• Authors: Dave Chaffey and Chris Soames
• Last updated: April 2013
• Format: Excel spreadsheet with Operational and planning calendars

How will the planning template help me and my business?

The pressures to publish engaging, timely content have never been higher, yet managing the workflow for this is really challenging. As we explain in our 7 Steps to Content marketing Ebook, an editorial calendar is essential to help develop a plan to create content which both engages your audience and supports your content marketing aims.

This template will give you more control over your content marketing approach to help:

• Provide consistency and quality in your content – content quality is key to making your brand engaging.
• Align the team – anyone involved in the research / creation / publishing / interaction processes for content marketing.
• Give a framework and process to plan and manage the creation of content – structure means control and less of a last-minute approach.
• Enforce accountability – specifies who does what and when?

How is the calendar spreadsheet structured?

There are three alternative Excel worksheets for managing content publishing:

• Operational calendar – Used for creating major content assets across a quarters or a year
• Timeline calendar – A visual view of when different content need to go live for different campaigns
• Social media themes – A quicker, simpler way to schedule content for blog posts or social media updates

The spreadsheet helps you set up content publishing for different campaigns to make it quicker to plan the resources needed for:

• Content types and hooks
• Managing different content themes – easily selectable by a dropdown
• Integration of content with campaigns and product launches
• Publication deadline and status
• Content editors and originators - easily selectable by a dropdown