Creating an Analyst Editorial Calendar

Analyst relations (AR) teams that are building their AR Strategic & Tactical Plan need to have insights into what critical analysts are planning to publish over the next few months. Knowing what an analyst is going to publish is an important planning trigger that helps AR teams be analyst centric, not company centric.

In other posts (see Responding to Analysts’ Published Comments – Speed is Essential), we have discussed responding to analyst research or rebutting their positions. An unfortunate fact is that once analysts have publicly taken a stand on a subject, getting them to change is much more difficult. On the other hand, if you start working with the analysts early in their research process, before anything has been published, it is much easier to influence the outcome and perhaps eliminate the need to rebut something that already has been printed.

An important tool for knowing what the analysts are working on is the Analyst Editorial Calendar.

An Analyst Editorial Calendar is a listing of anticipated analyst research report publication dates. Because analyst firms typically do not publish formal and complete editorial calendars, comprehensive Analyst Editorial Calendars have to be built by the core AR team. To create an Analyst Editorial Calendar, AR teams attempt to map out all the happenings that could trigger analyst research reports, presentations, or quotes onto one calendar

Once you have created the Analyst Editorial Calendar, you can link it into your AR team’s overall AR Program Calendar to build effective communications around publication dates for maximum research impact. The Analyst Editorial Calendar requires frequent updates because analysts often make changes to what they are writing depending on developments in the marketplace or in response to hot inquiries from clients.  Stay on top of these changes by asking analysts about their research publishing schedules during your regular interactions with them. 

SageCircle has best practices, example process, SageTool^TM and phone-based advice available to help AR teams create an analyst editorial calendar. For example, Online SageContent^TM Library clients can look up “Analyst Editorial Calendars.” To learn more about how SageCircle can help you be more efficient and effective, please contact us at +44 7493 772981 or info [at] sagecircle dot com.

SageCircle Technique:

• Decide a tool for storing the calendar information
  • Analyst relationship management application like ARchitect^TM
  • Simple word process document or spreadsheet
  • Shared Outlook calendar
  • Internal web portal
• Use a variety of intelligence sources to populate the calendar
  • Analyst firms’ partial editorial calendars (e.g., Forrester, Gartner and Yankee)
  • Client inquiries
  • Informal analyst conversations by the extended AR team
  • Possible updates to recurring research publications (e.g., Forrester Waves or Gartner Magic Quadrant)
  • Upcoming conferences
  • Competitor announcements.

Bottom Line: By tracking analysts’ publishing schedules, your AR Team can create an Analyst Editorial Calendar to influence the content of research reports before final publication.

Question: Do you have an Analyst Editorial Calendar? If no, why not? If yes, how do you maintain it and what tool do you use for managing the information?