Earlier in my career when I was editing a trade magazine, editorial calendars had two primary purposes. Our staff relied on them to plan our content for the entire year. And advertisers used our editorial calendar to determine when (or if) they would advertise in our publication. Because our editorial calendars also helped us make money, we spent a lot of time determining exactly what topics we wanted to cover in each issue.
Today, having an editorial calendar can help just about every type of business make money. Here’s why. The majority of us now prefer to get our information online. You want more people to visit your website because it’s an important part of your sales process. Websites that get updated frequently tend to rank higher in the search engines. To update your content frequently, you need something timely and of value to say, and you need to plan when you’re going to say it.
You also want your website visitors/fans to get so much out of what you’re saying that they will check back often. They won’t automatically skip over (or worse, hide) your Facebook posts. And they’ll want to share your information with their friends. Woo hoo! That draws even more people to your website.
The worst thing you can do is try to sell them something with each post. (There’s nothing more effective at sending people running the other direction than a blatantly promotional message.) That’s where I come in. I build an interesting editorial calendar that will keep people wanting more.
I’ve recently helped three clients develop editorial calendars: a food ingredient manufacturer, an association and a technology firm. I can usually come up an editorial calendar that gives clients good reasons to blog, post and/or tweet at least once every business day.
Of course, if you are too busy to write all that content, we can help you with that too.
