However, having an airtight editorial calendar can prevent such inconsistencies. And if your audience expects consistent content, you shouldn't be publishing without an editorial calendar.
When content marketing teams operate without a calendar or schedule, they quickly run out of steam. In this article, we’ll highlight what an editorial calendar is, why you need one, and how you can create one that will make your content marketing more effective.
An editorial calendar is a plan for your company’s content over a specific time period.
Depending on your industry and company preferences, some marketers use their editorial calendar as a long-term big-picture content plan spanning months or even the calendar year. These teams often also have a short-term planner they refer to as a content calendar for planning content about a month or two in advance.
Your editorial calendar should house your content plan for your blog and other adjacent information that we'll review later in this article. This calendar can also serve as a visual representation of your team’s workflow as you brainstorm, create, schedule, and publish content.
Here are five reasons why you should create an organized editorial calendar.
Instead of publishing any topic at any time of year, an editorial calendar can be a good guide for planning content around trending or seasonal topics.
For example, if you’re an e-commerce site aimed at small business owners, it may be more valuable to share content about boosting holiday sales a month or two in advance of Q4.
But if you fly by the seat of your pants and plan content only a week or two before the holiday, you'll miss out on valuable traffic and content shares.
Editorial calendars make it easy to quickly record the results of your brainstorming sessions. You can take note of keywords for potential posts and fill out the calendar with as many posts as you need for a steady publishing schedule—all well in advance.
With a steady stream of documented and scheduled ideas, you’ll rarely run out of content to share with your audience.
It can be frustrating having to forward or share document links with the graphic designer, editor, content strategist, and everyone involved in content production.
A good editorial calendar aligns everyone and shows them what phase(s) of each project involve them. They can also see due dates and monitor the progress of each task, keeping everyone on the same page.
Editorial calendars don't only assist with planning and producing content; they also help with tracking what you've published. You’ll also have easy access to which pieces need a refresh, which ones need graphics, and have quick access to published links if your higher-ups would like to see your progress.
This allows you to refer to content easily and monitor how each piece is doing over time.
Speaking of time, remember all that time and energy spent wondering who’s doing what and when it’s due? Count that time and energy saved.
With an editorial calendar, you and your team can work seamlessly, using an efficient workflow and trusting that you have a bank of clever content ideas to draw from for your content marketing.
Editorial calendars look different for different content teams. They can vary by time period, design (i.e., if you use Google Sheets or GatherContent), and topic matter.
Your content calendar should be organized in the best way to suit your company’s needs. Include fields that matter to you and those you’d like to know and monitor closely. Let's unpack what these fields may be.
At its most basic, your editorial calendar "must-haves" should answer four questions about your content:
Everything else falls under the category of "nice-to-have." That said, these are our recommended additions to your editorial calendar:
In addition to the vital details, some companies choose to include other information such as:
Once you decide which parameters to include in your editorial calendar, you can then either develop one from scratch or use a template (we have a free one!) to set your team up for success. Follow these steps to create a standout content calendar.
The great thing about content calendars is that they’re versatile and can be created in multiple formats. You can create your editorial calendar in:
Calendars like Google Calendar work well for old-school planning—just create a separate calendar for content. However, this option limits the amount of information you can include for each assignment.
Spreadsheets are helpful for organizing information but lack dynamic fields and don't provide much value in the way of project management. Project management tools are popular, but most don't utilize (or completely replace) your CMS as GatherContent does.
Designate access
Once you’ve chosen the right system, add the required information for your company—either from scratch or using a template. When that’s done, you’ll need to regulate access to your editorial calendar.
A functional content calendar should be accessible to your team, but it's wise to limit how much access certain users have.
For example, if stakeholders only need to view the calendar for regular updates, they should only have view access. This prevents unintentional changes to painstakingly organized information. Similarly, everyone who will need to edit or update the calendar should have full access.
This step is eternally ongoing. Your content calendar only works if you keep it up-to-date. Bookmark it, use it daily, and add new information when posts are published, existing content needs refreshing, or some other modification is necessary.
When you have brainstorm sessions, add new ideas to the calendar so that when you’re ready to flesh out upcoming content, your ideas will be waiting for you.
We’ve rounded up some excellent editorial calendars from companies that understand the value of creating high-quality content. Some of these use spreadsheets, while others use project management software. Hopefully, you’ll find one that inspires you.
If you’re looking for an in-depth editorial calendar template with a big picture horizon view, daily view, and regular info and progress report, try ours!
