As our blog about September being the new January for many client firms explained, like New Year, this time of year comes with plenty of resolutions and fresh beginnings, as well as a chance to set your sights on forward planning. This post looks at how to create a content plan for the rest of the year and into 2025.
Plan to succeed
There’s no doubt about it: you need a content plan for client engagement and acquisition. So, have you thought about your content strategy for the months ahead?
Ideally, you should develop a plan that covers the rest of this year and, ideally, into the start of 2025 too.
Either way, it is crucial to decide what you want to communicate about to your clients. Identify the content that your various client and prospect segments will want to receive based on their interests and lifestage. Think too about their preferred formats. This could be email, blog posts, video or social media posts.
From there, you can map out a plan for how/what to communicate and to whom. Remember: different advisers may want to focus on different things, and clients are definitely interested in different topics.
Your content calendar
At TOMD, we have our content calendar. For us, it’s about creating all the content you might need, so you can select the right content for your business, advisers and clients. We think we create at least 90% of the content you might want. Additionally, we can write the remaining 10%, including any niche areas you work in, on a bespoke basis.
You can then develop your content calendar based on the needs of your clients, advisers and firm. There may be some pillar content such as things that are used across the firm and relevant to many clients. This could include major events like the Budget. Other content will be based on your client segments or particular markets you work in.
At TOMD, we are always looking into the future. We’re not mystics or fortune tellers but we do plan months ahead to produce relevant content for firms to use in their client communication programmes.
As we move into the final months of 2024, here’s a glimpse of what we’ll be writing about from now until New Year’s Eve.
SEPTEMBER: Pension Awareness
Pensions will be in the spotlight in September, with various Pension Awareness events throughout the month. At TOMD, we write a lot of content about retirement planning all year round. We have also prepared specific content for Pension Awareness. Will you be using the opportunity to raise awareness of your retirement planning services?
OCTOBER: A momentous Budget
Since the new government took charge in July, the Autumn Budget has rightly been considered a key milestone.
On October 30, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver a highly anticipated first Budget. Analysts are expecting some major announcements. Potential changes to Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax and VAT exemptions are all on the cards, along with new measures to raise revenues.
At TOMD, we are already receiving requests for pre-Budget content, in addition to post-Budget analysis. This year, we expect that the Budget will lead us to write a lot of additional content and to review all our guides – some will need updating straight away and others will be revised in time for the new tax year.
NOVEMBER: Year in Review content and the US Election
At the end of the year, we will once again publish our extremely popular Year in Review content.
Research is well underway for this notable publication and accompanying video, which will bring together key events impacting the global economy and markets in 2024 and a look into what’s on the horizon in 2025. Bespoke versions will also be available.
On 5 November, as fireworks light up the sky, all eyes will be on the US election. With two candidates worlds apart in policy and leadership styles, the results will be very closely watched. We’ll be writing pre- and post-election content, with a focus on market implications, as well as covering the main events and outcomes stateside.
DECEMBER: End of tax year planning
We know that end of tax year planning campaigns will begin for many of our clients in January. This means we need to be ahead of the game: we’ll be producing specific content at the end of 2024, so firms can start talking with clients well before the April deadline.
Plus all the regular content
All these seasonal features are, of course, supplemented by our regular content schedule. We produce monthly Economic Reviews, Property Market Reviews and Business Reviews, as well as a weekly News in Review and seasonal service and product-related content. Content never sleeps!
Plan your content with us
Whatever your goals, a content calendar is a great starting point. TOMD can help you plan your content strategy, Content Streams can help you share content with segmented groups of clients, potential clients and introducers. Get in touch today!
