The Power of Content Calendars

With a little bit of planning, you’ll never lose sleep about “What Am I Going to Write About Next?!?” One simple formula can save you lots of headaches.

It’s no secret that credibility marketing is one of the most effective ways to position yourself as an expert in your niche. Research shows it’s one of the best ways to stay top of mind with clients, prospects, influencers and followers. Bylined blogs, e-newsletters, white papers, webinars, published articles, social media posts and podcasts are all proven forms of thought leadership marketing. In fact, more than half of advisors responding to the annual CPA/ Wealth Advisor Confidence Survey™ found those tactics “Very” or “Extremely” valuable.

We know you have the expertise in house, but how do you keep coming up with great topics when you don’t have a full-time writing staff?

Start with a plan. It’s as easy as 1-7-30-4-2-1

You wouldn’t allow clients to put their money into the market without an invest plan, would you? You wouldn’t hire an architect to build your dream house if he or she didn’t use blueprints, right? So, why would you start pushing out content to your universe of followers without a plan? As the old saying goes: “failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Getting started and sticking to it

Editorial calendars (aka content calendars) are what we typically recommend to help you get your thoughts organized for the short-term, intermediate term and long-term. You can start with a simple spreadsheet showing the months, types of content, topics covered and who’s responsible for each piece of content. DON’T OVERTHINK IT.

You don’t need to invest in expensive or sophisticated marketing automation software in the early going. The main objective is to have a simple snapshot of the year ahead and to try your best to stick to the plan. It’s OK to make adjustments as important new topics rise to the surface during the course of the year. But you want to maintain a consistent schedule—we call it a “cadence.” Consistency is just as important for a healthy publishing schedule as it is for your diet, exercise routine or personal enrichment initiatives.

When you think about it, content calendars are like New Year’s Resolutions. They tend to fail for the same reasons--you set your initial goals too high and then got overwhelmed. How many professional services websites have you seen in which there are eight blog posts and four bylined articles in January, then maybe two of each in February, then nothing in March? Sound familiar? Instead of giving up on your content marketing plans, as four out of five people do with their resolutions, make a plan that works for your organization.

To help you stick to your content plan, here are 6 key steps to follow:

1. Map out all the content your organization produces. There’s probably more than you think. In addition to blogs, write down all forms of content, including videos, photos, presentations, webinars, social media posts, marketing materials, press releases, industry and business articles, white papers, FAQs and events.

2. Sort this content into categories or types. Creating content categories ensures that your organization covers a broad range of topics, not just marketing. Categories can include: How/to best practices, industry trends, company news, marketing, events and more.

3. Identify who is creating your content. Your organization has plenty of experts even if they don’t think of themselves as “authors.” Anyone with hands-on experience within the company has a story to tell and can contribute to your content marketing effort. This includes employees from different areas of your company (marketing, IT, legal) as well as external authors (customers, partners, industry thought leaders).

4. Determine how much and how often your “experts” can contribute. Some authors can easily provide a steady stream of content (social media managers, public relations, customers), while others may be more sporadic (event planners, video producers).

5. Think rows and columns. Once you’ve completed these steps, develop a simple spreadsheet that includes all this information. From this spreadsheet, you can begin to create a content calendar. We like using a traditional monthly calendar because I can easily see what content is planned and when.

6. Be realistic about what your organization can accomplish. It might be helpful to think about frequency using a technique pioneered by content strategist Russell Sparkman/FusionSpark Media called the “1-7-30-4-2-1” method. Here’s how it works:

·         1 represents the content your organization can commit to publishing daily. This might be something as easy as sharing industry news via Twitter or Facebook.

·         7 refers to weekly content, such as a blog post.

·         30 is what your organization can publish monthly. These might be more extensive content pieces, such as an e-newsletter or video.

·         4 refers to a quarterly content commitment, such as a white paper, e-book or contest.

·         2 is biannual content, such as an event, new brochure or webcast.

·         1 is annual content, such as an event, conference or app.

Don’t get painted into a corner

We advise our clients to think three to six assignments ahead at all times. Start setting up little folders for each upcoming post or article now (paper or digital is fine). You never know when you’ll come across a great nugget or factoid in July that will be perfect for the assignment that’s not due until November.

Conclusion

Approaching content marketing in these manageable bite-sized steps prevents you from feeling overwhelmed and allows you to build a content calendar that’s manageable and sustainable. Best of all, this exercise is easier and less painful than dieting or going to the gym and you’ll have a “ripped” and “buff” reputation to show off for all your effort and discipline.

