As we soon approach another new year, I have you ask you:
Does your software or tech company use an editorial calendar in your content marketing strategy?
According to Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 44% of respondents to their 2014 Marketing Trends study said they do have a content marketing strategy.
For the 56% of B2Bmarketers who do not, we need to talk about what your more successful competitors are doing.
Psst! They have an editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar helps them plan out their content, so they don’t have to worry about one of the biggest challenges faced by B2B content marketers…
Producing Enough Content
It was topped only by lack of time, at 69% of respondents.
(We all have that problem though.)
To save some time and produce more content, your editorial calendar can help you see a bird’s eye view of the entire year to know exactly which marketing content will be used on each channel or event you need to attend.
Here’s how simple it can be to create an editorial calendar.
Since an editorial calendar maps out all your content for the entire year, you can go back on last year’s calendar to re-purpose and refresh what you published earlier. It’s an accepted practice.
Another way you can produce more content more effectively is to break your longer blog posts into a two or three-part series. You’ll note the split posts in your editorial calendar too.
That will mean…
Less Stress for the Marketing Department
Maybe an in-person event is coming up and you need a white paper produced, you’ll have planned for it months in advance and have them ready to hand out at trade shows.
The alternative would be having to produce this content at the last minute before you attend that event. The first thing sacrificed would be the quality and professionalism of your marketing content. (Okay, it’s kind of two things…)
When you have a content marketing strategy, you have…
A Consistent Marketing Strategy
Your editorial calendar is your content framework to ensure you actually have not just a strategy, but a consistent content marketing strategy.
The editorial calendar is there for you with this too.
Maybe as a B2B high-tech marketer you’re on Twitter and you’ve been testing how many times to tweet per day or week and you want the company to be consistent and recognized.
Imagine you only publish your e-newsletter when it strikes your mood or there is news to tell. Buyers won’t take your company very seriously, if they even remember it.
Those are a few reasons you need to get working on your Editorial Calendar to get even better results from your content marketing in 2014.
Happy Holidays and have a prosperous new year!