Financial Advisors Can Easily Set Up an Editorial Calendar

Editorial Calendars Help Financial Advisors Focus On Topics That Are Important To Their Ideal Clients

I’m sure you’ve heard about the importance of creating a marketing calendar.  Truth be told, most financial advisors don’t have one! You can start a marketing calendar very simply by creating an Editorial Calendar and then, eventually, expanding on it.   What’s an Editorial Calendar you say?

“An editorial calendar is used by bloggers publishers, businesses, and groups to control publication of content across different media, for example, newspapers, magazines, blogs, email newsletters, and social media outlets.”  Read more at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial_calendar

Here are a few examples of editorial calendars from financial magazines. Maybe the topics on these lists will provide you with ideas of what to place on your calendar.

• Morningstar http://www.morningstar.com/aboutus/mediakit/adoppts_editcalendar.html
• Financial Advisor Magazine in PDF format http://www.fa-mag.com/userfiles/stories/Mediakit/2015/fa-media-kit-2015-editorial-calendar.pdf
• Investment News http://www.investmentnews.com/assets/docs/CI97516125.PDF?v=1
• Financial Executives International  http://www.financialexecutives.org/KenticoCMS/Financial-Executive-Magazine/About-the-magazine/calendar.aspx#axzz3msz1DyPI
• Kiplinger http://www.kiplinger.com/customer-service/media_kit/Kiplinger_Editorial_Calendar.pdf
• Money Magazine http://moneymediakit.com/2015-edit-calendar/

Did you know that magazines from all industries use an editorial calendar? As a (former) monthly columnist for a few magazines, the editors provided me with their yearly editorial calendar to help me select topics and meet deadlines for my articles.

Create an Editorial Calendar for YOUR firm
Every firm has an overall editorial theme — the things you specialize in.  Then within those themes you have sub-themes.

For example: as a consultative-coach, my firm specializes in helping advisors create efficient operations and marketing systems that grow firms faster. That’s my overall theme.

Sub-theme could be: basics of systematizing, operations management, niching, simplified business planning, marketing strategies, social networking, creating templates, practice management, LinkedIn, finding your ideal clients, etc.

Once created, use your theme and sub-themes to:

• write articles about that topic,
• look for other articles on the topic and share them on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• host a seminar on that month’s topic,
• design a template for your clients on that topic.

Request my First Editorial Calendar in MS Excel Template (and access to my Advisor Tool Box) click here

EASY Peasy Online Editorial Calendars

Consider using a calendar that you and your team are already using to create your editorial calendar. Your Google or Outlook calendars can be used for this purpose.  In fact my second EC was created as an additional Outlook calendar.

If you have a WordPress Blog, consider adding the editorial-calendar plugin into your system.   I recently tested it and think it’s the best of the EC plug in’s. You’ll find a very informative video, sample calendar to view, and learn how to upload it to your WP Blog at https://wordpress.org/plugins/editorial-calendar/

Two features I like about the editorial-calendar plugin are:

1. it helps you easily add or move posts to be published on different days.
2. you can see which posts you’ve created that are currently unscheduled and easily schedule them.

BONUS Tip About Editorial Calendars

How many times have you read a magazine and said to yourself “I can write an article for that magazine”.   If the magazine is something that your ideal client reads, take your thought a step further.

Visit their website again and look for “media”.  That’s usually where you’ll find a calendar and even the demographics of the magazine.  See what topics interest you and submit a query. Here’s a brief definition of a query: http://www.fa-mag.com/userfiles/stories/Mediakit/2015/fa-media-kit-2015-editorial-calendar.pdf . (NOTE: if you want to be a monthly columnist, you need to submit a query that includes at least 8 article topics, all based on their EC).

More Reading About Editorial Calendars

3 Step Guide To Building an Editorial Calendar by Amy McIlwain. http://financialsocialmedia.com/the-financial-advisors-3-step-guide-to-building-an-editorial-calendar-2/

Do you use an editorial calendar?  What ways do you use themes in your business? What are a few of that themes your firm uses?