It’s January, that month when we promise ourselves that we are going to do better. Read more books. Exercise consistently. Focus on healthier cooking and eating. At work, we resolve to be more focused and disciplined, and to follow through on our intentions. For business leaders, resolutions often center around increasing visibility, generating leads and improving the bottom line. Priorities may include a website upgrade, enhancing eCommerce capabilities or implementing a disciplined content marketing strategy.
Yep, it’s resolution time.
Content marketing – Good news/bad news
What is content marketing, exactly? As we explained in a prior post:
Content marketing creates bridges from your web presence to the outside world, distributing your information via email newsletters, social media posts, participation on industry forums and myriad other means.
By connecting with customers, clients and prospects where they spend time, you direct and expose those visitors to your expert content.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that maintaining a consistent publication schedule for content marketing (blogs, email newsletters, videos and social) can be difficult.
One of the biggest challenges with content marketing is that sometimes creative juices flow and sometimes they don’t. Brilliant ideas strike in the middle of the night and are often a distant memory come morning. And other priorities don’t step aside because it’s the day you’re supposed to publish a blog post.
An editorial calendar provides structure and a visual framework that helps you to maintain cadence. Before pushing back with excuses, remember your resolution to be more focused, and read on for a minute or two. Good news is on the way.
Planning vs. executing
Just as a healthy eating resolution involves both planning (recipe sourcing, grocery shopping and meal preparation) and execution (restrained eating), an editorial calendar separates content marketing planning from the execution of content creation. That split helps to jump-start your blog writing process. Here’s why:
Essentially, the development of an editorial calendar is a left brain activity. It utilizes analytical and organizational skills, and involves logic, sequencing, and a methodical approach.
In contrast, crafting blog posts, videos or podcasts demands imagination, emotive expression and visualization, which are right-brain activities.
While most of us possess both right- and left-brained acumen, it can be challenging to draw from both simultaneously. Like multi-tasking, attempting to do so can be frustrating and unproductive.
Succumb to creative inspiration
The solution is pretty straightforward. When right-brain inspiration strikes, capture it. Record or scribble or capture ideas until your creative zeal abates. Don’t edit yourself; simply let the ideas free-flow. Then pat yourself on the back for your progress, save (don’t publish) and move on.
Planning, processes and structures
In contrast, creating an editorial calendar is a methodical process which utilizes content themes to organize and inspire content creation. With chart-like visuals, calendarized dates and disciplined applications of colors and font styles, editorial calendar development even looks like a left-brain activity.
Once content categories and half-baked content ideas are included, your editorial calendar offers a big-picture view that helps ease the development of new content creation. While it doesn’t have the sizzle of capturing a brilliant idea, there is satisfaction with investing in the groundwork to propel marketing momentum.
Content marketing editorial calendar
So, back to that resolution solution: Content marketing is a proven strategy to increase visibility and generate leads. Our free downloadable infographic offers five steps to build your editorial calendar.
