Content Calendars That Actually Work: A Practitioner’s Guide

The calendar is infrastructure. The content is personality.

The goal isn’t a perfect plan. It’s a plan you can actually keep.

By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC

A content calendar (also called an editorial calendar) is a planning tool that maps out what content an organization will publish, in what format, on which channels, and on what schedule—typically planned one to three months in advance. An effective content calendar balances evergreen and timely content, builds in flexibility for responsive publishing, and is designed around a publishing cadence the team can sustain—not around an aspirational schedule that collapses on contact with competing priorities.

Many companies and individuals these days continue to be focused on creating and distributing content in a never-ending cycle. It’s a cycle that demands new ideas, new copy, new images, new hashtags, new social media posts, new, new, new, new, new…

At the same time they need to ensure that their content is relevant and, to the extent possible, capitalizes on current events, news cycles, holidays, and emerging audience interests.

That can be a challenge.

Content calendars can help. Or hurt.

Continue reading “Content Calendars That Actually Work: A Practitioner’s Guide”

Your Customers are Talking About You. Do You Know What They’re Saying?

If you’re not on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites —and believe it or not, many people are not!—you may be missing out on some very important conversations. Some of these conversations may be about you!

When we worked with a client recently, we did some quick online research, and they were shocked to find how many discussions about their product, relative to their competitors’ products, were taking place.

Some were good, some were not. Continue reading “Your Customers are Talking About You. Do You Know What They’re Saying?”

Repurposing Content Across Different Platforms for Maximum Reach

In the digital marketing landscape, creating fresh, engaging content consistently can be a daunting task. But there’s a pretty simple strategy that can help you maximize your content’s reach and lifespan without constantly having to come up with new ideas: content repurposing.

Content repurposing involves taking existing content and adapting it for use across different platforms.
Continue reading “Repurposing Content Across Different Platforms for Maximum Reach”

Direct Mail — The “Snail Mail” Kind — Never Goes Out of Style

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine gave me a book on fractals to read and it was fascinating! At least I thought so. It was all about how nature is made up of fractals that operate in a systematic way to create patterns (in clouds, in leaves, in trees—in everything!). It’s all very mathematical (and I didn’t understand much of the really technical content…) but the images were fascinating and the idea that there are patterns—often predictable patterns—in everything around us, was Continue reading “Direct Mail — The “Snail Mail” Kind — Never Goes Out of Style”

Ask Before Acting: Why You Should Seek Input From Target Audiences

I was pulled into an interesting online discussion recently in a PR forum that I participate in on LinkedIn. There are currently more than 100 responses to a question that initially asked whether participants hated cold-calling and eventually evolved into a discussion of whether Continue reading “Ask Before Acting: Why You Should Seek Input From Target Audiences”

The Marketing Content Continuum

Content marketing remains a high priority for organizations of all kinds today as they struggle to stay relevant to customers while keeping ahead of the constantly changing algorithms of search engines like Google. Companies clearly need to generate a constant flow of high-quality, relevant, current content, but continually creating and updating content can take a toll and drive up costs. And finding a qualified staff that can keep up with the demand isn’t so easy these days.

The solution for a lot of companies today is Continue reading “The Marketing Content Continuum”

The Power of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in Writing Promotional Copy

It’s not uncommon for students in both high school and higher ed to question whether what they’re learning will actually have relevance in the real world of work. There are three concepts, though, from several speech classes I taught at the undergraduate level, that I’ve found to be extremely helpful in creating content designed to resonate with various needs and preferences of the target audience: ethos, logos, and pathos. Before I lose you, trust me, these are really simple concepts that you can use to create and evaluate your promotional content. Continue reading “The Power of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in Writing Promotional Copy”

Zigging When They Zag: The Potential of Traditional Marketing Communication

The digital environment is quite cluttered these days and becoming more so. Consumers benefit from access to a massive amount of information literally available at their fingertips—and often being pushed to them by marketers yelling “pick me, me, me.” But with so much activity in the digital environment, sometimes it takes a different approach to stand out: Continue reading “Zigging When They Zag: The Potential of Traditional Marketing Communication”

When You Make It All About You, You Lose

Whenever I’m called upon to offer a critique on or advice about a company or consultant’s copy – whether it’s on a web site, in a brochure, an ad, a blog, or whatever – the first thing I do is read through the copy to see whether the focus is on “we/me” or “you/your.” Most of the copy I look at is the former. A quick, easy and relatively painless way to improve it Continue reading “When You Make It All About You, You Lose”

Unless Your Customers Are Like You, You Shouldn’t Treat Them Like They Are

Over the years I’ve noticed a dangerous tendency—among myself and others—to assume that we “know” our customers, or target customers. Because we think or believe something, we assume that—of course!—others think or believe as we do. They don’t.

This was driven home to me a while ago as my husband was watching the MLB All-Star Game.

“Great!” I said—”this must mean the baseball season is over!” No, he assured me — only halfway over; still about 80 games to go. “Good grief! Who in the world wants to watch that much baseball?!! How can the networks possibly afford to keep broadcasting these things?!?!?!”

And then it hit me. Continue reading “Unless Your Customers Are Like You, You Shouldn’t Treat Them Like They Are”