Content marketing isn’t as simple as you’d think.
In order to turn your engineering blog into a brand giant, after all, you need to do more than just write random posts. You need to have a content strategy, figure out your posting schedule, and publish regularly.
A blog planner is a tool that helps you keep track of all your posting details — notes on posts you’ve already published, ones you’re currently working on, and future post ideas.
There’s no one correct blog planner to use. You could be using specialized marketing software like CoSchedule, or a simple Google Doc or Excel Sheet. But you could also be using an organizational tool like Trello or Asana, which I personally find quite helpful.
But if you’re still not 100% sure whether or not you actually need a blog planner (short answer: yes, you do), here are 6 advantages of having a blog planner if you’re trying to run a successful engineering blog.
1. It gives you control
Having an overview of the content production process is so important. It’s easy to get lost in it all and forget what you’re working on or what your goals are.
But if you’re working with a blog planner, you’ll be able to clearly plan out and visualize what your content production process is looking like.
Perhaps you need a good calendar overview of when what content is coming out? Or perhaps you need to know exactly in what stage of the content production process a certain article is?
Blog planners can help you do all of that.
They allow you to organize your work weeks (or even months!) ahead of time, work through posts in a set pipeline, and allow time for additional tasks like graphics or uploading articles.
By relying on a tool, you’ll be in control of the whole content production process and know exactly where you are at any point in time.
2. It allows you to produce higher-quality work
It’s tempting to quickly write something up and then immediately hit that attractive “publish” button.
But relying on a blog planner and having set steps to follow literally forces you to take a step back and look over things more slowly.
Perhaps you’ve set a final editing step? Or your production process is reminding you that the article first needs to go to Lara, the graphic designer, for a new header image?
By working closely together with a blog planner, you’ll write better and more in-depth pieces that’ll help you achieve your content marketing goals faster.
It’s always worth noting that the number one way to drive website traffic and reach your content goals is by focusing on quality over quantity. This is particularly important with Google’s latest helpful content update. And if you need a blog planner to help you slow down and focus on that quality, then that’s a good thing.
3. It allows you to schedule your engineering blog
Scheduling your blog post to be published at the right time is so important, especially if you’re matching a new blog post with simultaneous newsletter send-outs and social media content.
It’s difficult to keep to a consistent posting schedule without a blog planner since you’d likely need to remind yourself to physically go back into your system and publish a post at a certain time.
But if you have a blog planner, you can set a scheduling date and time, and then sit back and relax because your work is already done. Of course, you’ll still need to work with external scheduling tools, but the planner will help you manage your overall schedule.
Scheduling is particularly important if you’re working with different time zones and don’t want to be getting up at 3 am to hit that publish button.
4. You’ll be able to plan better
If you can take a look at your posting schedule ahead of time and know exactly when what is being published, you’ll be able to plan your actual writing and research time much better.
Perhaps you have an article coming up in a few weeks where you need input from someone on the factory floor? Then knowing this in advance will give you the time to prep for this properly, so you’re not stuck last-minute trying to finish an article without the right information.
Or perhaps you have 2–3 articles that form part of the same topic cluster or fall under one pillar content piece? Then you can plan to write these in a similar period, as it’ll help maximize efficiency.
The same also applies to upcoming holidays or vacation days, of course.
Are you near the Christmas period, and everyone will be on a break, but you still want a few articles to be published? Knowing this ahead of time will help you plan accordingly.
You can also put other away dates, like maternity leaves or company trips, on your blog planner so you can plan for all these out-of-office days.
5. You can handle last-minute changes faster
Unexpected tasks are inevitable, and they always seem to pop up at the worst possible times.
But if you have a clear view of your content marketing schedule via a blog planner, you can handle these setbacks much faster.
Say, for example, one of your technical writers was supposed to work on a specific article this week, but she’s called in sick with a terrible flu. By looking at your blog planner, you can quickly see how you can shuffle things around to accommodate this.
But changes don’t always have to be negative.
Perhaps you’ve just met a well-known person in your industry at a networking event, and he’s keen to sit down with you for an interview, but expects it to be published within the week. By looking at your blog planner, you can quickly take the necessary action in shifting things around to make space for this opportunity.
6. It helps you gain a better reputation
If you’re using your engineering blog to further your company goals, you definitely don’t want to come across as a company that only occasionally publishes content or that doesn’t really know what it’s doing.
By using a blog planner and taking control of your content marketing schedule, you’ll be producing and sharing quality content consistently.
This can work wonders for your website traffic and your brand reputation.
After all, who wouldn’t want to trust a company that puts effort into everything they do and creates opportunities for their readers?
A blog planner is the way to go
So it doesn’t really matter what type of blog planner you end up going with, but having one in the first place can be so important.
It’ll help you create better content more consistently, pushing you towards your content marketing goals more clearly and helping you see success much sooner. And that’s a definite win in my books.
If you need help with your engineering content, pop me a note — I’d be happy to help.
Blog Planner FAQs
Content calendars can help give you an overview of when what should be published, but blog planners are a tad more comprehensive. They’ll help you organize ideas and posting schedules, and help you stay on top of your whole content production process.
A blog planner can definitely help with time management — and in more ways than one. Most blog planners will help you set deadlines for specific tasks, which can help ensure you stay on top of the process. But it also lets you see exactly what falls into your production process, so you can plan enough time for each task.
A blog planner isn’t about removing the creative side of writing; it’s about helping you manage the admin side of it better. So it definitely won’t stifle your creativity. In fact, it may help you be more creative because you know the admin part of it is taken care of.
