How To Build A Solid Content Marketing Editorial Calendar From Nothing In this lesson, you'll learn how to: Set your goals that you can measure in ROI Plan unique content that will connect with your audience and stand out among your competition Organize your ideas into a real, executable content strategy Realistically grow the amount of content you schedule to be sustainable for you no matter your resources Section 1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////// Begin By Defining Your Blog Goals It might sound silly, but why are you blogging? Brainstorm the reasons: From those reasons, define the #1 reason you re blogging. Hint: It s probably about growing your business through profitable customer action. #1: What are the supporting metrics you could measure that influence that goal? Example: Page views influence subscribers which influence trial signups and customer conversions. Remember: Most folks consume more than 10 pieces of content before making a buying decision. That means it takes multiple pieces to influence that ultimate customer conversion. Good goals to start with are page views and email subscribers because you can immediately see how content impacts those metrics. From there, you can set up reports to understand how the relationship between metrics impact one another.
Narrow the metrics down to just a few (even just one or two will work well) you will use to gauge your success: Write your goals to be SMART (specific, measurable, accurate, realistic, and time-sensitive): Example: By June 30, 2016, the CoSchedule content marketing blog will reach 30,000 monthly page views to introduce CoSchedule to 15,000 unique bloggers. By, our will every to. By, our will every to. By, our will every to. Find an average blog post s performance toward those goals right now: Get a sample of the metrics from your recent blog posts. Grab a sample of your metrics from the first month after publish to get your baseline averages. Post Name Metric: Metric: Metric: Example: How To Grow Your Blog 5,000 page views 200 email subscribers x Averages:
Now, apply how you d like to grow to that baseline in the next year. We advocate for 10x growth: Current Monthly Measurement Average # x #% = Goal Example: 5,000 average page views x 10 = 5,500 page views x = x = x = From here, you can compare how much content you need to create to reach your goals. Keep in mind, this is a baseline suggesting that new content is the main driver of growth. However, you could prioritize tactics that will help you get even more out of your existing content to minimize your new content creation. Section 2 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////// Find Your Content Core What do your readers really care about? Tip: Accessing survey data, reviewing customer success emails, and even looking at blog comments are all sources of inspiration. Brainstorm the features of a specific product or service you offer that will serve well for blog content:
Connect the dots between your audience s needs and what you want to talk about. You re not looking for blog post ideas right now. You re looking for deep topics and pain points you will touch on again and again within multiple pieces of content. Ask yourself: What problems do we solve for our customers? Find Your Blue Ocean Who are your competitors in your blog niche? This is the red ocean: Hint: Who is creating content you ll compete with? What sorts of content do these blogs cover? Hint: Look at me-too headlines, over-covered topics, keywords, types of content, length, design, tone, multimedia, etc.
Look again at the topics you could cover from the content core area. Brainstorm how you could make your content stand out to your readers as uniquely more valuable. Hint: You could use the Why? technique to dive deep into your content core. For every answer, ask yourself Why? to uncover deep truths about your audience and product. Define Your Topic Themes What topics from your brainstorm are the best for your blog and readers? Section 3 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////// Prioritize Your Marketing Projects You likely already have a project list, ideas list, or backlog. Narrow a list of blog posts that will connect into your topic themes: Theme 1:
Theme 2: Theme 3: Theme 4:
Theme 5: Theme 6: Theme 7: Go back through the theme lists and use Marcus Sheridan s ranking technique to rank them with good, better, best to meet the goals you defined in section 1: 1 means OK, 3 means extremely valuable for reaching your goals. Use your best judgement to rank these just to get started. Hint: This idea stems from The Sales Lion. Here is what Marcus suggests you need to know to complete this task: Essentially, we have every client rate their planned content (be it blog titles, videos, etc.) on a scale of 1- A 3 score means it s Buyer s Content and therefore marked as most urgent moving it to the top of the calendar. If it s a 1 grade, then we ll wait to produce this content because it s either a top of funnel question that a buyer may be asking or even an outside of the funnel question/subject meaning that although it may be relevant to the business and buyer, it doesn t necessarily represent someone who is seriously considering making a purchase right now.
