Don’t worry, this isn’t another blog post about the need for content strategy. Although yes, this is a key factor in a successful content marketing practice. However, it is one of at least four areas the best content marketers dedicate their time to: strategy, production, distribution, and analytics.

Looking for an effective content marketing editorial calendar template? Download Curata’s free editorial calendar template.

We’re going to deep dive into one specific area for this post: editorial calendars as part of content marketing production. A consistent best practice of leading content marketers is using an editorial calendar as part of the production process (pictured below).

Curata research shows over 90% of companies are now using a content marketing editorial calendar. More importantly, the “best of the best” marketers view their editorial calendar as more than a simple spreadsheet. It serves as a living, breathing, planning tool and timeline to:

1. Align team members around a common content strategy, cadence and workflow.
2. Track operational tasks and metrics needed to streamline content creation.
3. Attribute an explicit set of labels or meta tags to individual pieces of content to provide a foundation for subsequent analysis of content performance and ROI.
4. Provide a “parking lot” for great content creation ideas.
5. Facilitate better reuse and repurposing of existing content.
6. Manage the contribution of internal and external contributors, reviewers, and writers; including the ability to crowdsource content across your organization.

Let’s Get Some Things Straight

Let’s clarify several things before detailing the core elements of an editorial calendar template for content marketing.

1. What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of developing, executing, and delivering the content and related assets needed to create, nurture, and grow a company’s customer base. Note that content marketing should impact all areas of the buyer creation process—from awareness building to lead generation to sales enablement.

2. Who’s Responsible for Content Marketing?
All the tools, processes, and technologies in the world cannot, alone, make a great content marketing strategy. Someone must be accountable for its development and execution, even if they and their team aren’t responsible for all content creation. 42 percent of companies have an executive responsible for content marketing, with this number increasing to 51% by 2017.

3. Can I Simply Use a Spreadsheet for My Editorial Calendar?
Yes—but Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are time-consuming to use and offer limited functionality compared to dedicated calendar software. The editorial calendar template we provide below offers significant advantages compared to normal spreadsheets, thanks to being designed specifically for content marketing.

• Incorporate data into your content marketing process: Metadata collected as part of calendar management in your content marketing platform is the secret sauce for uncovering valuable operations and performance insights. These include the ability to measure content impact on your pipeline, measure by type of content, content pyramid/program, etc; and enabling content asset tracking/audits.

• Increased process adoption: Easy to use for increased adoption and a better content management process. Calendar software advantages include:
  • drop-down field options for more rapid and accurate data entry.
  • auto-fill data cells for efficient meta-tagging.
  • a clean interface for more productive content marketing management meetings (e.g., filtered views; customized views by time period).
  • simple drag-and-drop and auto reschedule capability to accommodate schedule changes and adding new content on-the-fly.

• Better workflow management: Keep your team on schedule through outbound communications and enable visibility into your teams’ work.

• Real-time synchronization for collaboration: No version control issues.

• Data security: Assuming your solution is software as a service (SaaS), your data remains in the cloud for data protection, so someone can’t delete a master file such as with Google Spreadsheet.

• Enables governance: For example, assuring in-process content is aligned with content strategy, and enabling content audits to identify content creation gaps.

If you are not already using an editorial calendar template as part of a more comprehensive content marketing platform, review your options for this type of software to boost your content marketing impact. Check out the Curata CMP content marketing platform or other companies’ software as presented in Ultimate List of Content Marketing Tools.

Core Attributes of a High Impact Editorial Calendar Template for Content Marketing

At Curata we publish hundreds of pieces of content every year for an audience of over 80,000 content marketers per month. This process includes tapping into multiple data sources and leveraging many writers—both internal and external. We identified 12 core attributes in our editorial calendar template used for every piece of content we produce, including eBooks, PowerPoint presentations, infographics, blog posts, and SlideShares.

1. Title

Be bold, be relevant, and stay on target with your content strategy and SEO goals.

• Resources for title selection:
  • BuzzSumo.com for social media activity around given topics/titles.
  • UberSuggest.org for ideas on keyword groups.
  • Google Adwords Keyword Planner to evaluate search volume.
  • Your content marketing team: At Curata we often select from multiple title options for the final title. (Do ensure your title is true to the actual content of your post or piece of content. No one likes misleading clickbait.)
• Other good blog posts for title selection:
  • Write the Best Titles for Content Marketing: A 10-Point Checklist by Roger C. Parker.
  • How to Write Compelling Titles for Blogs & Content by Heidi Cohen.

