How to Plan a Marketing Calendar That Actually Works (Free Template) [FAKE]

I'm going to be blunt. A lot of marketing calendars are really tough to use simply because they aren't designed to be marketing calendar tools. And that makes it really tough to plan a marketing calendar that actually works:

1. PDFs: Printing a free editorial calendar template like this one from CoSchedule is a great way to start your planning—to get the brainstorming going. From here, you'll likely want a digital version that's a bit easier to update with your constant changes.
2. Excel: Here's a free marketing calendar template from Content Marketing Institute to get you started on a digital version. But it's a bit difficult to get your team to use it when you have it locked all day as you plan. :/
3. Google Docs: A spreadsheet in Google Docs/Sheets like this marketing calendar template from Crackerjack Marketing will help you solve the locking problem you'd experience with Excel. This still doesn't feel like a marketing calendar, though, without a visual way to see your upcoming projects.
4. Google Calendar: You could also build a marketing calendar in Google Calendar.

The thing is... If you've followed our advice on social media calendars, you may schedule 30 or more social messages throughout the following weeks and months to share a single blog post with your audience. I'm sure you can't imagine copying and pasting all of those from Google Calendar into your different social networks—what a time suck! Not to mention copying and pasting all of your other content, too...

So What Will Help You Plan An Awesome Marketing Calendar?

So where am I going with all of this? I've read dozens of other posts on marketing calendars, editorial calendars, content marketing calendars, social media calendars—you get the picture. And I checked out a monster list of marketing calendar templates in a post on Crazy Egg's blog. There are tons of folks who have really good ideas of what to include in your calendar, and starting with a template to get your brainstorming underway is a solid way to begin. So here's how to plan a marketing calendar that really works—with a few tips from us at CoSchedule, and a lot more from the other rock stars out there.

Start With This Guide + Marketing Calendar Template, And Then...

You might just need a guide and a little something to write on while you read this post. I've got your back. Download the free guide that will help you implement all of this advice with actionable, step-by-step information. You'll also get a free marketing calendar template (plus bonus social + email marketing calendars) to help you plan all your content in advance. And when you're ready to use a tool designed to be your marketing calendar, get started with 14 free days of CoSchedule. Now let's get to the good stuff.

Step #1: Turn Your Marketing Strategy Into Real Content You'll Create

Maybe writing a 30-page marketing strategy isn't as important as planning real content. It sounds harsh, but hear me out: For startups, business plans are no longer normal. In fact, they're now considered a faux pas and seen as a mere “business guess.” But that wasn’t always the case. Before the lean startup, the business plan was a document that assumed we knew everything there was to know about our business, a plan set in stone. It was done, or so we thought. In reality, it was just a big huge guess.  Marketing plans and gigantic old strategy documents aren’t much different. They may sound novel and responsible, but the reality is that they are just guesses, too. What could content marketing strategy builders learn from the lean startup model? The more time you spend strategizing, the less time you spend creating real content that will influence sales (which, let's face it, is the entire reason to plan your marketing calendar). Whether you have a marketing strategy already or not, there are just a few things you need in your strategy to help you validate what content to create:

1. The now-infamous: Know your audience. This could start as simple as a customer survey, then possibly just bullet points you add into an Evernote note that help you stay in touch with your customers' changing needs. The main point here is this: Keep it simple, especially at first.
2. Create content. Content is data, and you get to know your customers by creating content and measuring its impact. There's no way you will know everything about your audience until you put something out there, start communicating with them, and get their feedback.
3. Start small. If you're thinking about doing an hourlong video or an e-book first, think again. Could you release a chapter of an e-book first to gauge its performance before you spend more time developing content on that topic? Could the same go for your monster video? If content is data, plan minimum viable content on your marketing calendar first to feel out what will truly "move the needle." (I had to sneak in a quip like that since we're talking strategy!)

That really looks like this: From here, turn your strategy into content. And use the data from what you create to plan more:

1. Create your content.
2. Share it with your audience.
3. Measure what's working.
4. Learn what to create and where to share.
5. Plan more content like your best-performing projects.

