It’s happened! Your company is now doing content marketing (inbound marketing). You will soon launch your corporate blog and have a presence on major social networks. You’ve identified your buyer types and you’ve learned from different sources that they activate a buying process when they use search engines and social media. Now you need to write, format, present and share your topics intelligently, right? Not so easy… Where to start? With a good planning done through an editorial calendar.
The editorial calendar
Essential to the success of any blog, the editorial calendar stems from market planning and structures the company blog by ensuring a continuity and consistency in the writing of the posts. Once the calendar is ready, it will be easier to use your blog content to help the marketing and sales team achieve their objectives.
Here is a small recipe for a basic editorial calendar for a company blog:
1) Drafting topics
Naturally, you will want to discuss topics associated with your products and services with an angle on the niche that they fill.
Then, you might get your inspiration from the concerns and needs of visitors to your website. Too often ignored, web statistics give access to a goldmine of information through expressions (keywords) used to find your website via search engines.
In addition, the Google Instant function shows results for a popular search the moment your start writing in the search bar. Using those keywords can increase your blog’s chances of being found and read, which represents the very basis of inbound marketing. For example, with the expression “blog editorial” the search bar suggests “blog editorial calendar.”
Lastly and to have a stronger impact, it is advised to publish two blog posts per week. Better have enough topics!
2) Dates
Your content reaches readers only if they are present on the web at the time of publication. So it’s important to take certain calendar dates (New Year, Christmas, vacation, bank holidays, religious holiday, etc.) into account.
You could also take advantage of industry events that both you and your readers will participate in. Make a note of them in your calendar.
3) Some market strategy
The introduction of new products and services are highlights that can be entered in your calendar. Examples: Reminders of equipment maintenance, renewals, the date of introduction of a law, annual vacation, etc.
4) Format of the editorial calendar
You will be quickly confronted with the project of writing about a hundred blog posts in the next 12 months. Don’t panic, be methodical. It’s easier to research, write and publish when using a matrix. This is especially true if you are not the only blog author.
Below are the column titles of a typical editorial calendar for Excel (to be adapted to your needs):
- Date and day of the week
- Special date (to specify if it’s a bank holiday, industry event, etc.)
- Author
- Blog post theme (or category)
- Title of the article (if possible)
- Date of publication
Conversion reminder
When you publish your article, why not invite your readers to take action. Put a “Contact us” link on your page and don’t forget to include the traditional share and social network buttons.
Web metrics
Furthermore, you could also include in your Google Analytics spreadsheet a note mentioning the publication date of your article so as to monitor increases in website traffic.
Be patient!
Although content marketing is one of the best ways to market and sell in B2B, this strategy requires time and patience before there are results. Patience and sustained efforts are essential.
Need help?
Finally, if you feel that this is too demanding for your organisation, don’t hesitate to contact us should you wish to talk about it. You can also read the article by Lynda St-Arneault on the same topic. At Exo, content marketing is the basis for the marketing initiatives of our clients and gives results in terms of prospect generation and conversion. Don’t let your company go without it.
We hope you enjoy writing and look forward to reading your blog posts!