2. Publish Date

Have an estimated publish date, then update if required once content goes live.

3. Content Type

This field describes which type of content is being produced. It not only helps with the production process, but enables you to analyze the impact of different types of content on engagement and your pipeline. Here are examples of the “Content Type” fields we use at Curata.

Types of content:

• Blog post: infographic
• Blog post: long-form
• Blog post: short-form
• Blog post: curated
• eBook
• SlideShare
• Webinar (PowerPoint presentation)

A significant part of any content marketing strategy is your blog. Don’t have one or need help boosting its impact on your pipeline? Check out what the blogging 10K club are up to in this survey of 428 marketers: Business Blogging Secrets Revealed.

4. Status

Track the progress of a content item through the content marketing supply chain. The “pitching,” “submitted,” and “accepted” descriptors are useful for when your team is creating syndicated content for another company’s editor to publish on their blog.

Status levels:

• Not started
• Work in progress/process (WIP)
• Pitching
• Submitted
• Accepted
• Scheduled
• Posted/Published

5. Media Type

Your digital content may live in many locations across the Internet. Therefore the best multi-channel content marketing strategies include content publication across three different media types: Owned, Earned, and Paid. Build your owned media as the foundational element of your content marketing strategy, and tap into the power of earned and paid media as on-ramps into your owned media.

Types of media:

• Owned = your corporate blog, corporate website, corporate microsite.
• Earned = press pick-up, guest posts on other companies’ blogs.
• Paid = Taboola, Outbrain, Vocus, Shareaholic, media properties.

6. Media Entity

Put simply, the publishing destination of your content. Examples include:

• [your company] blog
• [your company] web site
• [your company] microsite (including name of microsite)
• [your company] LinkedIn Page
• [profile name] LinkedIn post
• other companies’ blogs
• media entities: Boston.com; Content Marketing Institute; MarketingProfs.com

7. Writer

The person responsible for writing the content, such as an internal writer, freelancer, or agency.

8. Author

The person whose name is formally attributed to the content. The writer may be different to the author when a ghostwriter is used and/or when a writer is basing content on thought leadership or content assets originated by the author, such as a company executive or product marketer.

9. Owner

The person with ultimate accountability for completion and publishing of the content. In some situations, the owner may also be the author and writer of a specific piece of content, e.g., a content marketing editor.

10. Pyramid

Curata uses the Content Marketing Pyramid framework pictured above to address two of content marketers’ greatest challenges:

1. Facilitating the execution of a well planned content strategy.
2. Optimizing the reuse and repurposing of content into multiple formats and through multiple distribution channels. Only 22% of companies have a specific process in place to ensure optimal content reuse and repurposing.

The top part of each Pyramid represents primary research, secondary research and/or thought leadership for a gated content asset such as an eBook. The remaining parts of the Pyramid are derivatives of this core content asset, consisting of reused and repurposed core content for different formats and channels.

Examples of Pyramids executed by Curata’s content marketing team include:

• 2015 Content Marketing Tactics and Technology Study
  • Gated: 2015 Content Marketing Tactics and Technology Planner
  • Long-form blog post: Content Marketing Benchmarks: A 2015 Roadmap
  • Infographic: Content Marketing Strategy: 6 Stats and Tips to Survive and Thrive
• The Ultimate Guide to Content Curation
  • Gated: The Ultimate Guide to Content Curation
  • Long-form blog post: The Definitive Guide to Content Curation

The high level bullets above are what Curata enters into the field “Pyramid” within its editorial calendar in Curata CMP. Attributing an individual piece of content to a specific pyramid enables you to analyze the pipeline impact of all pieces of content within that pyramid. For example, the marketing leads generated per pyramid. (To see these analytics for Curata’s content marketing process in action, feel free to schedule a demo with our content marketing experts.)

