Do you often find yourself tensed before a go-to-market campaign?

Launches can’t afford to go in vain. Presenting the right kind of content at the right time to the right audience becomes a challenge if content marketers have no defined repository for content marketing materials. This can lead to a failure of campaign execution and brand damage. 

Maintaining an editorial calendar to manage and organize your content helps you plan your campaigns wisely. Switching to a marketing calendar software centralizes core GTM assets, records peer feedback, and enhances team transparency. 

Let’s look at editorial calendars in detail.

Content marketing was never simple, but now it’s more complex than ever. Content teams produce content for search engine optimization (SEO), blog posts, newsletters, guest posts, podcasts, social media, and more.

Figuring out how to balance content between awareness, engagement, and conversion makes content production even more complicated. Having an editorial calendar visualizes this breakdown for a more efficient workflow and better content in the long run.

Why is an editorial calendar necessary?

No one sees an editorial calendar besides your team, so why is it so important? Check out these telling stats from a G2 source.

• 50% of marketers plan to increase their investment in content marketing in 2024
• Short articles/posts (83%) and videos (61%) emerged as the top two content types utilized by business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers in the past 12 months. 
• Blog posts are the most famous content format, with  9 out of 10 marketers using their blogs to achieve their content goals. 
• LinkedIn stood out as the most prevalent and effective social media distribution channel.

Whether your goal is daily content or biweekly reports, an editorial calendar will help you get the most out of your content marketing efforts. You’ll keep content aligned with your strategy, post more consistently, and (most importantly) create space for better content.

Marketing teams can use an editorial calendar to create content that is:

• Relevant. Without everything in one place, content creators can quickly get stuck in the weeds. Visualizing upcoming content in an editorial calendar means you can see which buckets you’re covering, uncover duplicate topics, and hone in on the purpose behind each piece you create.
• Consistent. Keep your cadence and get ahead of your workload by keeping your topics and deadlines straight. Most of your writing will be in one sitting, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make things easier by outlining and researching posts ahead of time.
• Recycled. Extend the impact of your content by using a single, long-form post to create slide decks, infographics, webinars, videos, social media posts, and more. Robust editorial calendars will pull all of these channels together, squeezing every last drop of value out of every piece you produce.
• Collaborative. The best content gets input from multiple teams. You don’t have to have your CX manager write a full post in order to get their perspective. Just keep an eye on upcoming topics and send a few questions to your internal SME a few weeks before it gets scheduled. The same goes for product marketing, sales content, and social media.
• Aligned. Marketing teams should never create content just to get something out there. Each and every piece should serve a purpose. Is it meant to land on page 1 of Google? Do your Account Executives need collateral for their sales calls into a new market? Start with your sales and marketing goals, using those to populate your editorial calendar.

Who needs an editorial calendar?

Well, almost everyone. At least everyone who has a direct role in the content creation process at a company.

Editorial calendars aren’t just for the Director of Marketing or Head of Content. Marketers have been repeating a telling phrase for years now: “Every company should be a media company.” Whether you sell lead generation services or enterprise cloud software, content is key for engaging prospective buyers.

Half of buyers view at least five pieces of content before they make a purchase. Are you doing everything you can to curate the sales and marketing content your audience is looking for?

You get the idea. There’s not just one use case for an editorial calendar. Getting (and keeping) things organized will make a huge difference in your workflow, no matter what projects you’re focused on.

If none of these apply to you, it may be a good idea to revisit your approach to content marketing. “Planning out when and where you’ll post your content can be overwhelming to even the most experienced marketer,” writes Alexa Drake. The key, she says, is to segment your content, make it a collaborative process, and get a schedule going. “Organizing content ahead of time can save you the headache when important deadlines come up abruptly.”

But saving your own sanity is not the only benefit that editorial calendars carry.

How to create an editorial calendar

If you ask any SEO what the right way to do something is, the answer is invariably “It depends”. Like it or not, the same applies to creating and getting the most out of an editorial calendar.

