This article is part of a series on The 8 Steps of an Effective Content Marketing System for Your Business. A FREE e-book is also available to download.

An editorial calendar is the key to organizing your content marketing system.  It ties all of your content goals to a detailed plan-of-action.  Ideally, you’ll want to set-up an editorial calendar six months to a year out.  If it makes sense for your company and goals, organizing the content around a theme, topic, or event will simplify the content creation process.  A spreadsheet or Google Calendar are both good tools to use to create the editorial calendars.

If using a spreadsheet, you’ll want to create a tab for each month.

Within each tab, include the following details:

• The month’s theme / topic
• The question(s) being answered for this topic
• The buying process stage this topic falls in

For each piece of content, include:

• Content Headline
  Make sure the headline is keyword focused and engaging.
• Content Type
  The format (e.g., blog post, video, e-book, email, etc.)
• Buyer Persona
  Who will this content target?
• Due Date
  When does it need to be completed by?
• Creator
  Who will create this content?
• Editor
  Who will edit the content?
• Distribution
  How will the content be distributed?  (e.g., website, blog, Facebook, Twitter,  email, etc.)?
• Accompaniments
  What other pieces of content will be associated with this content?  For example, you might be writing a blog post on the benefits of using an editorial calendar.  An associated piece of content might be a step-by-step video on how to create an editorial calendar in Excel.
• Keywords
  Focus on incorporating keywords that are in high demand and, ideally, have a low to medium popularity ranking.  You can find this info by using Google’s free
  Keyword Analytics tool (http://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool).
• Publish Date
  When will this content be published / go live?
• Status
  What is the current status of this content? (i.e. in production, under review, awaiting feedback, etc.)
• Call to Action
  What is the call to action for this piece of content?  What do you want the reader / viewer to do next?
• Notes
  Provide any relevant notes.
• Metrics
  What are the key metrics for this content?  What will determine the success of this piece of content?

NEXT STEP: Create Content