5 steps to build an editorial calendar for content marketing
DESCRIPTION
Using a content calendar, you can ensure hassle-free content creation, distribution, and promotion of your content throughout the year.TRANSCRIPT
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.