126. Let's Plan Your 2024 Podcast Content Calendar!

Sara Whittaker 0:01

weeks until the beginning of: 2024

Sara Whittaker 6:42

you'll want to plug in anything big that you know is happening in your business, things like live launches, dates, that your doors will be open to courses memberships, whatever you have going on, maybe you're going to do a group coaching program, plug those dates in, and it's okay if it's not exact, if it's an estimate, if you think you're going to do it this month. That's okay, just plug in as many dates as you can. If you're live launching something or if you're pushing something that's evergreen during a certain month, I would put those dates on your content calendar, make that note. And then I would backtrack a few weeks leading up to that date, and plug in on my content calendar, a topic that I want to center my episodes around. That way your content is aligning to the things that you are going to be pushing, you're using your episodes to lead up to that sale. Number three is to plug in some seasonal topics that you know that you're going to want to cover. An example of this would be maybe you want to talk about your favorite Valentine's Day activity and you have a TPT product that you can promote for that episode. You might want to err that the last week of January to give teachers time to listen, purchase the resource and plan for that. We know that teachers often plan far in advance for their lessons. So you don't want to wait until the week of the holiday to talk about it. Again, you don't have to have an exact episode title or anything like that, you can just put on your content, calendar, Valentine's Day activity, whatever the name of the activity is. And your call to action would be to go purchase that TPT product. Maybe you know that most of your community teaches nonfiction at a certain time. So you could look at your content calendar and you could plug in a nonfiction series for four weeks. During that time of year. You want to think about holidays, yearly themes that your audience is experiencing. For example, spring break, maybe that would be a good time to do some episodes on classroom management because we know that the kids go off for spring break, they come back acting like they've never been to school before. That would be a great time to pinpoint classroom management. And have your assessments and have your backups summer back to school setting up your classroom, parent teacher conferences. These are all kind of yearly themes and yearly experiences that your audience is going to be going through that you know ahead of time that you can easily plan content around that would be helpful for them. So these are things that we could go ahead and plug in right now. Okay, so we've plugged in all of the dates that we're going to have episodes going live on our content calendar, we've plugged in any kind of big things that we know are going to be going on in our business so that we can align our content to that thing in the weeks leading up to it. We've plugged in seasonal topics and yearly themes that our audience is going to be experiencing. Now it's time to look at your podcast audit and your listener survey results. When you are looking at your results of those things, you can look at things like which episodes have been really popular. What have people requested in your listener survey? What are they struggling with and need more support in plug these topics in on your calendar? Again, I'm just saying to topics, it doesn't have to be super zoomed in at this point, you don't have to have a title. You don't even have to have an exact plan in place for this episode, you're just really getting down these topics. And as you're doing this, as you're coming up with these topics, or these themes, think about if it should just be one episode, should it be a theme for an entire month? Or should it be like a six week series on that given topic? Number five, if you have guests on your podcast, leave some space for guest episodes. Like all even just write the word guest episode or guest in some spaces on my content calendar, because I know I'm going to want to sprinkle in these guest episodes. But I don't necessarily know what those are going to look like yet. You can even start a separate list of guests. So if you're doing if you have your content calendar on a Google Sheet, let's say you're going to have a new tab right next to it at the bottom of that spreadsheet that says Like I have one and I call it my guest wish list. So that's where I kind of brain dump guests that I want to invite onto my show. If you know what months you'd like to have them on. Like maybe you plan your content by themes, and maybe you'd like to have a guest on that fits that theme. So you could go ahead and list what month you're hoping to have that person on. And this is really a simple step. But it's really an important step to plug in those guest episode spots on your content calendar. Because sometimes it helps us to see oh, maybe I'm gonna do one guest episode a month or one guest episode every other month, I don't really need to reach out to that many people for the entire year. And it really helps with not overbooking yourself on guests episodes, I've gotten myself into this situation plenty of times where I'll go on this like, big spree of guest episodes. And then I realized, oh my gosh, like we're doing this interview in June, but it's not going to air until October. And there's just this huge gap, which is okay, it's not the end of the world. But you don't want to end up doing more guest episodes than you need. Or then you want. Number six is to look at what you have left, look at your content calendar, see how many episodes you have left, that are blank, be sure that you have plugged in those topics that your audience is asking for. And now would be a good time to get out what I'm sure that a lot of you have, which is your like random brain dump list somewhere Mine is in my notes app on my phone, it doesn't always make it into my content calendar, right then in there, check that and plug in some of those episodes. These are those ideas that have come to you during the year when you're on a walk or in the shower. They don't necessarily fit in with some of the other themes that you're talking about. But they're things that have inspired you in the moment, and you just haven't had the chance to talk about them on your podcast yet. So look at that brain dump list. If you have one and find some places that you could plug those topics in. I like to kind of include a little note to myself, because you know, sometimes you get these ideas. And it sounds really great. And then you just jot down like one word or a couple of words. And then you go to look at that topic. And you're like, What in the world was I thinking about? What was I talking about? Why did I want to do this topic. So just jot down some notes for yourself so that when it comes time to record that episode and plan that episode, you actually remember what in the world you were talking about in the first place. You can also think about any opt ins that you have, can you create episodes around these opt ins, that would be a good push to get people to sign up for them and be a great way to build your email list. And then number seven, the last part of this planning session is to just leave some white space on your content calendar, you 100% will end up moving things around throughout the year, you're going to have a jolt of inspiration for an episode that you want to do right then in there. And you're going to have to move things around to accommodate for that you will have a timely topic that comes up that you see a need for that you need to squeeze in, you will have a new guest that you learn about that you really want to have on or you'll have somebody that pitches you and asks to come on your show. So give yourself that space. Give yourself that flexibility in your content calendar so that you're not super jammed up and on this really rigid schedule that doesn't allow for any of that in the moment, inspiration and creativity. Alright, so again, those seven steps were number one is to plug in those dates that all of your episodes will go live for that year on your content calendar. Number two plug in anything big that you know is happening in your business so that you can create content leading up to that thing Number three, plug in some seasonal topics that you know you're going to want to cover. Number four, look at your audit and listener survey results, and use that data to create topics that speak to your audience's needs. Number five, leave space for guest episodes. Number six, plug in those brain dump lists topics that you probably have lying around somewhere. And number seven, leave whitespace on your calendar. So as you can see, you really want a mix of seasonal and evergreen topics. And also just want to stop and say if you are somebody who, even after listening to this, you're like, an entire year, I don't think I can think that far ahead, I have no idea what I want to do in my business this year, start with six months, okay? Don't look at it as a full year picture, start with six months. And that will really help you break things down, I think you're going to be really surprised at how quickly you can fill in six months worth of content. Alright, so I personally go through this process and my content calendar spreadsheet. And then usually about monthly I put episodes into click up. That's what I use for project management. Once I know for a fact that they're finalized, they're set in stone on my schedule. And again, this really gives me the freedom to move things around on my content calendar without also having to move them on click up, set a calendar reminder to revisit your content calendar

