Managing content material at scale is a problem — staying organized, deciding what to publish, assigning writers and editors, and monitoring outcomes requires lots of shifting components. The extra individuals concerned, the extra advanced the system.
Editorial calendars simplify all of this. They supply a big-picture overview, making it a lot simpler to strategize and schedule out the week, month, or 12 months.
After practically a decade of managing excessive quantity content material groups, listed below are my favourite no price editorial calendar templates for various instruments.
Monday.com: A complete editorial calendar template
Monday.com’s editorial calendar template delivers a pre-built content material calendar that’s simple to customise alongside workforce collaboration options and activity administration capabilities from among the best mission administration options in the marketplace.
It’s nice for prime stage technique, work administration, and centralized content material operations out of the field.
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This template can be utilized for any and all varieties of content material — from weblog posts and ebooks to social media and video, it’s versatile sufficient to assist your whole publishing exercise.
You may arrange a color-coded system to prioritize your most essential content material and use customized tags to filter every little thing in a approach that’s simple to know. Irrespective of how stacked your publishing schedule turns into, you’ll all the time know what’s forward.
Should you’re a solo person, it’s doubtless overkill until you customise it. Nonetheless, it’s excellent when you’re working with a minimum of a number of different individuals or a full content material workforce.
You should use this template, together with 200 others, for gratis with monday.com’s free plan.
ClickUp: A beginner-friendly editorial calendar template
Much like monday.com, ClickUp is a whole mission administration answer. The 2 platforms are practically similar when it comes to options and capabilities, so selecting one over the opposite largely comes down to non-public desire and worth.
That stated, ClickUp’s editorial calendar template is a bit simpler to make use of out of the gate, particularly for freshmen.
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Except for the normal calendar, ClickUp provides you 5 extra views, together with a listing view, content material request view, useful resource view, and key phrases view. Thanks to those additional views, conserving observe of deadlines and managing each side of your manufacturing movement is a breeze.
You may also add customized attributes to every piece of content material, just like the channel, publication date, editor, and even the CTA you’re utilizing.
When you add these, you may observe the efficiency of granular particulars for all of the content material you publish. Including customized attributes takes a couple of clicks and you may add as many as you want.
As a result of ClickUp is a mission administration instrument, you’re additionally getting all the necessities for workforce collaboration, assigning duties, and setting due dates.
General, this template is nice whether or not you’re planning years prematurely or only a few weeks.
You can begin utilizing this template with ClickUp’s free plan within the subsequent 5 minutes. Plus, ClickUp’s paid plans are extra inexpensive than monday.com.
Smartsheet: A template for brainstorming and managing content material
Smartsheet’s editorial calendar template consists of an space for brainstorming content material concepts and shifting the perfect concepts into your manufacturing workflow.
It really works nicely for any kind of content material from movies and pictures to weblog posts, podcasts, and visitor posts. It additionally provides you every little thing it is advisable see your schedule by month or 12 months at a look.
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You should use this template with Smartsheet, however the instrument itself doesn’t have a free plan. Should you don’t wish to pay, you may obtain the template and use it with Excel or Google Sheets as a substitute.
Both approach, you’ll have the ability to assign duties, set publishing dates, take notes, go away feedback, and keep on prime of missed deadlines.
That stated, it doesn’t historically seem like a calendar until you utilize it with Smartsheet. As an alternative, you’ll see a desk with your whole scheduled content material for every month.
Should you’re a fan of lists and tables, it’s greater than sufficient.
Utilizing it with Smartsheet additionally provides you extra capabilities, together with a Gantt chart, automations, fundamental workload monitoring, attachment storage, and extra. Nonetheless, Smartsheet is on the costlier finish of mission administration and relational database options.
Airtable: A digital and print editorial calendar template
Airtable is a complicated relational database answer that provides you every little thing it is advisable construct a customized editorial calendar that matches your workflow. Consider it as a clean slate you may customise as a lot (or as little) as you’d like.
Should you deal with print media, the print editorial calendar template helps you to simply handle print and digital media in the identical place.
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Not like different templates thus far, this one helps you to set up content material by difficulty and print schedule, permitting you to fulfill tight deadlines and keep on prime of publishing exercise.
You may also arrange completely different classes for every difficulty. For instance, you might have separate duties assigned to completely different individuals with distinctive deadlines for information, life-style, and meals — all to your December 2024 print difficulty which has its personal due date.
Airtable additionally makes it simple to take content material out of your print schedule and switch it right into a digital launch with a built-in relationship again to the unique print.
The flexibleness of this template means you may deal with nearly any situation you might end up in. You may also add extra fields and relationships, supplying you with full management to make your system work such as you do.
I wouldn’t use this template when you’re not working with a workforce or dealing with conventional media, however it’s excellent for large publishers and information websites.
Notion: A easy editorial calendar template for small groups and solo customers
Notion, like Airtable, affords relational databases. Nonetheless, Notion is less complicated to make use of, extra inexpensive, and extra approachable for small groups and solo publishers.
The editorial calendar template is streamlined and easy, bringing all publishing exercise into one view.
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You may also simply set up content material by kind, author, standing, due date, and extra. There’s even a area for illustrations and visuals and one other for the viewers you’re concentrating on. The viewers area means you may simply see the pipeline for every section of your viewers to make sure a balanced publishing schedule.
