in mind your SEO content, major content and seasonal promotions.
At this point you should know your key dates, your targeted keyword and any major campaigns you need to prepare for. We would suggest starting off with those fixed dates. Consider the annual occurrences that will be at the same time each year. This is simply because you know exactly when you will need to publish your content.
Then, schedule any major company or digital marketing initiatives such as a product launch, because you have a good idea of when you will be publishing the surrounding content.
Next up, focus on your ‘big rock content’ – things like eBooks, videos and interactive pieces. These tend to take up a lot of time, so it’s best to prepare for that in advance.
After that, you can schedule your SEO content to ensure you’re hitting any keywords that you want to rank for. Make sure to schedule these regularly for the best results. Remember to use an SEO tool such as Google Trends for the most current topics amongst your audience.
If you have any questions, you can get in touch with our digital marketing team here.