Energize and Organize Employer Branding – The Editorial Calendar

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Lincoln’s quote speaks to the value of preparation and having the right tools. In business, success is driven by thoughtful planning and effective implementation.

Employer Branding is driven by the deepening relationships with its candidate pool. To achieve this goal, successful brands have begun creating and distributing information deemed valuable by their clients through a technique known as content marketing. So which tool should a company use to manage such a daunting strategy?

As technology continues to reinvent the way we do business, sometimes tools from the past are just as effective today as they were years ago. One such tool is an editorial calendar which is best defined as a tool that identifies what themes, events, messages and channels will be used over a period of time.

Although it’s commonly thought of only for publishing companies, an editorial calendar can also help companies to formulate a marketing strategy, organize the message, determine the delivery, and create content in advance. Every marketing campaign is measured by its effectiveness. Tools like the editorial calendar can help evaluate each campaign’s effectiveness with a wide array of analytics. Brands can now track critical aspects including number of clicks, shares, and likes.

This is a vital step in understanding what content is going to engage candidates the most. For example, it can help recruiters determine what types of posts engage their audience as well as the most effective channels. The editorial calendar provides the opportunity to tweak their future campaigns based on previous campaign results. Without it, companies can waste serious budget dollars and continue to repeat mistakes.

An editorial calendar should include key dates, topics, as well as links and search engine optimization (SEO) keywords to drive clients to the brand. The process of mapping out these key components and how they work within the framework of the brand strategy will ensure marketing efforts are designed to maximize results.

Visualizing the path to success is critical to any strategy. Companies that choose not to use an editorial calendar run the risk of watering down or even losing sight of the marketing objective.

A misaligned marketing campaign can be a lot like swinging a dull axe against a tall tree. The smarter marketing engineers will take the necessary measures to use the right tools. In content marketing, the editorial calendar is definitely the more effective tool for the job.