The Importance of the Editorial Calendar

Of all of the information you make available in your publication’s media kit, there is none more important than the annual editorial calendar. This is especially true in the current economic climate where advertising budgets have been reduced. The annual editorial calendar is one of the most important planning tools advertisers and their advertising agencies use to select the publications, and in which issues of those publications, they will schedule their ads.

I have heard from many association publishers that it is very difficult for them to create a calendar. “I can’t plan more than a few months in advance” and “I want to have the flexibility to put in timely articles” are just two of the excuses I have encountered. But, advertisers don’t want to hear those excuses. What they most need to know is which issues will deliver the most value for their advertising investment in them, and the editorial calendar is their best tool to do this.

The annual editorial does not have to be detailed. No one is expecting you to know what the exact wording of the headline of each feature story will be a year before it is published. But what the advertising community does need to know is the subject areas to be covered in each issue. For instance, if you are selling advertising to software manufacturers, they will look at the editorial calendar to see in which issues there will be a stories about technology. The same is true for all of the major categories of industry suppliers serving your industry.

Another important piece of information that should be included in your calendar is any tie-ins or bonus distribution of issues at industry events, conferences, and conventions. Exhibitors look for bonus distribution opportunities offered around events at which they will be exhibiting and are more likely to advertise in the issues distributed at those events.

As you develop your annual calendar, keep in mind the buying cycle of when specific product categories are purchased by your readers and plan the feature stories within those timeframes. One example comes from publishers of trade magazines serving the retail industry. The busiest time of year for most retailers is around the holiday months of November and December. But the products that are sold in the retail stores in those months were actually chosen and purchased as much as ten months earlier. If you are planning to write an article on the popular new items to be purchased as holiday gifts, planning that article in the November issue of your magazine will not be attractive to advertisers. However, planning that same article in the February issue will be much more meaningful to the market and will attract the advertising of those vendors selling merchandise to retailers because their ads will be seen at the time those retailers are making their purchasing decisions.

Your editorial calendar does not have to include every article or editorial department you have planned for each issue, but should include at least one topic per issue that, over the course of a year, will be of interest to every major category of your industry’s suppliers. Also, if you are planning a special issue, such as a buyers guide or “year in review” article, be sure to include those in the calendar as well. Remember, the editorial calendar is looked at by advertisers to help them determine if your magazine covers the most relevant issues of your industry and which issues will contain content that covers the segment of the market they each serve. Without a calendar, advertisers may simply pass you by as an advertising medium.

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