Certainly one of Notion’s built-in views is a calendar, so it’s simple to change between a regular listing of content material and a high-level editorial calendar any time.
Alternatively, you should use Kanban view for a visible indication of the standing of every piece.
Regardless of its simplicity, you and your workforce can view your whole content material in no matter approach works finest for you.
You should use the template by itself or join it to different Notion workspaces you’re planning to arrange or have already got. Though it’s not as scalable as others, it’s an ideal place to start out with loads of room to customise and add on as you develop.
Asana: An approachable editorial calendar template for bloggers
Asana is a extra conventional mission administration answer in comparison with the opposite instruments we’ve talked about thus far. It’s easier and so much simpler to make use of with out sacrificing necessities.
The streamlined nature and ease of use of Asana’s free editorial calendar template make it an ideal possibility for busy bloggers, small content material groups, and enterprise web sites who don’t want something fancy.
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The very best half about this template is how seamlessly it really works for people or groups. Irrespective of how you’re employed, it’s simple to plan months, quarters, or perhaps a 12 months prematurely and assign work to everybody at every stage of the publishing course of.
On prime of that, it really works for nearly any kind of content material – blogs, movies, photographs, information tales, podcasts, and print to call a couple of.
You may arrange a easy color-coded system on the calendar based mostly on content material kind or distribution channel, so you’ve a birds-eye view of your total schedule.
As a mission administration answer, Asana additionally makes it simple to set deadlines, observe duties, and collaborate together with your workforce. You may also alter due dates or re-assigning work based mostly on useful resource capability or precedence shifts in a couple of clicks.
Asana affords a beneficiant free plan that’s greater than sufficient to get began.
HubSpot: A low-volume template for Excel and Google Sheets
Should you’re publishing at low quantity and want a easy option to see upcoming posts for the week or month, this free template from HubSpot covers all of the fundamentals.
This template is about so simple as it will get — there are columns for publish date, due date, title, particulars, key phrases, and a CTA. For publishing a couple of items of content material per week or month, it’s greater than sufficient.
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You may obtain it as an Excel file or open it in Google Sheets. The formatting is similar for each choices. HubSpot additionally not too long ago added an possibility to make use of it together with your Google Calendar when you want that as a substitute.
There are three foremost sheets — one for your whole content material, a weekly view, and a month-to-month view.
The very best strategy is duplicating all three tabs earlier than you begin so that you all the time have a clean model of every for the next month. This manner, you may as well plan a number of months forward.
The most important downside of this template is what makes it nice within the first place. It’s easy. However there’s no option to view a quarterly or annual schedule. You may set this up if you realize your approach round spreadsheets, however at that time you may as nicely use a distinct template.
General, it’s an ideal start line for low quantity publishing. Whereas the template itself is free, you’ll have to present an e mail handle to obtain it.
What’s an editorial calendar?
An editorial content material is a high-level useful resource that outlines publishing schedules for the month or 12 months. It’s a good way to plan various kinds of content material and guarantee your publishing exercise aligns with enterprise targets.
Because the title implies, an editorial calendar sometimes seems to be like an precise calendar — exhibiting days, weeks, and months over the course of a 12 months.
However most fashionable editorial calendar templates embody different views like desk, Kanban, Gantt, and listing.
I like to think about editorial calendars like a blueprint or roadmap. They’re designed to indicate the place you wish to go, and the way you’re going to get there.
Who makes use of editorial calendars?
Regardless of the title, editorial calendars aren’t only for editors. They can be utilized by any skilled who oversees content material manufacturing or creates long-term advertising and marketing plans.
That could possibly be the proprietor of a small weblog or YouTube channel or a mission supervisor dealing with the schedule for dozens of channels.
Different examples embody:
- Web site homeowners.
- Unbiased bloggers.
- Social influencers.
- Small enterprise homeowners.
- Weblog editors.
- Content material entrepreneurs.
- Social media specialists.
- PR groups.
- Undertaking managers.
- Media coordinators.
As a result of the principle advantage of an editorial calendar is a high-level overview of planning and publishing exercise, they’re largely utilized by managers and supervisors in an expert setting.
Exterior of that, they’re a very good match for anybody who needs a prime down view, whether or not or not they’re assigning work to different individuals or doing every little thing themselves.
What’s the distinction between an editorial calendar and a content material calendar?
The phrases editorial calendar and content material calendar are sometimes confused with one another, however they’re not the identical factor.
Content material calendars are sometimes used for day-to-day content material administration — like assigning duties and shifting content material by way of your workflow. Editorial calendars are for big-picture planning and managing strategic targets.
That stated, many of the editorial calendars you’ll discover immediately (together with a number of on my listing) embody content material administration options. Reasonably than having to make use of a number of instruments and templates for every, you can begin with an editorial calendar and slowly flip it right into a full content material calendar with assignees, due dates, classes, and different areas you wish to maintain observe of.
For instance, you might have a high-level calendar in a single view for planning and technique with a separate Kanban board that organizes the identical data in a approach that’s extra helpful for writers and editors actively engaged on content material.
That’s why many of the templates you’ll discover are constructed utilizing mission administration software program.