When it comes to planning your content calendar for 2021, here’s my #1 tip:
Use your plan for the year (or let’s be honest, the first quarter) as the jumping-off point when you plan your content for the year (or first quarter).
This is what I’ve been working on for my business lately, and it’s a lot like what I do with my clients in the Conquer Your Content Calendar Intensives.
Why do I do it this way?
When you know what you plan to launch or promote or focus on and when, you’re able to plan to publish content at strategic points around those promotions that will support them and make them more successful.
The cool part?
This will work no matter what your business model is
- If your business uses launches or promotes different products or services at different times, plan to publish content in the weeks leading up to the launch to warm up your audience, remind them of your expertise in a topic, get them mentally primed for the thing you’re going to be selling.
Then, when you announce the launch or even when you start teasing it, your audience will be thinking “Oh damn! That’s exactly what I was thinking I need right now! How did they know?!”
Meanwhile you’re sitting in your high-back winged armchair like “Muahahaha! This was my plan all along!”
- If your business sells one thing all the time, you can use a similar method, but instead of leading up to a launch, you can just take them through different themes or mental journeys or stories that all lead to your one thing.
The idea is that you want to use your content to take your reader (or listener or viewer or subscriber, whatever your preferred type of content is) on a journey, guiding them through whatever mental obstacles and mindset shifts they need to make in order to be ready to convert (eg. become a client, buy your product, etc).
I call this a Content Plot Arc.
What is a Content Plot Arc?
Remember this diagram of the literary plot arc from high school English class?
The Content Plot Arc is similar, but instead of writing a novel for your reader to consume, you’re writing content with your reader as the protagonist, and you’re guiding them through the plot.
See how it guides your Human through their own Hero’s Journey Story starting with their pain point (the one that your product or service solves), through the obstacles (mindset shifts and/or obstacles) towards the climax where the find your solution and commit to it, to go into the Resolution (life after/during your solution)
Circling back to planning your content calendar based on your annual planning…
Basically, whether your business uses launches or is evergreen-based, you can use Content Plot Arcs strategically throughout your content calendar to work towards your business goals.
Where you place those Content Plot Arcs, and what topic they’re focused on, will be based on your plan and goals for the year.
Your plan can be as simple as “In February, I’m launching XYZ thing, so in January and early February, I’ll write a Content Plot Arc about ABC”
Or it can be as detailed as “On Day 1 I’ll publish Blog Post A, followed by Instagram Posts 1, 2, and 3. On Day 7 I’ll publish Blog Post B, followed by Instagram Posts 4, 5, and 6…. Etc”
Personally I find my own creative process works best with a plan landing somewhere in the middle.
My annual planning, when it comes to actually putting dates to ideas, looks more like quarterly planning. My brain just works better that way, and it gives me flexibility to pivot more easily in the future (which, if we learned anything from 2020 as business owners, is critical).
Then I take that plan for the quarter and, based on the promotion, the season, and my own personal headspace and energetic capacities at the time, decide what sort of Content Plot Arc I want to create.
Then I plan out the actual pieces of content, sometimes right then and sometimes later on as the planned Plot Arc gets nearer (because that’s my brain).
This is pretty much exactly the process I go through with my clients during the Conquer Your Content Calendar Intensives. If you'd like me to help you come up with your content plan and Plot Arcs for your online business, spots are open! Learn more and book your spot here.