Do you feel like you’re always “with your nose to the grindstone,” and do you feel like you’re missing out on business opportunities because of this constant sense of urgency? Unless you want to plan your communications budget for the medium term… What if you decided to take back control of your time and your communications with a marketing calendar? In this article, we’ll explain in detail how an editorial calendar can help you free up time effectively. Then, discover tips for using an editorial calendar to implement a content strategy that’s both precise and consistent—without getting caught up in the rush of time!
What is a marketing calendar, and why is it essential for your e-commerce business?
A marketing calendar, also known as an editorial calendar, is a document (often in spreadsheet format) that outlines the production and publication of all of a company’s marketing content over several months or even a year.
How is a marketing calendar organized?
In practical terms, while the specific structure of a marketing calendar is tailored entirely to the company that will use it, this content forecast table includes certain criteria that are more or less universal:
- Who is the target audience for these communications?
- What are the publication channels?
- What is the purpose of publishing information about your e-commerce business's revenue or brand awareness?
- What are the production steps?
- When will it be published?
- Who is responsible for producing this content?
Why Is an Editorial Calendar Essential for Your E-Commerce Business?
A marketing calendar is a very powerful organizational tool that can help your business take off. What are the benefits of these annual forecasts for your business?
- Knowing what to post and when is a significant mental burden when you're managing every aspect of your online store;
- take a step back and look at your buyer persona objectively to avoid the pitfall of untargeted communication;
- effectively budget for and delegate the production of your content;
- Plan your presence across various communication channels and avoid writer's block.
Over the course of a full year, certain periods can account for 80% of your revenue, according to the Pareto principle. To make sure you don’t miss out on these opportunities, you need to anticipate them and seize every seasonal opportunity! Of course, when organizing such campaigns, planning ahead will allow you to set your goals and allocate the resources needed to achieve them.
What are the steps to follow when creating a marketing calendar for your e-commerce business?
Now that you know how a marketing calendar fits into your content strategy, it’s time to explore the steps for creating one based on the data you already have. The first step is crucial: you need to understand your target audience for these upcoming marketing campaigns.
Defining Your Avatars: The Most Important Step in Creating an Effective Marketing Calendar
To improve your marketing on social media and your website, you first need to know who you’re talking to. If you tailor your message incorrectly, your readers won’t see themselves in it, and you’ll miss out on sales. For a single product, you may very well have several different buyer personas who are likely to become customers. Across all the products in your online store, you’ll be targeting more than one buyer persona.
To ensure that everyone gets what they need, your priority will be to identify them and segment them based on their characteristics so that you can deliver a message that “resonates” with each persona through the channels they use every day.
Of course, some content will appeal to all your personas, but tailoring your messaging to your buyer personas based on events throughoutthe year is the most effective strategy in social media marketing.
Break down your goals to make your editorial calendar clear and realistic
What is the purpose of each post? To convert? To inform? To build a community? To share? Clearly define the objectives of your content. For example, a blog post might be designed for SEO to attract qualified leads, inform your audience, or go viral by encouraging sharing on social media. Social media posts can be purely promotional or showcase your expertise. Your editorial calendar should include a balanced mix of all these types of content, based on key dates and your marketing plan.
The Different Types of Posts to Include in Your Marketing Calendar
After the “Who,” you need to incorporate the “What” into your marketing calendar—in other words, what types of posts will you create on which channels? Here’s an overview of the content you should include in your marketing campaigns.
Articles
These articles are intended for publication on a website. Whether on the blog section of your e-commerce site or as guest posts to support your backlink strategy, high-quality articles can establish your site’s authority in your industry among your prospects, in addition to supporting your SEO strategy on Google.
Videos
Videos have significant conversion power. Unboxing videos, interviews, crash tests, customer testimonials… There are countless opportunities to shoot videos for posting on social media. Creating this type of content is a medium- to long-term investment, but this strategy supports both your inbound marketing and your sales goals. Videos serve as more credible social proof for your prospects before they make a purchase and enhance your advertising campaigns. Be sure to incorporate them into your marketing calendar—video content is a powerful business driver!
