Building out a 2025 corporate communications plan is a great way to steer your team’s efforts for the next year and capture information about all your deliverables, priorities and objectives.

For some communications focus areas, it could also be helpful to supplement the overall plan with a targeted resource document — a roadmap of sorts. This dedicated planning document gathers all the relevant information you’ll need to execute specific communications duties, be it corporate sponsorships or social media campaigns, in one place.

One area where this can be useful is media relations. Creating an editorial roadmap takes some time and research, but it can pay off throughout the year by identifying and prioritizing opportunities to position your brand and leaders as media resources and thought leaders.

Here’s some insight into how we have built out annual editorial roadmaps for clients that prioritize media relations:

• Create a master spreadsheet. This is the easiest way we’ve found to keep it all organized.
• The first sheet of the Excel document is a master list/round-up of all the media and trade media outlets and journalists of relevance to your organization. Consider columns for: media outlet name; a brief description of its focus areas, standing sections, various editorial products (magazine, newsletter, e-blasts, etc.); key editor’s name, his/her email address and phone number; circulation; social media handles; publication cadence; and a notes column for other important details.
• The first time you create an annual editorial roadmap will take some work. But you’ll have everything you need in one place and can easily update it each year.
• You’ll need to build out this list by researching via a paid platform (Cision, Muck Rack, etc.) or through organic online searching of each media outlet’s website.
• Then create separate sheets for each month of 2025. This keeps everything organized and helps manage information.
• Within each month’s sheet, consider columns for: media outlet name; key editor’s name, title and contact information; content areas of focus for that month’s issue, which helps shape your story pitching; editorial deadline for that month’s issue; and a catch-all notes column.
• It’s worth it to include the editors’ contact info on each monthly sheet, even though that information is part of your master list/first sheet, so you’re not flipping back and forth constantly.
• Most, but not all, media outlets post their editorial calendars on their websites to make pitching stories easier.
• The deadline column may be the most important one in your monthly sheets. Miss the deadline, miss the opportunity. They’re typically available in November or December for the following year, but some outlets wait until January.
• Traditional news outlets (i.e., local newspapers) are less likely to post editorial calendars, since their news coverage is so ever-changing. In that case, emailing an editor can give you some insight into their priority coverage areas overall and perhaps during different times of the year.

No doubt you and your communications team have plenty on your to-do list. Front-loading some research and effort into an annual editorial roadmap can save you time, effort and aggravation all year long.