CONTENT MARKETING EDITORIAL
PLANNING GUIDE

With a disconnected pile of assets, we’re
unable to measure the efficacy of the
program because it’s not a program. It’s a
collection of disjointed assets.

How do we change that?
Begin with the end in mind.

First thing’s first
Required checklist BEFORE you start planning your editorial calendar
1. Mission statement
2. Categories
3. Topics
4. SEO keywords
5. Editorial guidelines
6. Imagery guidelines

MISSION STATEMENT

What is your editorial mission statement?
Brand
Purpose
Editorial Mission Statement
Brand Mission Statement Target Audience
What
Customers
Want
Content
Marketing

What is your editorial mission statement?
Brand
Purpose
What are you going to do?
(You can probably find
this on your company
website)
Who are you trying to
reach? (This may or may
not be your buyer)
What
Customers
Want
Content
Marketing

Editorial mission statement components
1. The core target audience
2. What will be delivered to the audience
3. The outcome for the audience.
Sample Mission Statement: Inc. magazine
“Welcome to Inc.com, the place where entrepreneurs and business owners can find useful
information, advice, insights, resources and inspiration for running and growing their business.”

Your editorial mission statement
“...”

CATEGORIES + TOPICS

How will your content be organized?
1. What are different ways you could
organize your content?
2. What perspectives can differentiate
your brand from others?
3. Draw out common themes
4. Can double as site navigation
5. Show visitor what space you’re in
6. Have a goal of ultimately publishing 1
piece of content per pillar per day

How will your content be organized?
CATEGORY CATEGORY CATEGORY CATEGORY CATEGORY CATEGORY
Description Description Description Description Description Description
Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic
Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic
Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic
Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic
Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic

SEO

KEYWORD CURRENT RANK COMPETITOR #1 RANK COMEPTITOR #2 RANK
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
keyword current rank competitor #1 rank competitor #2 rank
SEO keywords

EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

People don’t always remember what
you say or even what you do, but they
remember how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
”
“

QUESTION
What is tone in relation to writing?
ANSWER
Expressing personality through vocabulary.

Developing your brand’s tone:
• Look at internal communications and how formal people are
• Commonly used words, greetings and sign-offs
• Always keep in mind that brands are people, not services and products
• Examine how the thought leaders at your company communicate
• Employees who truly understand what a brand stands for tend to communicate in
the same manner
• Always remember the KISS method – Keep It Simple Stupid

• Distinctive
• Recognizable
• Unique
Abrand’s tone should be:

STAY AWAY from having your
brand seem robotic.
It’s possible to be professional
AND human.

Approachable Tone + Insightful/Actionable Advice
=
Tapping Into Your Readers Emotions.
• Listen to your audience, don’t just speak to them.
• Goal should always be to tap into your readers emotions.
• Hook audience in with opening sentences and continue to
play off of their emotions throughout the article.

An editor should be an integral part
of your content marketing team in
order to align the language.

Formal versus informal language
FORMAL
PROS CONS
Professional Stiff
Authoritative Lacking personality
Respectful Boring
INFORMAL
PROS CONS
Personable Reckless
Warm
Lacking
professionalism
“We wish to inform you of a new offer
currently available.”
“Watch out! We gotta great deal for
you.”

No matter the industry you’re in, a good writer can communicate complex topics in an accessible
manner and in a way that doesn't feel like it's dumbing the subject down or overwhelming a
reader with jargon.
1 Use everyday language your audience will understand, wherever possible
2 Remember journalistic principle KISS – keep it simple, stupid
3 Customers favor more naturalistic language in marketing copy
4 Obscure terms may alienate customer who will find text overly difficult to read
Technical language

1. Focus on “quality of insight”
A really important aspect of content, particularly on the web, is the
quality of insight. And insight doesn’t need to be surprising. It can
be insight about things that are very familiar, and that give us a
frame for things that are already top of mind.
”
“

2. Hold yourself to a high standard
Brands should hold themselves to an awesome standard. If a brand
wants to make a powerful piece of content, they should make something
that is truly exclusive and inherently fascinating and not just their take on
what everyone is talking about. I think brands should be doing things that
are awesome, new, original and totally fitting with the brand.
”
“

It’s most important to know what they have read. People want to
read stories that they’re a little familiar with. It’s important to know
what they’re aware of, to know what to talk to them about.
3. Think about your audience
”
“

Emotion is a really important part of successful digital pieces. People are
hunting for positive or negative emotions they can share with other people.
Since emotion is really important in articles but absent in economics, I often
have to inject emotion into the headline. Like, “17 Astonishing Facts about
U.S. Inequality.” Statistics about unemployment aren’t inherently emotional.
You have to give the reader a bit of a preview, and say, “Here’s the
emotion you’re going to feel when you read these statistics.”
4. Weave emotion into dry subject matter
”
“