Infographics
Infographics are eye-catching visual aids that offer a fun way to consume information. This universally popular format can be humorous or serious, stand on its own on social media, or accompany other content with high viral potential. The versatility of infographics should convince you to include them in your marketing calendar!
Emails
It’s THE communication channel that still drives a lot of conversions today. Email lets you stay in touch with your audience. They’ve voluntarily signed up to hear from you. Your email audience is therefore, by definition, a qualified one.
Be careful—this isn’t a reason to send nothing but ads for your products! Be sure to diversify your content to provide added value to your readers. Otherwise, you risk boring your recipients, who—at best—will stop opening your emails, and at worst, will unsubscribe from your newsletter.
Social media posts
It’s impossible to imagine a successful business without social media today. Your marketing calendar will be particularly effective for your social media posts. On Instagram, for example: in addition to spacing out your content between global awareness days and trade show dates, you can create cohesive visuals to accompany your captions.
Consistency, variety, and relevance are key if you want to capture your audience’s attention. To make your marketing calendar more effective, you can focus on one or two platforms from among the many available today: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
TV or radio commercials
These traditional advertising channels can be a winning strategy depending on your target audience and the time of day your ads air. However, be mindful of the cost-to-return ratio! If you’re targeting a younger audience, invest in social media advertising rather than TV commercials, for example.
Mark key dates on your marketing calendar: make sure you're there at the right time!
Want to make the most of the marketing calendar for your brand? It’s all about timing! You know who your audience is, what message to send them, and why. Now let’s focus on “when.” If you post content too early or too late, the consequences for your business can be disastrous. That’s why it’s important to plan your marketing calendar in advance.
Business Events
These are real opportunities for your e-commerce business. However, be sure to craft your message carefully so that it stands out amid the commercial hubbub of these busy periods. Here are some events to mark in red on your marketing calendar:
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- French Days
- the sales
The dates for your niche
Send an email to celebrate each customer’s birthday, offer discounts tied to trade show dates related to your niche, and schedule your social media campaigns around key dates for your audience. In addition to ensuring you have sufficient inventory of strategic products, plan your communications in advance using your marketing calendar.
Must-See Celebrations of the Year
These are the most obvious dates, but use them wisely to avoid generating negative buzz (if you sell vacuum cleaners, for example, avoid jumping on the bandwagon for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day …).
- Valentine's Day;
- Mother's Day;
- Father's Day;
- Christmas;
- New Year's;
- the start of the school year;
- etc.
Clichés: Ideal Opportunities for Social Media
You can also use annual traditions in your communications to complement the major events ofthe year. These are recurring dates that fall during relatively quiet periods ofthe year, and they help lend authenticity to your business. In fact, on a global or international day, take the opportunity to highlight your business’s values as they relate to these events.
All the dates we’ve just reviewed should be marked on your editorial calendar so you can create impactful content, as well as original, surprising, or customized promotions for your prospects and customers! There are websites specializing in social media marketing that offer annual calendar templates —do your research to create your social media calendar and marketing plan for the year!
Budgeting for your communications is a breeze thanks to the marketing calendar
A marketing calendar allows you to schedule your content, as well as plan the budget allocated to producing these texts, visuals, or videos. You can choose to spread your annual budget evenly throughoutthe year or increase resources during peak periods and scale them back during slower times.
In any case, it makes more sense to allocate smaller budgets wisely on a regular basis than to blow your entire budget on a single event without giving it any thought beforehand.
Break down your content production to make it SMART using the marketing calendar
One of the many benefits of a marketing calendar is that it allows you to createreverse schedules very quickly. Depending on how far in advance you plan your editorial calendar, you’ll need to consider the various production stages for your publications.
