You've decided to take the plunge into content marketing. You have your strategy in place, you have your resources lined up, and you have that burning drive to get started.

Now what? To keep yourself and your content producers on track, and upper management in the loop, you'll want to develop a content calendar. This document can actually be quite complex, but it's an extremely effective blueprint.

Whether you call it a blog schedule, an editorial calendar, or a content production timeline - a major goal is to establish a cadence to your content marketing publishing efforts. That's important, because without producing consistent, sustained content over many months, you're unlikely to see results.

An editorial calendar will also help you set clear expectations with everyone in your organization who is embarking on this content journey with you. Help them see the path you're creating - by month, by quarter, or even by a full year.