Editorial Calendar Definition

An editorial calendar is a publishing schedule designed to help businesses pursuing content marketing to plan out the current and future distribution of their created content, which might include blog posts, videos, podcasts, email newsletters, or even pre-planned updates on social media platforms like Facebook. Using this method, businesses are better able to prioritize their planned content to follow the most effective a new content strategy.

Editorial calendars usually include information helpful for organization, including but not limited to expected publication date, creators or editors the content has been assigned to, and the distribution channel for the content (e.g., a written article may appear on the company’s primary blog and a video may appear on their YouTube channel).

Editorial Calendar Example

A business following a strategic marketing methodology wants to improve their content marketing, because they know this will lead to increased brand awareness, lead generation, closed sales, SEO performance, and other benefits.

Decision makers at the business prepare an editorial calendar for their blog, which includes the information described in the previous section as well as metadata tags, the primary call to action (CTA) for each post, and which buyer persona the post is targeting. Over time, the editorial calendar helps the business to prioritize their most effective and even time sensitive content as part of an agile campaign strategy, enabling them to meet their initial goals.

Why is an Editorial Calendar Important in Strategic Marketing?

Content Creation

The old internet marketing maxim “content is king” has remained true throughout the years and will likely continue to do so. Editorial calendars help businesses stay on top of their most important content.

Customer Experience

Great content improves customer experience—more information is shared, more questions are answered, and more customers are likely to complete the buying cycle.