There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way; creating a working editorial calendar depends on your workflow preferences, team collaboration, existing processes, and more. Just remember, there are no shortcuts. In general, take your time going through five steps to create an editorial calendar that will keep your content in check.

1. Choose a format

The world is your digital oyster when it comes to your choice of editorial calendar tools. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, try to stick with a format that you’re already comfortable with. You’ll end up using the editorial calendar more, and you don’t have to get fancy for things to work. These are your options.

Spreadsheets

Tried and true, if somewhat clunky for this purpose, spreadsheets give you a utilitarian approach to building your editorial calendar. The most straightforward way to organize your content using spreadsheets is with the publish date in descending order in the first column, followed by columns for each piece of critical information.

Just like the above-mentioned template, you can build your editorial content sheet with attributes like topic, keywords, author and editor, theme or category, deliverable date, and design notes. 

You can use spreadsheets to quickly set up your editorial calendar without having to learn a new tool or spend (much) money. The potential issue is spreadsheets are relatively static, making it more difficult to collaborate with others or get a big-picture view of your content. If you need a quick start to your editorial calendar or just want to mock up something, a spreadsheet may be your best bet.

Standard online calendars

On the opposite end of the spectrum from spreadsheets are online calendars. These have the benefit of already being organized around publishing dates, but the drawback is that they are not especially suited to content production.

Some online calendars solve that challenge with built-in collaboration and communication features. But at the end of the day, most calendars aren’t built with asynchronous communication in mind. If you just need a simple way to visualize your publishing cadence and don’t collaborate on content, standard online calendars may be your best bet.

Project management tools

Built to simultaneously coordinate individual tasks and manage team goals, project management tools are a great fit for editorial calendars.

Cloud-based project management software is already focused on breaking projects into visual elements for each task, process, deliverable, or due date. While not purpose-built for content teams and editorial calendars, most tools can be easily adapted to the layout you need. Some even have templates that you can use to get a quick start. 

If you’re willing to spend some money on an editorial calendar tool and need to collaborate with others on your team, project management tools may be your best bet.

Content management platforms

As the name suggests. content management platforms allows you to schedule and prioritize content production. It categorizes your content resources, templatizes them and prompts users to set a timeline to upload these on the live website environment. 

Some CMS platforms also include collaboration features, which means you can combine spreadsheets and other documents to lay out your content strategy and calendar. Others work as a client portal, so if you’re creating content as a professional service, you can consolidate your tasks, calendar, and communication within the platform. It gives clear insights of upcoming content and content priority to align your goals with overall business goals and devise campaign launches better. 

If (for now) you’re just looking for a way to organize your content, share it across your organization, and publish with a regular cadence, a content management platform may be your best bet.

2. Outline what content you want to include (topics, themes, titles, etc.)

The tool you choose to use is important, but it’s not the most critical part of your editorial calendar. What you include on your calendar will be much more important for the ongoing success of your content.

Use the following seven elements in your content calendar:

• Topic: The full working title for your piece of content.
• Owner: Who will own this project?
• Status: Where are you in the writing, editing, and staging process?
• Deliverable and publish dates: Keep the finish line in mind by focusing on when your content will go out.
• Category/purpose: Will it be on the blog? Serve as sales collateral? Is it for SEO or product marketing?
• Document links: Keep the link to your brief and draft documents handy.
• Live URL: Make it easier to review content after it’s published by adding the live link (if relevant).

3. Set deadlines for the publication process

The whole point of an editorial calendar is to stay on top of your content, so make your deadlines realistic.

If you work on a two-week cycle, perhaps your goal is to have a draft written, edited, and staged 10-14 days before the publication date. If you fall behind, you’ll have given yourself a buffer to catch up without sacrificing quality. If you’re working with multiple writers, widen that buffer.

For many content teams (especially those on the larger end), it’s helpful to include both the publication date and due dates for the first draft, edits, and staging portions of content production.

4. Determine the frequency of content distribution

How often will you be distributing content–will you publish a piece every week? Twice a week? Will you include social media distribution within the content calendar? Again, there are no right or wrong answers here. But make sure that your cadence is realistic. Optimism can quickly give way to overcommitment in content marketing.