*** Take our latest InstaPoll: To what extent will the impeachment hearings have on the economy and stock market?

#Thought leadership   #Content management #content marketing

Test Drive Your New Year’s Resolutions Now!

Same goes for your clients

Now is the time of year when it’s easy to lose your discipline and let everything slide. From your waistline to your credit line, you know there will be hell to pay in January. But, when everyone around you seems to be succumbing to Holiday temptations, it’s easy to give in to your weaker self.  


DON’T!

Tis the season to be even more disciplined

Ah, the Holidays! “Just get me through the next month,” you tell yourself, “and I’ll start hitting the gym again, lose 10 pounds, clean out my office, clean out my inbox and be back on track for 2020.

WRONG!

You have to start on those New Year’s resolutions right now—as in early December. Not to be a Holiday killjoy, but you can’t just aspire to stick to your resolutions. You need to WRITE THEM DOWN and display them publicly for extra accountability. Otherwise you won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of masking them stick.

The idea is to test out your resolutions now, before the calendar flips to 2020, so you have time to work the bugs and make adjustments to your goals before you hit the ground running in January. You need to be brutally honest with yourself about your willpower, your stamina and how reasonable your goals are. The key is to own your resolutions; don’t let them own you.

Realistic goals

Research shows that half of Americans set New Year’s resolutions, but only one out of eight are still sticking to them by March 1^st.

Instead of declaring a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) on January 2^nd, start small, reach it, and then build from there. When you set your goals too high, or too far off target, you’ll feel the crushing weight of defeat after you inevitably fail to reach those goals.

If you’re a couch potato, which resolution are you more likely to stick to—running a marathon in six weeks or walking/jogging for 20 minutes three times per week? If your goal is to be a published author in 2020, which plan are you more likely to stick to—having the first six chapters of your new book done by July 4, or starting a weekly blog that goes out each and every Thursday, even when you’re traveling?

Why resolutions don’t stick

Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy believes resolutions don’t stick because too often we’re setting ourselves up for failure and self-loathing. “We tend to set unreasonable aims for ourselves and then experience negative emotions and a lack of motivation when we don’t reach them,” she observed. “Failing to meet the unreasonable goals we set for ourselves can in turn take a negative toll on our self-worth,” added Cuddy.

Sound familiar?

Researcher and author Richard Wiseman, agrees with Cuddy that we set goals that are too high or too audacious and that we also tend to be too impatient. He believes another big cause of resolution failure is that we tend to sprint out of the gate in search of immediate “returns” rather than taking “baby steps” that will take some time before they move the needle.

Beating the odds

Trying to get your clients to modify their financial behavior in the new year can be quite challenging, too. But it can be highly rewarding if true changes result, Dr. Glenn Freed told me. Freed, chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based LourdMurray believes you’ll further cement your status as a client’s most trusted advisor if you can “frame” your legal, charitable or financial planning discussions around New Year’s resolutions. “You can have discussions in person or through a client newsletter. The key is to use these resolutions as a way to check in with clients throughout the year,” added Freed.

The experts seem to agree on one thing: to make any resolution stick, it has to become an ingrained habit. For example:

• Resolution: Quit smoking vs. Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every morning after breakfast.
• Resolution: Eat healthy food vs. Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry for a banana.
• Resolution: Lose weight vs. Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to three minute run or walk around the block.
• Resolution: Manage stress vs. Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning after you wake up.
• Resolution: Improve finances vs. Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a high-yield savings account at my bank.
  
  

By immediately breaking down each resolution and seeing what the smallest habit could be, experts say your chances of succeeding will be 50 percent higher. And if even these incremental habits are hard to stick to, don’t give up. Tweak them so they’re manageable.

Conclusion

High performing advisors help their clients follow up on resolutions not only in December, but throughout the year. Framing the financial planning discussion in this way at the start of the year and then following up consistently can be an effective way to help clients stay on the path to financial resolution success. Make 2020 a great year no matter what the markets, the economy and geopolitical factors throw at us.

But you’ve got to start NOW—when temptations and distraction abound--not after the Holidays. Why? Because there will always be temptations and distractions that are a breeding ground for excuses. C’mon. We’re better than that. One of the best gifts you can give yourself and your clients is the power to break bad habits and adopt healthier new ones. Go for it!

*** Take our latest InstaPoll: To what extent is the Inverted Yield Curve a reliable recession indicator?

# resolutions #habits #behavior modification #practice management