5 STEPS TO BUILD ANEDITORIAL CALENDAR FOR

CONTENT MARKETING

Presented by Sun Media Marketing

Building an editorial calendar is voted as one of the most difficult

tasks by content marketing teams around the world.

Even if you have the most idealist content calendar to guide your

content creation and distribution throughout the years, you might

feel lost at times.

If you too have been asking yourself, “How do I create a content marketing calendar

that doesn’t fail you” here are certain tips.

that will understand what an editorial calendar in marketing is, how you can create it,

and what are its underlying benefits.

Why some editorial calendars not workout for content teams?As per our observation, the biggest thing that is stopping people from using theeditorial calendar effectively is not understanding the usefulness of thecalendar itself.To be very honest, not many people take the editorial calendar seriously andsee it just as a professional obligation.It is one thing to use to download an editorial calendar template and add fill itwith tentatively planned content and to understand what should be included inan editorial calendar?

After in-depth research and personal experience, we have concluded that for

any editorial calendar to be successful it is essential to create content that is

relevant and useful for improving your content creation process for maxed

marketing outreach.

How do youCreate anEffectiveContentCalendar?

1. Finding the right editorial calendar templateThe best way to create an editorial calendar is by

knowing what will work out best for your content

marketing efforts. For any editorial calendar to

work, it has to be created as an actionable system

to coordinate between various content marketing

efforts.A content calendar is built to pre-hand to guide you throughout the year.

It is a very long time, which can make you forget a lot of things potentially missing out

on important information.

The best editorial content would be something that can make the process of content

creation less stressful and especially by making coordination.

2. How do you create a content editorial strategy?An important part of the content is making sure it is covering a wide range of subjects to

keep your readers engaged. Be specific about what you have to offer to your clients like

your products and services.

Be clear, rather than being everything for your readers. The idea is about being

purposeful in your content strategy.

A good way to achieve purposefulness in your content creation process is by creating blog

categories understanding what you think is important for your sales funnel and search

intent.

Not always your first interaction with your brand be about conversions, it can also be

about creating bong with them for them to eventually lead to a sale. To achieve it you can

align your content strategy for creating content for their search intent.

A sales process has stages and informational intent helps

you in the discovery/consideration stage of the sales

funnel.

Creating content that allows you to attract people that

are not ready to buy but are sailing the internet for

considering process can be beneficial for your business.

Optimizing your content to meet Google guidelines and

optimize it for long-tail keywords and phrases is an

effective practice.

Informational Intent

But if a person is ready to become your esteemed customer,

their searches will include your reviews, discounts, and pricing

and they are ready to buy from you.

Your editorial calendar should be aligned to all the different

levels of their readiness to buy and the information they are

seeking to make an informed decision.

For your editorial content to work out perfectly for you, consider

audience attention span and their need for diversity of content to

make them your loyal customer.

Make your content diverse, use different types of things to create

a buzz for your brand in social media channels every day.

Transactional Intent

Blogs are an important part of SEO and thus, having a content

strategy is important for your visibility on Google and other search

engines.

What is the difference between content strategy and content

marketing?

Well, content marketing is a large umbrella in which content strategy

is a part.

Other than strategizing, there is development, distribution, and

management of the content too.

What does content strategy deals in, a content strategy helps in the

identification of major search intents.

3. Is keyword research important?

An editorial calendar helps you in strategizing and creating the content for your

content strategy better.

It allows you to stay on track.

Coming back to our topic, blog content is driven by SEO traffic, and determining

individual topics should be as per your keyword research.

You can also refine your keyword research by keyword research tools that allow

you to stay on track, the also provide you useful metrics to make a better

decision.

Is keyword research important?

Here are some amazing tips that you can use to improveyour keyword research:

Keyword Relevance

Keyword Difficulty

Are the keywords relevant to your target audience? Consider adding a word modifier toget more specific? Are long-tail keywords more likely to be searched by your

audience?

One of the most underestimated keyword research metrics but one of the mostimportant. If you are already a well-known entity in the market don’t choose to go forhigh difficulty keywords. It will help you in ranking faster and also with a lesser numberof backlinks.

Keyword Intent

Here are some amazing tips that you can use to improveyour keyword research:

Use a mix of keywords for variation in the content and also target your content for theaudience at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

4. Adding comprehensive briefs for each content assetAdd detailed briefs for each planned topic for every content creator to understand therequirements well. This step allows you to create an editorial content calendar that willhave a 3600 outreach. Here are a few items on your list you should consider adding toeach content brief:

Blog CategoryConsider various categories so that you can quickly see how well you’re fleshing outcontent for various focus niches.

Title

It doesn’t have to be something permanent, but give them a rough idea, provide askeleton for them to get started for content creation.

Feature Image

Featured images are an important part of blogs and also help you improve your SEO, adda brief for featured image for your graphic designer providing them some reference forthe kind of image you have in your mind.

Publishing / Promotion Checklist

The most important part of the brief game, you should also have a process of publishingand promoting your content and thus, adding a checklist directly to your editorialcalendar helps you stay in line with creators, publishers, and promoters.

5. Try out other mediums tooWhat is editorial content? Is it predominantly blogs? No, you can have a content calendar

for about every type of content that you are wishing to create.

It has major SEO benefits but it also means you can use these tools in improving and

optimizing content all across the other mediums too.

A few other content assets that you build into your editorial calendar are:Social Media PostsSocial

Ads Promotion

Email Marketing

Webinars

Whitepapers

eBooks and More.