Sara Whittaker: 16:29

monthly or whatever works for you. I like to do it monthly. But that might not be the case for you. I move things around constantly. But I love being able to open my content calendar and see all of these content ideas that I know have been put there for good reason. In episode 119. I talked about the mistake that so many of us make with our podcast data tracking, which is not actually analyzing and reflecting on our data, we kind of just go through the motions plug our numbers in, but we don't take the time to really understand that data in order to make decisions. Similarly, don't make the mistake of doing this planning session, looking at this year long snapshot, and then never looking at your content calendar again. Okay, we don't want to make that mistake of not revisiting and leveraging your content calendar. If you've never heard of the three R's of habit formation, they are a reminder routine and reward. And this is kind of the cycle that we go through when we form habits, reminder is the cue or the trigger that starts the habit. So in this situation, your calendar reminder that you're going to set for yourself is literally your reminder to start the habit of checking in with your content calendar. The second our routine is the action that you take, or in other words, the habit itself. So in this case, it's doing that content calendar, check in and adjusting things as needed. Maybe you created a new TPT bundle, or you have a new coaching program or some sort of service that you're offering. And you maybe didn't have that thing back when you first started this content calendar. So you need to switch things around and tweak your content to focus on that for the upcoming month. So you're revisiting and checking in with your content calendar consistently. And then the third bar is reward, which is the benefit you gain from doing that habit. For the purposes of this conversation, the reward is that when you consistently check in with your content calendar, you are going to gain the reward of creating more intentional podcast content that will benefit your listeners and your business in the form of audience engagement sales, and or email list growth. Okay, so I really want to drive that point home of I don't want you to take the time to sit down and plan out this awesome content calendar that you're really excited about. It's going to make you feel great going into the new year, but then never actually utilizing it moving forward because creating it is step one, but actually using it and giving yourself permission to switch things up as needed is really the second step. The purpose of this content calendar is so that you are being intentional in your planning so that it will pay off for your business and for your audience. Okay, I hope that this was helpful for you. I hope that it's given you a little boost of motivation and excitement to go into the new year with a fresh content plan. I love this time of year I love sitting down and planning out my podcast content. I think it's really fun because it really helps me make plans for my business as a whole and decide on really what I want to focus on throughout the year and I hope it does the same for you. This might be one of those episodes that you're going to want to listen to now and then revisit again, maybe a couple of times as you go through this planning process. If this episode was helpful for you, and you're enjoying this podcast, and you haven't left a review yet on Apple podcasts, I would love for you to take seriously it only takes one or two minutes to go into Apple podcast, writer review, let me know you're listening. Let me know what you enjoy about the show. It honestly means so much when you guys write your reviews. So if you do that today, thank you so much. And I'll catch you here next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

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