So now that you have a minimum viable marketing strategy to get started, the next step is looping in who'll help you create that content. This will help you define expectations for everyone—even if it's really only you as an all-in-one marketing team.

I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management. —Jamie Dimon

Step #2: Understand Who'll Do What

Ann Handley has an awesome idea when it comes to who should be involved in your editorial flow, and thus, have access to your marketing calendar to understand when pieces will publish: http://www.slideshare.net/AnnHandley/content-marketing-org-chart She says:

These are roles not staff positions. Each role might be filled by one person or perhaps by a dozen, depending on the size and complexity of your own organization.

Let's take a look at those roles quick:

1. Team lead, or your strategist
2. Editorial director
3. Designers
4. Content creators
5. Curator
6. Syndicator
7. Analytics expert
8. Site manager

That's a pretty good list. And while that list works for Ann, it might not for you. For a small team, you can narrow that list of roles down even further:

1. Team lead who helps with planning, editing, publishing, and distributing
2. Writer who turns a content idea into something your audience will love
3. Designer (or videographer, podcaster, etc.) who takes the writer's creation to the next level

Essentially, these folks are the ones who'll help you plan, create, and share the content according to your marketing strategy. Get everyone on the same page now to make actually producing content a lot easier down the road. Now it's time work that marketing calendar: Plan what topics you'll cover.

Step #3: Define Your Topic Themes

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing plans out his marketing calendar based on themes. The themes help him look at a calendar that connects with topics he wants to cover for his audience. Note that this isn't actual content yet—it's just a note of the topics he'd like to address in his content:

The first step is to start making a list of your most important themes. I generally try to find three core themes and about nine supplemental themes. (Nice tidy 12 monthly themes.) Your core themes are the kinds of things that might be found on your homepage or even in the title attribute of your home page. Or, perhaps the main navigational elements of your site.

While it scares me to plan 12 months ahead because the data from your current content should help you plan new content, this is an awesome way to plan strategically (and super efficiently) and keep your content on point. John shares exactly how he chooses themes:

Start with brainstorming. Lock yourself away and start thinking about the kinds of things people ask about the most, where you make your most money, or where you see the greatest opportunities in your industry. This is often enough to create a good start to your list. Obviously, if you have a team, get them involved – they may actually know better than you. (Industry jargon that means nothing to the prospect must be left out here.)

John mentions this is a nice way to get past staring at a blank marketing calendar without any clue of what content to add to it. I also love that about themes.

Step #4: Prioritize Your Marketing Projects

Marcus Sheridan from The Sales Lion has a simple solution to help you plan your marketing calendar based on projects that will have the biggest impact on your business. He addresses prioritizing your marketing calendar very simply:

Remember, content marketing is about generating more sales. When all is said and done, that’s what matters.

He suggests prioritizing more "Buyer's Content" instead of so much top of the funnel, inbound content. By understanding this, the aim is to plan content on your marketing calendar that will help prospects make purchase decisions instead of purely focusing on content that's great for the top of the funnel but just generating traffic. The team at The Sales Lion even have a simple algorithm they use to prioritize their projects that you can use, too:

Essentially, we have every client rate their planned content (be it blog titles, videos, etc.) on a scale of 1-3. A “3” score means it’s “Buyer’s Content” and therefore marked as most urgent—moving it to the top of the calendar. If it’s a “1” grade, then we’ll wait to produce this content because it’s either a top of funnel question that a buyer may be asking or even an “outside of the funnel” question/subject—meaning that although it may be relevant to the business and buyer, it doesn’t necessarily represent someone who is seriously considering making a purchase right now.

From here, you can plan a balance of content focused on selling and content focused on inspiring interest in your business on your marketing calendar. And when you start planning actual pieces of content on your calendar, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Step #5: Plan Your Content On Your Marketing Calendar

This is the fun part! And there are many ways to do this: While editorial calendars work particularly well for managing blogs, you can use them to organize all of your marketing. So I wanted to know how the other pros out there plan more than just blog and social media content, but a true all-in-one marketing calendar that you can also do with CoSchedule. Here's what they had to say:

Plan Actual Pieces Of Content To Target Specific Keywords Your Audience Uses

You used Marcus' algorithm to prioritize your projects, so let's make those into actual pieces of content on your calendar. John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing had some more solid advice on planning projects as content:

Now take that list to the Google Keyword Planner and see if you can find themes that have significant volume. You must balance key terms with being too generic though. A term like “marketing” wouldn’t make sense as a theme, even for a marketing consultant, but a term like “referral marketing tactics” might.