11. Persona

Content strategy should identify and develop personas that represent audience segments to give you a better understanding of who you’re talking to when crafting communications. Key parts of each persona include:

• Persona Name: This name is entered into the editorial calendar under the “Persona” field for each piece of content.  Examples of what Curata includes in this field include: Digital Marketing Darla; Editor Elaine; and Marketing Operations Michael.
• Title: Typical title of this individual.
• Background: A description of the individual, such as their role, field, or study, and other personal and/or professional background about the persona.
• Goals: What motivates people for this persona? How is their success measured in an organization? What are their objectives?
• Frustration and Pain Points
• Organizational Structure: Where their role typically sits within an organization, i.e., the reporting structure.
• Narrative: Informal descriptions or stories of the individual’s professional life. These narratives are a great way to help your content marketing team truly understand the persona, enabling them to create more relevant content.
• Sample individuals: It’s always great to include pictures, names, and titles of real people.

Similar to a pyramid, attributing an individual piece of content to a specific persona enables you to analyze the pipeline impact of all pieces of content within that persona. You can even use this attribute to complete an audit of which content you have (or don’t have) for specific personas. Such insights are great for your regular content strategy development and content gap analysis.

12. Buying Stage

Another important part of content strategy is identifying audience buying stages. In fact, 50% of the best content marketing teams create content according to stages in the buying cycle. Work with your demand generation team to identify and understand these stages.

Creating content for a specific buyer stage helps ensure content is relevant to its intended audience and increases the conversion rate of buyers in your pipeline. Attributing an individual piece of content to a specific buying stage also enables you to complete an audit of which content you have (or lack) for specific buying stages. Such insights are extremely useful for your regular content strategy development and content gap analysis.

Buying stage examples include:

• TOFU: Top of Funnel
• MOFU: Middle of Funnel
• BOFU: Bottom of Funnel

OR

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Purchase
• Retention
• Advocacy

Not only do these editorial calendar fields help streamline your content production process, they enable better analysis of your content to determine what is and isn’t working. Finally, please do add any additional fields you may be using in the comments section below.

Looking for a calendar template already loaded with the above attributes? Download Curata’s free editorial calendar template below.

Those responsible for content within an organization have to plan out content for the upcoming weeks, months and year. This helps build alignment between teams and also keep writers accountable for their work. According to Curata research, 90 percent of marketers now use an editorial calendar.

For top-of-class calendar functionality, workflow, and analytics, the Curata CMP content marketing platform is one of several options available on the market. There are also several excellent free templates available—included below.

The following table lists the creator of the template, the format (Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, WordPress plugin or PDF) and its accessibility (gated or un-gated). This will help you choose a template based on your preferences.

A more detailed description of each template and a glimpse of what each one looks like follows. Cross-reference with The 12 Must-Have Fields for a Content Calendar to ensure your template has all the essential attributes.

Do you use a template that we haven’t listed here? Let us know in the comments below!

Content Marketing Editorial Calendar Templates

Excel Spreadsheets

Madison Miles Media

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

Keep assignments organized with this excel template. Align content with keywords and audience segments, connect content to the buyer’s journey, and track keyword usage.

Curata

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This template features 12 essential fields for creating an editorial calendar. (Learn more about the importance of these fields in this step-by-step process.) Detailed instructions, steps, and suggested meta tags are provided for each field, as well as links to additional resources.

Hubspot

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This template lists a week’s content on each tab, allowing plenty of room for details such as keywords, personas, and calls-to-action.

Convince & Convert

Download here 
Accessibility: Ungated

Look at the year ahead with this template. It lets you see several months at once, along with a tab called “Content Repository” to dump ideas in.

Pam Moore

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This template separates each month into a different tab, along with a tab for “Content Inventory” to keep track of published pieces.

Bob Angus

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

A standard calendar that includes a high-level road map to view large events throughout the year such as product launches and conferences.

VerticalMeasures

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

This color-coded template offers both a month-to-month view and an entire year overview.

Lee Odden

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

This spreadsheet simply lists each piece of content in chronological order. It suggests filling in several categories, such as audience, media, keywords, and tags.

Shareaholic

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This week-by-week spreadsheet also includes a tab to track URLs of content to enable campaign tracking.

myMarketingCafe

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

This basic template also comes with a small business marketing guide, including a general marketing calendar.

Web. Search. Social.

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This spreadsheet allows you to categorize content in a number of ways, including keywords, status, topic, talking point, and due date.

Content Marketing Institute

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

CMI’s template includes a general marketing calendar, an editorial calendar with a week-by-week view, and a spreadsheet to store all blog post ideas.

Bluewire Media

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

This template provides a color-coded key to categorize pieces of content by stage, such as pending, planned, or published.

98toGo

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

In addition to a basic editorial  calendar, you can track assets by type—such as blog post or eBook—and by buying-cycle stage.

