In this article, we’ll break down what editorial strategy is, why it’s important, and how you can build an editorial strategy to put most of your content marketing on autopilot.

What you need to know about editorial strategy

Editorial strategy is your plan for preparing and publishing content to reach your goals as a marketer. It is part of your content marketing strategy and focuses on how you present your content to your audience using various tools and channels.

Even if you already have a content strategy, you still need an editorial strategy. While content strategy is more concerned with the ideation and content development process, editorial strategy deals with the production, presentation, and distribution of such content.

Benefits of using an editorial strategy

Having a solid editorial strategy can benefit your business in many ways. Ultimately, it can help you create effective content that connects with your target audience effectively in these three ways:

• Brand consistency. A 2021 survey by Lucidpress showed that brand consistency can increase a company’s revenue by up to 20%. Following a documented editorial strategy can help make your brand voice, position, and messaging more consistent, which translates to increased credibility and conversions.
• Regular content production. With an editorial strategy in place, it’s easier to brainstorm content that appeals to your customers. You also have a predictable workflow and can avoid bottlenecks in your content production process. Regular output of high-quality content keeps customers engaged and positions you as an industry expert.
• More measurable progress. Creating an editorial strategy helps you home in on which channels and processes are most effective. This allows you to measure your progress better, identify weak links, and develop a more profitable strategy if needed.

4 Steps to create your editorial strategy

Creating an editorial strategy doesn’t have to be a challenging process. Follow these four steps to craft a strategy that will take your business in a profitable direction.

1. Define your audience

The first step in any kind of strategy is understanding your target audience. Defining your ideal audience will help you serve them in a worthwhile way. Before you dive into the details of your editorial plan, consider questions like the following:

• Who is your ideal customer?
• What are their main challenges or pain points?
• Which channels do they frequent?
• How would they like your product to benefit them?

You can’t pull this information out of a hat—and you shouldn’t try to. Instead, perform audience research using surveys and social listening. Build user personas to help you visualize your target audience. Chat with your sales and product teams to understand how users interact with your product and what their most pressing challenges are.

Doing these things will make your audience stand out more clearly in your mind. Be sure to document your findings and adjust them as the needs of your audience change over time.

2. Choose your content types and channels

The next step is to decide which types of content you’ll be creating and where you’ll host your content.

You have a wide range of format options across the content marketing funnel, from long-form pieces like blog posts, email newsletters, and whitepapers to audio content like podcasts.

As you create the best kind of content for your brand, choose where your content will live as well as which distribution channels are best suited to your industry and audience. According to Hubspot’s 2021 State of Marketing Report, the two most commonly used marketing channels are social media and search engine optimization (SEO).

3. Determine your content goals

You know your audience, but do you know what you want to accomplish with your content? Knowing your goals helps you figure out which marketing channels to focus on and how to angle your content. Consider creating a content mission statement to keep your team on track with publishing content that complements your brand and goals.

Additionally, when you know your content goals, you’ll know which key performance indicators (KPIs) to look out for when analyzing your content performance.

Your content goals don’t have to be fixed. Some marketers focus on gaining website traffic and building brand awareness in the beginning and later move on to driving sales and increasing revenue over time.

4. Decide how often to publish

While there may be varying recommendations, there’s no fixed number of weekly blog posts to guarantee content marketing success. Rather, what’s proven to be a real game changer is consistency.

Whether you’re publishing once a week or once a month, focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to your audience and spotlights your product. A good editorial strategy will make it substantially easier to achieve this.

Keep in mind, too, that your publishing cadence will vary depending on the channel you choose. For example, while you may publish multiple times per week on your website, you might decide to only post video content or send email newsletters once a month.

How to connect your editorial strategy with operations

Drawing up a strategy is the easy part—now how do you bring it to life in your day-to-day content operations? You’ll need to do these four things.

1. Create an editorial calendar

An editorial calendar provides a long-term view of your scheduled content. It’s a great place to dump your content ideas, especially if you include several types of content in your calendar. It also helps keep you on track to achieve your content goals. With a regularly updated editorial or content calendar, you’ll never run out of ideas to keep up with your desired publishing cadence.

2. Build a comprehensive style guide

Having a content style guide is the best way to maintain a consistent brand voice, especially if you work with freelancers. Your style guide should be detailed, but not overwhelming. Include all the pertinent information:

• Brand voice
• Brand mission
• Target audience
• Keyword usage guidelines
• Source citation guidelines (such as competitor sites to avoid)
• Editorial guidelines including brand-specific punctuation use, grammar and formatting notes, etc.

Stick to 5–7 pages and focus on sharing essential information. Also, remember that your style guide should be a living document, not a never-updated archived document. Refresh it regularly to ensure it stays relevant and practical for your business.

3. Use detailed content briefs

Like style guides, content briefs should relay your brand’s messaging, but on a project level. Content briefs are a vital way to communicate the goals of each individual project to your writers and ensure that your content team and any freelancers are on the same page.

Here are some common things to include in your content briefs:

• Main keyword
• Post title
• Word count
• Article objective
• Reference articles
• Recommended internal links
• Calls to action (CTAs)

4. Stick to an efficient content workflow

Your content workflow is all the steps your content goes through from the moment you generate the idea to its publish date—and even your distribution tactics after publishing. Creating a workflow means assigning roles at each step of the process, so everyone knows where they step in and what they should do to refine the content in production.

Ideally, each piece of content should move through the following processes at minimum:

• Ideation
• Keyword research
• Content creation (brief creation, outline, draft, and editing)
• Publishing
• Distribution
• Analysis

As with all elements of your editorial strategy, don’t be afraid to adjust your workflow to find the best fit for your content team. Identify the parts slowing down your content production, determine which team members might be overloaded, and make any changes to increase productivity.

Editorial strategy example

We’ve drawn up a sample editorial strategy you can build on for your brand. This is a strategy for a fictitious accounting software company that’s targeting small and medium-sized businesses.

‍

Audience persona: Small and medium-sized businesses looking for a comprehensive bookkeeping and accounting solution.

Preferred content types and channels: Long-form blog content, email newsletters, and a podcast about navigating financial issues in small and medium-sized businesses.

Brand tone of voice: The professional, friendly accounting expert focused on making the subject matter interesting and engaging.

Main content goals: To create brand awareness in a competitive industry and encourage new users to try the product.

Publishing cadence: 4 Blog articles per month, 1 email newsletter per week, and 1 podcast every other week.

‍

This is only a starter template you can tailor to fit your own content needs. If you want a more in-depth content strategy roadmap, our collaborative checklist will help you get to the heart of your brand’s content strategy.

Execute your editorial strategy flawlessly with GatherContent

GatherContent can help you integrate your editorial strategy with content operations. Our all-in-one content hub supports team collaboration by allowing you to plan, create, edit, and publish content all in one platform.

Create a content calendar, build content briefs with checklists for writers, edit articles simultaneously, and publish using integrations with popular content management services—all without leaving the platform.