1. Look at your internal communications
1. How formal are they?
2. Any commonly used words or phrases?
2. How is the way you work different?
3. How you might tell a customer about your business over the phone or face-to-face?
4. Describe your company is three different ways, using different degrees of colloquial
language? If one way sticks out, try to identify what you like about it.
1. An economically priced hotel located in the city center
2. Easy on the wallet, this hotel enjoys having the city on its doorstep
3. This cheap as chips hotel gives you a night’s shut eye, slap bang in the city
Exercises to help you identify your tone of voice

1. Technical execution
2. Tell a human story
3. Make it relatable
Don’t forget imagery

1. Will it interest your audience?
2. Can it be distributed effectively to reach them?
3. Does it align with your engagement goals?
4. How is this an original idea?
5. Does it fit your brand?
5 question editorial final gut check

PLANNING YOUR EDITORIAL
CALENDAR

No we’re ready to start planning
• Quarterly
• Monthly
• Weekly

QUARTERLY

Things to think about quarterly
Anything inflexible event (industry events, webinars, employee vacations, etc.)
• These are going to happen whether you want to or not so best to plan around them!
• Engage in the conversation for industry events
• Drive registration to any company in-person or online events
• Coverage plans for employee vacations
Big rock content
• Far enough in advance to allow for creativity in brainstorming larger pieces of content
• Think of how each piece of big rock content can be broken into smaller themes

QUARTER
MONTH 1
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4
INDUSTRY EVENTS
WEBINAR
THEME
Big rock content
MONTH 2
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4
INDUSTRY EVENTS
WEBINAR
THEME
Big rock content
MONTH 3
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4
INDUSTRY EVENTS
WEBINAR
THEME
Big rock content
MONTH 4
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4
INDUSTRY EVENTS
WEBINAR

MONTHLY

Things to think about monthly
Themes
• What overarching topic do you want to talk about that fits within your big rock piece of content?
Titles and descriptions
• How will they fit together?
• What value will they provide to your audience?
Ownership
• Assess bandwidth of your contributors
• Gives guest contributors enough notice to prepare

MONTH
WEEK 1
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY
TITLE
DESCRIPTION
OWNER
Theme
WEEK 2
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
TITLE
DESCRIPTION
OWNER
Theme
WEEK 3
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
TITLE
DESCRIPTION
OWNER
Theme
WEEK 4
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
TITLE
DESCRIPTION
OWNER
Theme
BIG ROCK CONTENT Big Rock Content

WEEKLY

Things to think about weekly
Tactical execution
• Most granular level
• Make sure all pieces of content are correctly tagged and organized within your CMS. This will
make future content audits and analysis much easier.
Categories and topics and SEO keywords
• Are you covering all categories, topics and SEO keywords relatively evenly?
Buyer stage and call-to-action
• Ensure you are providing content that moves reader through the buyer journey
• 60 --70% top-of-funnel
• 30 - 20% middle-of-funnel
• 10% bottom-of-funnel
• What is your desired action for the reader (subscribe, continue reading, product page, etc.)

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY
ARTICLE TITLE
SOURCE/
WRITER
CATEGORY
TOPICS
SEO
KEYWORDS
BUYER STAGE
CALL-TO-
ACTION
THEME

WHAT TO TRACK WHEN

Content marketing is not a one and done
effort. You must always analyze your data
to continuously optimize and influence
your editorial strategy.

Monitor your traffic as frequently as possible
• Weekly…daily…hourly!
• Track patterns tied to publishing times
• Notice spikes by the hour, day and month in reports
• Always take a look at referrer types and domains

Questions you should be able to answer on the fly
• What time during the day does your content perform best?
• What time during the week?
• What topics are shared most on social media?
• What article formats receive the most page views?
• When is the typical spike in traffic during the week?
• Which one of your writers or sources generates the most page views?

A/B testing your content:
• Article formats: Q&A vs. Listicle vs. Opinion
• Publishing times throughout the day, week and month
• Effectiveness of content featured in newsletters
• Different formats shared on different social platforms
• Covering halo topics of interest to your readers

What to track quarterly
• Cost per lead
• Percentage of leads sourced by content
marketing vs. other marketing tactics
• Total conversions

What to track monthly and weekly
• Time on site
• Repeat visitors
• Social likes
• Subscriptions + unsubscribes
• Newsletter CTRs
• Bounce rate
• Paid vs. organic search traffic
• Social shares/followers
• Share of voice/offsite SEO

What to track daily
• Paid vs. organic search traffic
• Unbranded organic search traffic
• Organic search share of voice
• Visitors
• Views
• Shares
• Leads from gated content
• Visits per channel

THANK YOU