What is Editorial Calendar?
It’s like a road map for content creation, showing you what kind of content to create, what topics to cover, which personas to target, and how often to publish to best support your plan. Maintaining an editorial calendar will keep you more organized and show you any gaps you may have in your content library. It also helps ensure you’re doing the right things for your personas and not going way off-track with the topics you’re covering. (Don’t you have a proper calendar yet? Check out this free, pre-designed editorial calendar template.)
Example
Imagine you work for a digital marketing agency responsible for managing a client’s blog. You create an editorial calendar to plan blog posts for the next quarter.
- Calendar Overview: The editorial calendar includes a monthly view outlining the dates for content publication and any relevant deadlines.
- Topic Ideas: Each month is populated with potential blog post topics based on keyword research, industry trends, and client objectives. For example, in March, you might focus on topics related to spring cleaning and home organization.
- Assigned Authors: The editorial calendar specifies which team members are responsible for writing each blog post. Assigning authors ensures accountability and helps distribute the workload evenly among team members.
- Status and Progress: The calendar tracks the status of each blog post, indicating whether it’s in the planning, writing, editing, or publishing stage. This allows team members to see at a glance which tasks are completed and which ones are pending.
- Content Promotion: In addition to blog post topics, the editorial calendar includes plans for promoting content across various channels, such as social media, email newsletters, and guest blogging opportunities.