To summarize: While all of your content may be connected to a theme, choose a keyword for every single piece of content you'll publish. These may be keywords all related to the same topic, but unique enough to help you connect your different content to the terms your audience is searching for. Then add the keywords into your projects on your marketing calendar according to the priority you defined through Marcus' scoring exercise.

Plan Content For A Week, Month, Or Year Out

Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute has a lot of insight on the content marketing process, and marketing calendars are a huge element of successful strategies turning into real content:

One thing is certain: if you don’t keep an editorial/content calendar, the content doesn’t get done. —Joe Pulizzi

Joe breaks it down into such a simple idea:

An editorial calendar simply tracks what content you are going to cover, what tactic it’s for (blog, newsletter, etc.) and who’s responsible. [...] Best practice is to set up a master calendar for all your content initiatives, and then a separate content calendar for each initiative. Traditionally, we’ve set up editorial calendars 12 months out and then constantly change them as we tweak the marketing plan.

The good news is that your themes are the year calendar, and now you're ready to plan real projects for each "initiative", as Joe calls them. So let's recap everything you just learned, and use Joe's advice to get your projects on your marketing calendar.

Actually Create The Content

I couldn't say this better than Rebecca Lieb from (who's brilliant, by the way, and worth following) on combining your marketing calendar with a content production process:

Many editorial calendars also incorporate the production process into the mix, which is a great way to ensure content creation is on track. This can include who’s responsible for individual content elements, the due date of a first draft, who conducts the copyedit, and a date (often, with a specific time) for receiving and proofing the final draft, entering it into the CMS system (or newsletter template, or blog platform), and when it will be pushed live, or published.

Where Rebecca started, Jodi Harris from Content Marketing Institute provides a few more details to help you set up your marketing calendar:

• The date the piece of content will be published
• The topic or headline of the content piece
• The author of the content
• The owner of the content – i.e., who is in charge of making sure the content makes it from ideation to publication and promotion
• The current status of the content (updated as it moves through your publishing cycle)

Jodi continues with a few more items to include:

• The channels where your content will be published: This can include only your owned channels (such as your blog, Facebook Page, website, YouTube page, email newsletters, etc.), or you can expand your tracking to include paid and earned channels, as well.
• Content formats: Is it a blog post? A video? A podcast? An infographic? An original image? To get more mileage from the content you create, you might want to consider repurposing it into other formats at some point. So it’s handy to keep tabs on the types of assets you have on hand right from the start.
• Visuals: Speaking of assets, it’s important that you don’t overlook the appeal that visuals can lend to your content, both in terms of social sharing potential and overall brand recognition. Tracking the visual elements you include in your content efforts – such as cover images, logos, illustrations, charts – will make it easier to ensure that your work has a signature look and cohesive brand identity.
• Topic categories: This helps make your calendars more searchable when you are looking to see about which target topics you already created a lot of content – or which you haven’t covered often enough.
• Keywords and other meta-data, such as meta-descriptions and SEO titles (if they differ from your headlines), which will help you keep your SEO efforts aligned with your content creation.
• URLs: This info can be archived as an easy way to keep your online content audits updated, or to link to older pieces of content in the new content you create.
• Calls to action: This helps you ensure that every piece of content you create is aligning with your company’s marketing goals.

So it makes sense to simply include all of this advice right in your marketing calendar as you create it. Here's how: All the actionable advice in this post will work with any format your marketing calendar takes. It's just that CoSchedule is actually designed to be your all-in-one marketing calendar, and helps you do all of this way more efficiently. What would your marketing look like if you could manage all of this in one tool? Are you ready to get started? This post was originally published on June 17, 2015. It was most recently updated on April 4, 2018.