Choose a cadence just outside of your comfort zone to push yourself but avoid feeling overwhelmed. As an example, this could translate into seven blog posts per month to allow for some breathing room at the end of each month.

5. Decide on distribution channels/formats

Don’t neglect content formats. A well-populated and active blog is a powerful lead-generation tool, but it’s not the only format that will grow your business. Instead, work on populating your editorial calendar with:

• Pillar content for SEO
• New landing pages and product copy
• Sales collateral
• Customer-focused content
• User-generated content and case studies

Outside of social media, you might focus on creating seven blog posts and one piece of sales collateral, website copy, and pillar SEO content each.

Editorial calendar template to get started 

In an ideal content editorial calendar, content is segmented according to the team format, funnel stage, stakeholder bandwidth, priority, assigned team updates, turnaround time, date and time of release, and additional remarks, feedback, or suggestions.

Multiple people across different departments have access to this sheet, and they update it on a regular basis.

Let’s look at these parameters in detail and what each of them signifies in this content calendar.

1. Date published: This column keeps track of when a particular content piece was last published or modified and the stretch gap between the expected publishing date and the actual publishing date. It measures how optimized and regularized the content planning process is and how disciplined the team members who create and publish these deliverables are. 

2. Marketer name: This column mentions the name of the current responsible professional for a particular content asset. It can be a video editor, graphic designer, or content writer. This tab can inform superiors or team leaders who to approach within the team in case there are final-level changes or live environment glitches. These personnel are responsible for driving a particular content project from beginning to end. 

3. Due date: The due date signifies the completion date that the teams estimated at the very beginning of the content planning. This data can be modified over time, depending on how much extra manpower is required to build the content assets. It also differs for each content format, like video, images, or e-books.

4. Content type: A marketing campaign doesn’t only bank upon articles or blogs. Other resources, like ad copies, push notifications, video scripts, and referral emails, also play a huge part in targeting the interested number of buyers or prospects. This column mentions all the initiatives being run in your team, either from a content, design, or video marketing point of view. 

5. Due by: This is the heavy stop for the editorial calendar, and each stakeholder is expected to submit their projects by this date. The dates are estimated well in advance so that they don’t clash with the day of the product launch and let things go haywire. 

6. Topic: The topic column describes the nature of the content resource. It must include all articles, videos, and emails that contain a particular subject or target a specific set of keywords. 

7. Content instructions: In this column, team leaders and managers can leave comments, guidance, or key reminders for the marketing teams and request that they follow these standards while creating content.

8. Target keywords: This column lists primary, secondary, and tertiary keywords that can be written in the blog or video subtitles or narrated in a video by an actor. Search engines mention these keywords through their crawling mechanism, and content assets with the required number of keywords get closer to hitting the right traffic. 

9. Links: This column mentions different internal and external linkable assets that can be integrated with the existing content assets. Linking to other party assets not only widens the information spectrum but also builds more visibility and credibility for SEO teams. 

10. Call to action: The call to action, or the final actionable step, determines how the consumer wants to continue. It is a prompt given at the end or in the middle of a content resource that can help interested or engaged prospects explore more about the product or even buy it. 

11. Notes or comments: This column contains additional remarks and comments critiquing the success or failure of the go-to-market (GTM) campaign. 

Plan your dates wisely!

Building an effective content marketing calendar is a cornerstone of your brand’s success. By ensuring maximum transparency on each content marketer’s effort and recognizing them, you are setting yourself up for more successful content endeavors. This calendar is also a testament to the amount of sweat and effort each professional puts into achieving their objectives. Recognizing, crediting, and re-strategizing those efforts with a high-spirited mentoring approach can build more enthusiasm, better calendars, and team collaborations.

Explore content marketing agencies that would empower you to manage your content pipelines in accordance with your brand’s tight-bound deadlines or goals. 

This article was originally published in 2020 and has been updated with new information.