Brett Snyder

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

This template is chock-full of examples. It provides plenty of space for detailed responses in many categories such as subject, focus keywords, key elements, and sources.

Google Sheets

Webpage FX

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

A robust template that not only tracks pieces of content week by week, but also gives space for ideas and downloadable assets.

Crackerjack Marketing

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

Another option for marketers using Google Sheets, this template has a section specifically for measuring content performance.

WordPress Plugins

EditFlow

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

If you’re a WordPress user, this is a great way to look at upcoming posts in a month-to-month view. It’s also highly adaptable—you can drag and drop unpublished pieces onto new dates and months.

Editorial Calendar

Download here
Accessibility: Ungated

Similar to EditFlow, this tool allows you to look ahead at all scheduled blog posts in WordPress and also quick-edit titles and times within the calendar.

PDFs

Roger Parker

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

Want to print out your calendar so you can scribble all over it? Download this template, which maps out an entire year.

CoSchedule

Download here
Accessibility: Gated

Another option for printing, this calendar also comes with an eBook detailing the benefits of using an editorial calendar.

One of these editorial calendar template options will suit the needs of most content marketers. Want a free editorial calendar template pre-loaded with 12 essential fields? Download Curata’s free template here.

These days, marketers wear many hats: updating a company’s blog and social media feeds, overseeing print ad campaigns, networking at conferences or other industry events, meanwhile handling a host of other duties. This time of year often amps up the frantic pace as colleagues take time off or companies squeeze in last-minute holiday campaigns.

Streamlining your content strategy and finding ways to get more mileage out of every marketing piece can help you improve results and save your sanity in the process. Here’s a look at five must-dos for busy marketers like you.

 1. Determine your audience.

Before you start writing, think about whom you’re writing the content for so that you can tailor your content to their needs. Are they industry-specific professionals who already possess a deep subject matter expertise or do they need more introductory information to get started? Also think about whether you’re writing this for your existing readers or those you hope to attract in the future (oftentimes, these may be two distinct groups with different interests or needs). Once you’ve zeroed in on your reader, you can start thinking about the types of content that will best fit their interests and provide the most value. Your audience may want a listicle (like this) featuring actionable steps they can implement right away. Or they might be more interested in case studies that show how a specific company implemented a new Twitter strategy or tweaked their website to boost sales. Give your readers value; something actionable they can implement to improve their business.

2. Create an editorial calendar.

The editorial calendar is the content marketer’s best friend. It helps them stay organized and see the big picture to create a variety of content on an ongoing basis and avoid duplication. When you’re planning content for multiple marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, webinars and a blog, an editorial calendar gives you the ability to get an overview of your content plan in one place. It’s often helpful to organize your editorial content by date and the type of content, but to also plan out what keywords should be included and which places the piece should be promoted on. Your content developers will know what to write about, when to write it and what keywords or other various promotional tactics they should be using.

3. Mix up your content.

Content comes in many shapes and sizes, so alternate between long posts that are chock full of information and shorter posts that present concepts in bite-sized formats such as infographics, charts, bullet points, “best of” listicles and so on. Just because something has been shared doesn’t mean that all of your readers have seen it. Get more mileage out of every piece of content you create by repurposing it. A long article could be broken up into several shorter pieces or reimagined as an infographic. A shorter piece could serve as inspiration for an ebook or webinar. This saves marketers time while giving readers more digestible content.

4. Consider distribution.

Content may be king, but content that doesn’t get read doesn’t do you or your readers much good. To make sure your content findable, use tools like Google Adwords or ubersuggest.org to find out what terms your readers are searching for. Tweak your SEO strategy to rank higher and reach more readers. Of course, many readers now find content through social media channels instead of search engines, so posting to multiple channels allows to you to cover your bases. Tools that allow you to post to multiple channels with a single click saves time while achieving wide distribution.

5. Curate content.

Many busy marketers don’t have time to create loads of content from scratch, so curating content from other credible sources allows them to save time, money, and team resources.  Curation also allows you to build your credibility as a thought leader while incorporating your own insights or perspective on the topic. It’s also a chance to include more diverse voices beyond your own. Just be sure to give credit, add something new, and link back to the original piece so that you’re curating ethically.

Ready for more tips and strategies to improve your content marketing? Download Curata’s free ebook 5 Simple Steps to Becoming a Content Curation Rockstar.