Myths About Editorial Calendars
As graduation approaches for countless public relations students across the country, including our esteemed managing editor, many aspiring professionals will be entering into PR internships and entry-level positions, both in agencies and in-house. That being said, I would like to address, and debunk, several myths surrounding one of the primary responsibilities which is frequently off-loaded to entry-level practitioners, regardless of industry or media focus: the editorial calendar.
Even in today’s sophisticated PR programs, many driven by online strategies and new media vehicles, editorial calendar research and follow-up persists as a basic staple of corporate communications programs, particularly in agency environments. This baffles me, especially since editorial calendar (ed cal) monitoring is generally considered to be an outdated, “old school” means of generating media coverage by many of the industry’s luminaries. So why do editorial calendars still live in the PR consciousness? It is difficult to pinpoint all of the reasons, but I can point to the following reasons:
Myth #1: Editorial calendars are static. Once they are set by the publisher for the year, they never change.
Reality: Not even close. Ed cals change all the time. That means opportunities which look promising for a client one week may not be around the next. If you are stuck with the ed cal monitoring task, you will have to conduct twice the amount of follow-up with the reporter or editor in question to determine what the publication is really planning as far as editorial coverage for a given issue.
Myths #2: Ed cals are primarily used to frame editorial coverage for the coming year.
Reality: Somewhat true. This is purely a secondary objective. The primary goal of developing and issuing an editorial calendar for the following year is to sell advertising. Often, if the publisher is not generating enough ad sales in a certain segment which is due to be profiled in an upcoming issue, he changes the focus of the features to an industry sector that he knows can generate more ad dollars. Simple as that.
Myth #3: Editorial calendar research and follow-up are easy ways to generate media coverage.
Reality: This is absolutely not true. The bottom line? It takes an inordinate amount of time to research a given ed cal listing, pitch and follow up with the editor, provide the necessary background information, conduct the required interviews, and then secure the editorial coverage — assuming you even get that far. This is why agencies, in particular, LOVE editorial calendar research and follow-up, especially with clients that have large budgets. This process is so time consuming that it can keep account coordinators and account executives busy for hours upon hours upon hours, thereby running up billable hour totals and generating significant revenue for the agency.
Myth #4: All publications release editorial calendars.
Reality: Also not true. In today’s fast-paced and highly-competitive media environment, many publications do not even bother to develop or post ed cals any longer because they are simply ineffective for selling advertising. That leaves the PR pro out in the cold, and requires what we all strive for in this business: a solid relationship with a reporter or editor that can be contacted for insight on future coverage.
Without question, this is not an exhaustive list. However, the key messages are that editorial calendar research and follow-up is a passe tactic which adds little value to well-designed PR programs, and represents an ineffective use of time for most professionals. In essence, the ROI is extremely low when you compare the amount of time required to do this efficiently, versus the number and quality of placements generated. In most programs, this tactic is added as an afterthought, primarily as a CYA procedure to make sure that the agency or the in-house PR manager uncovers every single media opportunity which exists for his/her client or employer. Of course, that is impossible, and experienced pros know it.
Do I do this in my department? Yeah, I admit it…I do, sort of. However, the big difference is, recognizing all of the above, I have my subordinates spend as little time as possible on this activity, and you should as well. The days of the editorial calendar have come and gone…
The edcal task is pretty much like pushing the mythical rock up a hill.
The one thing that doesn’t seem to change as much month-to-month or year-over-year are awards/roundups, etc. The thing is, once you do that the first time, it’s an easy lift to see whether or not a publication is going to do it the following year.
One other myth about edcals: More is better. When i started in PR, I would see account teams go into incredible rhetorical gyrations to rationalize why they’re clients deserved to be in a particular scheduled opp. Fact is, teams should keep those lists VERY small.
One *reality* about editorial calendars: If you don’t manage client expectations about what they *really* are and what they *could* be reasonably expected to accomplish, you’re dead. At the end of the year, you’ll be stuck with “Well… Out of 100 scheduled opportunities, you got us in 20. Explain yourself.”
Comment by Phil Gomes — May 11, 2006 @ 11:43 am
All excellent and well-articulated points, Phil. I sincerely appreciate your insight.
My post originated from a discussion I had recently with an entry-level agency staffer who was assigned the ed cal monitoring task for a number of clients, and that is where she spent about 90% of her time — without generating many results. Aside from the enourmous amount of time the agency invested in this activity, the sad part was that this woman, who is quite eager to learn and engage in other, more meaningful PR activities, was not being given appropriate directon by her supervisor and how to properly pitch editors about the relevance of a specific client and its products/services to the publication in question.
Thus, this became no more than an exercise in futility — and to keep her billable. Even more alarmingly, this process has not helped her grow professionaly because her supervisors have not educated her about the media relations process. Essentially, they have set her up to fail.
Comment by Keith Pillow — May 11, 2006 @ 11:53 am
[…] Why do I keep on trying? I may be one of the many many victims of the Myths About Editorial Calendars, as presented by Forward Blog and excerpted below. […]
Pingback by stories from a Public Relations life » do I need an editorial calendar? — July 5, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
While there is some truth to these comments, they are by no means comprehensive and in fact in many aspects simply incorrect. Editorial Calendars can and do still help PR Pros land stories for their clients. This is the most critical fact left out in the above comments. By not tracking them you are missing opportunities and hence doing your clients a major disservice to discount them entirely. Editorial Calendars while clearly not an end all be in your arsenal of pr tools, they are still very much a viable vehicle to landing press and building relationships with editors. They can also be used as a tool for researching the past, present and future momentum of a pub.
As apposed to looking for a solution to your seemingly insurmountable problem and placing edcals in a category of a Sisyphus like task or passé, my advice would be to find a cost effective solution and yes CYA. There is a reason why all the largest and most successful agencies in the world as well as the most successful small shops track editorial calendars. There is also a reason why hundreds of thousands of them are posted each year. Do you think these people are doing this for fun?
I have found a very inexpensive tool ($500 per year) which is incredibly easy to use. It uses Google like technology to track and manage over 300,000 story opportunities in one place on my desktop. It is backed by a full time research team which tracks those changes you so correctly mentioned in your earlier comments. It’s called myedcals.com and I would encourage you to check them out.
Best of luck to all.
Comment by James Ward — August 28, 2007 @ 8:45 pm
This may be an inappropriate place to ask this question but since this topic is about editorial calendars, how does what has been said relate to freelance writers and their use of editorial calendars to submit queries for articles?
Comment by Jerry Watson — September 14, 2007 @ 1:08 pm