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How to Create an Editorial Calendar for Your Newsletter
Repost: Original article by: www.blogs.boomerang.com
Sending out a regular newsletter to your email marketing list not only creates a consistent presence in your list members’ inboxes but it gives you the opportunity to brand your business as an expert in your field. Newsletters can be as simple as a short message sent out on a weekly basis or a monthly recap of what has been happening on your company blog.
The key to getting more from your email newsletter is to establish an editorial calendar. A calendar will ensure that you are covering all the bases with your content and providing enough variety to keep your readers interested.
Here is a five step process that you can use to establish an editorial calendar for your newsletter.
1. Look at your previous newsletter metrics.
If you have been sending out newsletters for a period of time, you can look back to the performance metrics for clues on what works best for your list members. Look for patterns in clickthroughs based on your content. Did how to articles get the most clickthroughs or did your case studies draw the most attention? These metrics can help you decide what you should publish in the future.
2. Do market research in your industry.
What type of information are others in your industry publishing? You do not necessarily have to sign up for their newsletter to find out. Look at their websites. Follow them on social media. Read their blog posts. Determine which topics and issues that your competitors are writing or speaking about. Chances are these are good topics for you to make room for in your editorial calendar.
3. Organize potential topics into set categories.
In the first two steps, you were brainstorming ideas based on what you have seen in the marketplace. Now it is time to take those ideas and get them into a logical order. Review your potential topics and break them down into several different major categories. For example, a hotel chain might have categories for safe travel tips, family friendly vacation recommendations, money saving strategies, destination highlights and organization ideas to be covered in their newsletter.
4. Create several topics for each category and schedule the topics.
Once your categories are established, it is time to create content ideas for each one. Plan several months in advance by creating two to three topics for each category. Create a schedule that will rotate the topics in each category so that your newsletter remains fresh and interesting for your readers.
5. Improve your newsletter by following response rates.
Once you have put your new editorial calendar in place, it is not set in stone. You should improve it based on the response and open rates that you see from your newsletter recipients. Going back to the hotel chain example, you might find that the destination highlight emails are not getting as much attention as the safe travel tips. So adjust your schedule and remove the first category. Replace it with more safe travel tips or try out a new category that you think might perform better.
By establishing an editorial calendar for your email newsletters, it becomes much easier to get the results you are looking for from email marketing.
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