How to Create an Editorial Calendar and Stick to it!

Publishing is essential to online marketing, learn how to create an editorial calendar and more importantly stick to it.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar

Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is a tool used to plan all the content we want to share with our audience (the content of the blog, social networks, website). More specifically, it is a document in which we establish what we will publish, when we will do it, where and for whom.

What is the purpose of an editorial calendar?

The editorial calendar is an almost essential tool for companies and is ideal for planning and controlling the evolution of your content. It is like a roadmap that will guide you to know what to publish and how to do it, and it will also help you grow your brand organically and achieve your goals. According to the HubSpot State of Marketing Report 2021, content marketing is used by 82 percent of businesses. Only 70% of companies reported the same in 2020. This surge of 12% demonstrates that content marketing is far from dead — it is very much alive and kicking As a result, it is necessary to consider it.

Why is it essential to create an editorial calendar?

 

  1. It improves and simplifies resources. Thanks to an organized editorial calendar, editors can improve workflow.
  2. It maximizes idea generation. The editorial calendar, together with an idea map, is essential to optimize content.
  3. It differentiates audiences. Each post can target a different audience. A clear and defined editorial calendar can help you determine the target audience for each post. 
  4. It adds value to your audience. Organized content will help you have more time to create it, which will impact the quality of the publications.
  5. It saves time. It saves time because it allows you to know what will be published, enabling you to write in advance.
  6. Help create a clear content map. It allows you to create helpful content that explains to your audience what they need to hear.
  7. It forces complying with publication dates and being more regular. It helps plan the content to avoid moments of multiple publications versus moments of null publications.

 

What to consider when creating an editorial calendar?

If you want to learn how to create an editorial calendar the right way, these are the items you must consider:

 

Planning aligned with your marketing plan

For example, if you carry out an offline promotion on Valentine’s Day, why not create an article to give it visibility? Another case: if you are going to launch a new service in a few months, you can generate expectations by talking about it before or explaining it once it is up and running.

 

Your Audience

According to Forbes, the average person spends approximately 7 hours each day consuming content daily. With this term, we are talking about more than just a target audience. We are referring to an archetype or ideal customer profile. It is necessary to comprehend the following points:

  • What information they demand.
  • How you can help them with your brand or what pain points you solve.
  • What is their gender, age, digital habits, what objections do they usually argue for not buying?

 

Keywords

What keywords does your audience use to search for the topics you will introduce? Are you being specific? Have you selected long-tail keywords? Which ones do your competitors use? These are the fundamental questions to start with. Once chosen, it is significant to know how to use them in your texts to improve SEO positioning.

 

Title

You are playing with 65 characters. It’s that clear. They are what Google will show your post when someone performs a relevant search. Asking the reader a question, using specific terms, or making a list are some tactics of good titles that assist selling. 

 

The content writer

Designate the author who will be in charge of writing each article. Ideally, they should specialize in the subject, but if not, don’t despair. Although it is easier and faster to write on a topic you are familiar with, you can always ask the assistance of a journalist, essay writer, or freelance copywriter who has considerable experience conducting field research.

 

Frequency of publication

How often will you publish: every week, once a month, or every 3 months? Set a realistic figure that you can keep to. If you don’t, frustration will set in. As you can imagine, the more often you publish, the more likely you are to succeed, as you will be feeding your blog with content that, in turn, will bring you closer to your goals.

 

Length

How many words, approximately, are you going to include in each document? Although there is no clear consensus on this question, Google generally prefers long texts. We can say that the minimum would be around 300-400 words, the average about 800, and the ideal 1500. Don’t just write for the sake of writing, though. Remember that the content must be of value and interest to your audience.

 

Complementary information and Call To Action

What if you take the opportunity to include calls to action or CTAs so that your audience performs the action you want? It is also attractive to provide the information you deal with in other formats. For instance, videos, banners, infographics. Everything can be complete and reinforce the communication. It should be added that in 2020 media uploads climbed by 80% year over year, as consumers spent the majority of their time at home watching content. In 2020, consumers viewed 12.2 billion minutes of video, equating to 23,211 years of material (Source: HubSpot State of Marketing Report 2021). It was the year of the beginning of the pandemic. However, the upward trend in these indicators is rapidly developing. 

 

Dates

In an ideal situation, you will have a monthly, quarterly and annual calendar. The most concrete will be the monthly one, but the rest will help you forecast topics and dates to take into account. Of course, although you have to comply with the planned calendar, be flexible and adapt if changes arise.

 

Final Thoughts

All in all, creating a content marketing plan is critical for a business, but it is useless if you don’t know how to create an editorial calendar. If you don’t have an editorial calendar template to start using right now for your blog and social media, explore the possibilities with all the tools at your disposal! 

Now that you’ve got the outline to create an editorial calendar, make sure to check out some of these other posts on crafting stellar content.