However, having an airtight editorial calendar can prevent such inconsistencies. And if your audience expects consistent content, you shouldn't be publishing without an editorial calendar.
When content marketing teams operate without a calendar or schedule, they quickly run out of steam. In this article, we’ll highlight what an editorial calendar is, why you need one, and how you can create one that will make your content marketing more effective.
An editorial calendar is a plan for your company’s content over a specific time period.
Depending on your industry and company preferences, some marketers use their editorial calendar as a long-term big-picture content plan spanning months or even the calendar year. These teams often also have a short-term planner they refer to as a content calendar for planning content about a month or two in advance.
Your editorial calendar should house your content plan for your blog and other adjacent information that we'll review later in this article. This calendar can also serve as a visual representation of your team’s workflow as you brainstorm, create, schedule, and publish content.
Here are five reasons why you should create an organized editorial calendar.
Instead of publishing any topic at any time of year, an editorial calendar can be a good guide for planning content around trending or seasonal topics.
For example, if you’re an e-commerce site aimed at small business owners, it may be more valuable to share content about boosting holiday sales a month or two in advance of Q4.
But if you fly by the seat of your pants and plan content only a week or two before the holiday, you'll miss out on valuable traffic and content shares.
Editorial calendars make it easy to quickly record the results of your brainstorming sessions. You can take note of keywords for potential posts and fill out the calendar with as many posts as you need for a steady publishing schedule—all well in advance.
With a steady stream of documented and scheduled ideas, you’ll rarely run out of content to share with your audience.
It can be frustrating having to forward or share document links with the graphic designer, editor, content strategist, and everyone involved in content production.
A good editorial calendar aligns everyone and shows them what phase(s) of each project involve them. They can also see due dates and monitor the progress of each task, keeping everyone on the same page.
Editorial calendars don't only assist with planning and producing content; they also help with tracking what you've published. You’ll also have easy access to which pieces need a refresh, which ones need graphics, and have quick access to published links if your higher-ups would like to see your progress.
This allows you to refer to content easily and monitor how each piece is doing over time.
Speaking of time, remember all that time and energy spent wondering who’s doing what and when it’s due? Count that time and energy saved.
With an editorial calendar, you and your team can work seamlessly, using an efficient workflow and trusting that you have a bank of clever content ideas to draw from for your content marketing.
Editorial calendars look different for different content teams. They can vary by time period, design (i.e., if you use Google Sheets or GatherContent), and topic matter.
Your content calendar should be organized in the best way to suit your company’s needs. Include fields that matter to you and those you’d like to know and monitor closely. Let's unpack what these fields may be.
At its most basic, your editorial calendar "must-haves" should answer four questions about your content:
Everything else falls under the category of "nice-to-have." That said, these are our recommended additions to your editorial calendar:
In addition to the vital details, some companies choose to include other information such as:
Once you decide which parameters to include in your editorial calendar, you can then either develop one from scratch or use a template (we have a free one!) to set your team up for success. Follow these steps to create a standout content calendar.
The great thing about content calendars is that they’re versatile and can be created in multiple formats. You can create your editorial calendar in:
Calendars like Google Calendar work well for old-school planning—just create a separate calendar for content. However, this option limits the amount of information you can include for each assignment.
Spreadsheets are helpful for organizing information but lack dynamic fields and don't provide much value in the way of project management. Project management tools are popular, but most don't utilize (or completely replace) your CMS as GatherContent does.
Designate access
Once you’ve chosen the right system, add the required information for your company—either from scratch or using a template. When that’s done, you’ll need to regulate access to your editorial calendar.
A functional content calendar should be accessible to your team, but it's wise to limit how much access certain users have.
For example, if stakeholders only need to view the calendar for regular updates, they should only have view access. This prevents unintentional changes to painstakingly organized information. Similarly, everyone who will need to edit or update the calendar should have full access.
This step is eternally ongoing. Your content calendar only works if you keep it up-to-date. Bookmark it, use it daily, and add new information when posts are published, existing content needs refreshing, or some other modification is necessary.
When you have brainstorm sessions, add new ideas to the calendar so that when you’re ready to flesh out upcoming content, your ideas will be waiting for you.
We’ve rounded up some excellent editorial calendars from companies that understand the value of creating high-quality content. Some of these use spreadsheets, while others use project management software. Hopefully, you’ll find one that inspires you.
If you’re looking for an in-depth editorial calendar template with a big picture horizon view, daily view, and regular info and progress report, try ours!