Organize the priority of those projects based on what will have the biggest impact on your goals (starting with all projects with 3 rank first, then 2 and 1): Post Name Rank (1-3) x You ll add this content to your calendar shortly in this order of priority. Section 4 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Before You Add All That To Your Editorial Calendar... Determine how much content you d have to create to reach your upcoming goals: Example: To reach our goal of 30,000 page views a month, we divide that goal by the average contribution from our posts, which is 5,000 page views. That means, to reach our goal purely by publishing new content, we d need to publish six blog posts a month. Tip: Find your goals information from the end of Section 1 in this worksheet. Goal / average post contribution of = Goal / average post contribution of = Goal / average post contribution of = Determine how much more content you ll create to reach your goal: Example: If we re currently publishing four blog posts a month, we d subtract our ideal schedule goal of six blog posts minus our current number of four to understand we need to add two more blog posts into our schedule. Schedule Goal - Current Schedule = Schedule Goal - Current Schedule = Schedule Goal - Current Schedule = //////////////
How To Build Up Your Momentum To Publish Consistent Content Creating consistent content is like running a marathon. You need to build up your tolerance and practice your approach and eventually, you'll be able to run a ton of miles in a relatively short amount of time. There are a few things you need to do to prepare for your blogging marathon. Consist-a-tize the content you're already creating. Remove any one-off content that doesn t connect into your topic themes from your editorial schedule. Choose the specific days and times you ll commit to publishing. Narrow the amount of content you re publishing. As you implement a new style connecting your blue ocean with your content core, you ll need time to learn to build new skills. Understand momentum will come. Commit to creating consistent content. Brainstorm how you ll create this content with the resources available to you: Create a basic workflow to understand who to involve and when to nail your deadlines: Gather ideas: 21 days before post. Target a keyword: 14 days before post. Find a great headline: 14 days before post. Write the draft: 7 days before post. Create graphics: 6 days before post. Edit and prep the post to publish: 3 day before post. Schedule social media messages: 1 day before post. Publish post. Section 5 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////// How To Actually Plan, Create, And Publish Consistent Content Plan ahead to save a ton of time. Dedicate time to strategy to get even more out of every piece of content you publish. Be selfish with your time to focus on projects that matter while eliminating everything else.
Enhance your process as you create more content. Automate whatever you can. Often, you can use tools to set it and forget it. Dedicate time to create content, then automate. Find the tools you need to create, publish, and promote your content. WordPress, CoSchedule, and MailChimp may be good starting points. Stop doing what's not working. Review your goals often and how each piece of content contributes to understand areas you can improve. Spread out the workload. Well... if you are in a company, ask for help. Subject matter experts in your company can give you new ideas to help you tell a better story. Even if you re the creator, rely on them for compelling ideas. Interview awesome people. This could be your subject matter experts within your company or even rock stars in your niche. Implement a guest blogging program for your own blog Outsource design to artists using Fiverr. Complete the Two Stages of Editorial Calendaring Get out your editorial calendar and add what you ve learned. If you re rocking your free trial of CoSchedule, now s the time to get started. The Theme Calendar Tip: The theme calendar helps you look at a blank slate and add relevance. After you do this, you ll add in your blog schedule on top of it. Add in product launches. Include specific events in your industry, region, and company. Mark the holidays that will require your support. Include the topic themes you d like to target during specific weeks or months. The Campaign Calendar Schedule your upcoming blog posts for the next six months to build up your "schedule tolerance. Tip: Start with your prioritized list from section 3, keeping in mind your end goal for the number of blog posts you d like to publish six months from now. Note the themes you just added to apply relevance to the blog posts you choose to publish at certain times. Month 1 Find the day that works best to publish your content. Month 2 Publish your content consistently on the day that works best.
Month 3 Add in another post as needed. Month 4 Add in another post as needed. Month 5 Add in another post as needed. Month 6 There you have it a consistent blog schedule! For every blog post on your calendar, prepare a creative brief to help you create content on point and quickly: A potential headline just to lay out the subject and angle of the content you want to create. A summary of what the content will cover. The keyword your content will target (if appropriate remember, you're trying to avoid red ocean content). The goal of the piece so your team can figure out how to measure success. Set the deadline when you ll publish the content. Assign workflows to each piece of content so everyone known when they need to complete their tasks. Now Go Plan Your Editorial Calendar To recap all of this in the simplest form, there are just a few things you need to do to plan a successful editorial calendar: Set your goals and know how you'll measure your success. Brainstorm content that your audience will love, connects into your business, and sets you apart from the competition. Add that content into your editorial calendar in a way for you to build momentum, review your success, and improve after every post you publish. Those are the basics I'd suggest to anyone even veterans who have been doing this for years. Now open up your calendar and get to it. :)
The marketing calendar for everything. I use CoSchedule to promote every new blog post and to re-promote my most popular posts on a regular basis. It is a one-stop solution. It is simple, elegant, and an indispensable part of my toolbox. Michael Hyatt, Award-Winning Author & Blogger Nathan Adler RiverScene Michael Hyatt Author Jay Bear Convince & Convert Latest Features Introducing the New Headline Analyzer! NEW Feature! The Headline Analyzer is now built right into your CoSchedule calendar! Reach more of your audience, increase social shares, and influence clickthroughs with the new Headline Analyzer. CoSchedule loves integrations... Learn more at coschedule.com