October 2021

By Melanie Rembrandt Time to Plan for the Best Results Now and Into the New Year! As you sell your products and services, there is a massive amount of content involved including: emails, articles, social media posts, direct mail pieces, press releases, marketing materials, landing pages, and more. It can be overwhelming. However, there is a simple way to make your entire content process run smoothly so you get the best results in a minimal amount of time… via an editorial calendar. What is an Editorial Calendar? An editorial calendar helps you organize the content you distribute to your numerous audiences throughout the year. It’s simply a calendar for all of your current and future marketing activities that allows everyone on your team to stay organized, knowwhat’s going on and prepare for upcoming campaigns. Now, before you think, “Oh great. Another thing to add to add to my ‘To Do’ list!,” this is something that you want to keep as simple as possible. You can create a straightforward Excel spreadsheet, a table in a Word document or use one of the many applications out there to post the data online privately. The key is to create a single document that all of your teammembers can access at any time that is extremely easy to understand and update. To start, ask yourself a few questions: • What do your customers want? It’s one thing to send out traditional sales brochures and marketing pieces, but you also need to provide members of your target market with valuable information. What topics and types of content will they find interesting, entertaining and worthy of sharing with friends? What are some hot trends right now keeping your customers up at night? To stand out and get better results, don’t just create the same type of content, social media posts and marketing materials as your competition. Be unique! What is an Editorial Calendar, Anyway and Why Do You Need One?