Keep the human factor in mind when designing your processes: slow marketing often pays off! Allow plenty of time for your writers and graphic designers to avoid delays caused by unforeseen circumstances, and factor in the time needed for integration and publication when creating your schedule.
In general, use the SMART framework to evaluate the goals in your marketing calendar. As a reminder, a goal is achievable when it is:
- specific: X posts to reach X€ in revenue or X followers on the Instagram page;
- measurable: in euros, in subscribers, in engagement rates with your content, in conversion rates, etc.;
- Achievable: Break down the steps into smaller tasks to make your big goals more manageable;
- realistic: hence the importance of planning ahead to better budget and ensure consistent and regular communication;
- Timeframe: Your marketing calendar can be planned on a quarterly, semiannual, or annual basis…And each piece of content must have several productiondeadlinesto ensure it’s published on time.
Get an at-a-glance view of your sales year with the marketing calendar
With a simple spreadsheet, you can have an at-a-glance summary ofyour year’s content. By color-coding content types, events, or recurring milestones, you’ll know exactly where you stand in your annual content strategy. What information should be included in your Excel or Google Sheet to create an effective marketing calendar?
- the type of content: video, article, infographic, Facebook post, etc.;
- the topic or theme: global day, holiday, dates, event, promotion, etc.;
- the avatar, the channel: target audience 18–25 on TikTok, target audience 25–40 on Instagram, etc.;
- The author, or the individuals involved in the production of this content;
- expected publication date;
- The brief;
- Progress status: A color-coding system can give you a clear picture of your schedule.
How can you use an editorial calendar to optimize your content production?
Maximizing your content production with an editorial calendar also means using the online tools we recommend in this article. Whether it’s for social media marketing or tracking your SEO, take advantage of technology!
Use project management tools to keep track of each team member's work
Effective communication that enables process improvement is a real challenge when it comes to ensuring your editorial schedule runs smoothly. For example, you can organize your thoughts using amind mapto present your ideas in a structured way without having to format the document.
Everyone needs to know what they’re supposed to do and when. To track and manage the progress of your writers, graphic designers, videographers, and other service providers, take advantage of the power of these free tools:
- Trello
- Concept
- Monday
- Click Up
These are the most well-known tools—it’s up to you to create a work environment where everyone feels comfortable working within their area of expertise!
Get the Most Out of Automation
You can schedule all your social media posts using native apps like Facebook Business Manager or multi-channel apps like Hootsuite.
This way, you can “batch” your content creation and set aside two hours to schedule all your social media posts for two months, for example. Take full advantage of this automation to plan ahead and stay ahead of the curve without getting caught up in the rush. Similarly, newsletters and articles are very easy to schedule, even several weeks in advance.
For more advanced users, using automation tools such as Zennoposter can take your business to the next level and free up your time or eliminate payroll costs that have become unnecessary thanks to robots.
Jasper: Your Content Marketing Partner
Artificial intelligence is no slouch when it comes to generating content for your social media, blogs, and other text-based content. A tool like Jasper, formerly known as Jarvis, can streamline your content creation process with predefined templates that let you tailor the AI to your specific goals, adjust writing styles, and fine-tune other details. This way, you’ll be able to get your editorial calendar up and running much faster.
Conclusion: A marketing calendar frees up your time by maximizing the impact of your communications
We've seen just how useful a marketing calendar can be for your business:
- anticipation;
- effective and appropriate communication;
- a better understanding of its target audience;
- optimization of human and financial resources.
This article gives you all the tips you need to successfully set up your editorial calendar in just a few hours: from the types of content to use, to the dates and events to highlight, to striking the right balance between promotion and information…
Finally, we’ve provided you with tools that will maximize your content production and planning. This allows you to automate or centralize briefs and deadlines with your communications team.
If you don’t have the time to implement a powerful long-term content strategy using a marketing calendar, consider reaching out to our Ingenius experts. We’d be happy to get you started so you can reap all the benefits of an editorial calendar! We can create a calendar template for you to fill out based on your social media strategy!
