Tips for getting the most out of your editorial calendar

Consistency is the key to an effective donor communications or small business marketing strategy. Being inconsistent at communicating — publishing blogs, social posts or sending email newsletters in fits and starts — leads target audiences to suffer from over-stimulation fatigue followed by out-of-sight-out-of-mind syndrome. 

The best way to keep to a regular schedule is to have an editorial calendar. Having a thoroughly flushed out editorial calendar keeps you communicating consistently. It also sidesteps the stress of worrying what the next great content marketing idea should be, and from having to create such content on deadline. 

If this is your first time tackling editorial calendar planning, don’t fret. Here’s a quick look at what’s involved and how to make it as painless as possible. 

Plan your editorial calendar for a 12-month cycle. Annual planning is one of the keys to a high-quality calendar. Take the time before the start of the calendar year or fiscal year to map out a high-level plan — this includes how many times per week/month you intend to publish. Look at key dates that may need to be recognized, events within your organization that you may want to promote, and happenings around the world that may have an impact on your work. Write these into the calendar first. 

Then, consider your organizational brand pillars and whether you want to give each equal weight throughout the year. Map out a plan for each pillar and mark that on the calendar too. For example, if your organization has 4 brand pillars, you may choose to tailor your content for a different pillar each quarter.

During this stage, there is no need to have specific content ideas around each item you mark in the editorial calendar; you are simply mapping out space and timing. 

Flesh out your editorial calendar quarterly. We advocate for developing fully fleshed out ideas at least quarterly. This means going back to your editorial calendar and developing the next batch of ideas to fill out the plan. When thinking about ideas, ask yourself if there are topics you can build on from the previous quarter or if there is specific seasonal content you could highlight. 

Once those ideas are exhausted it is time to come up with fresh ones. Remember, this stage is not about writing all of the content for the quarter, merely conceiving ideas that would work. 

Stay on track. Writing an editorial calendar and doing regular updates is only half the battle. Actually using it and referring to it is the key. Keep yourself accountable to the plan by checking the editorial calendar regularly and making time to complete the tasks you laid out for yourself. 

Finally,

Be flexible. These two words may appear to go against the effort you put into planning, but sometimes it is necessary. There will inevitably be times when something urgent or time-sensitive comes up. Don’t hesitate to move ideas around to accommodate. The majority of content ideas on the editorial calendar should be evergreen (meaning the information you are sharing is timeless) so it is easy to move something down the list in favour of a timely piece or announcement.

Setting up an editorial calendar is really a game-changer when it comes to daily/weekly/monthly small business marketing or donor communications efforts. We can help you set one up, just give us a shout!