August can provide the perfect opportunity for a fall blog-planning session. Clients are often in transition at this time of year, which means you might have a late-summer window to brainstorm blog topics for your fall calendar.
You don’t need to start writing yet. But one cozy afternoon is the perfect time to plan three months of fall blog topics. With a few simple steps, you’ll know what to write and when.
Get your favorite fall beverage, find a cozy, quiet place, and get ready to do a little brainstorming. Let’s take a look.
Choose 1-2 Fall Content Goals
A good starting point is to focus on your main goals. What do you want your blog to accomplish this fall? If you can identify one or two goals, it’ll be easier to focus your content.
Here are four common goals pet professionals like you focus on:
- Attract new clients.
- Educate pet parents.
- Highlight seasonal services.
- Build trust.
Which one or two goals feel most relevant for your pet business for the upcoming fall season? Go ahead and write those down, so you can refer back to them.
The above goals are just common examples. If you have a different goal that’s not on this list, go ahead and choose it. Go with whatever goals work best for your business this fall season.
Brainstorm Topic Ideas for Each Goal
Now that you’ve chosen one or two goals for your fall blog, it’s time to brainstorm topic ideas for each goal. Aim for enough topic ideas to meet your blogging schedule. If you blog monthly, you’ll need 3 topics for fall. Biweekly means 6 topics, and weekly is about 13 topics, as each season usually has an extra week. If you have two main goals, you’ll want some of the topics to match each goal.
As you come up with ideas, put yourself in the perspective of your clients and prospects. What would they need and want to know this fall season?
Sometimes it helps to ask a question about your goal. For example:
Goal: Attract new clients.
Question: What questions would a new or prospective client have about what you offer? Think back to questions new or prospective clients often ask before retaining your services.
Goal: Educate pet parents.
Question: What are the most common fall-related questions pet parents ask?
Goal: Highlight seasonal services.
Question: What seasonal services do you especially want to promote this fall to new and existing clients?
Goal: Build trust.
Question: What can you share that helps pet parents feel like they can trust you for their pets’ needs? Topics like behind-the-scenes care, client success stories, meet the team, and pet care values fit in well here.
Remember, you’re trying to come up with topic ideas for your main 1-2 blog goals for fall. If you need more ideas, let’s look at some idea starters next.
More Idea Starters
If you don’t come up with enough ideas from the questions above, that’s okay. We all get ideas in different ways. Let’s look at more idea starters that can inspire you.
As you look at these idea starters, keep your 1-2 main goals in mind. Or you can just brainstorm freely and then see which ideas match your goals.
If you brainstorm ideas that don’t fit your fall goals, you can save them for a future season. Or slip them in between goal-focused posts this fall.
Conversations with Clients: What are the most common questions you are always answering for clients? Thinking about the upcoming fall season: what questions do pet parents always ask during the fall?
Seasonal Themes: The fall season provides a cornucopia of ideas for pet-focused blog posts. Changing weather, back-to-school transitions, holiday planning—think about what the fall season means for pet care and see if those ideas match your main blog goals for fall.
Seasonal Services: While you’re still thinking about fall seasonal themes, what services do you offer that align with pet care needs for fall? Can you come up with ideas for blogging about those services, in a way that helps pet parents see those services as the solution they need? For example, navigating pet care and back-to-school routines, plans for holiday pet boarding, dog walking in fall weather, dog sweaters, holiday pet safety tips.
Behind the Scenes: When you share about the inner workings of your pet service, it helps pet parents relate to you and builds trust. It lets them see how much you care about pets and how much you want to help them and their pets.
- Think about glimpses of a typical day in your business, either a fully focused story or snippets and highlights of different stories.
- Do you have clients willing to let you share their success stories?
- Think of ways to help prospective clients see how much you love and care about animals and why you do this pet-related work.
Try to come up with enough topics to meet your fall blogging schedule: monthly (3 topics), biweekly (6 topics), or weekly (13 topics). When you zero in on the actual number of topics, it will feel more doable than simply looking out at the fall season as a whole.
Plug Your Ideas into a Fall Blog Calendar
Hopefully, you’ve come up with enough ideas for three months of fall blog posts, whether you blog weekly, biweekly, or once a month. Go ahead and plug those ideas into a calendar, so you’ll know what to write and when.
Your calendar can be a literal calendar, or a spreadsheet (that’s what I use), or sticky notes. Choose whatever format works for you.
As you think about which topics to place and when:
- Keep in mind any upcoming fall promotions or seasonal reminders you want your blog to align with.
- Think about which month a topic will be most relevant to pet parents, especially if it’s a topic they need to think about ahead of time like holiday plans and travel.
- Consider grouping similar topics so you can write them in one sitting.
- Anticipate busier times and put lighter topics into your calendar for those weeks.
Your blog calendar is just a guideline and can be changed as new topics come up during the fall season, or as your schedule and energy shift. This calendar is just a way to get you started, so you won’t have to think about what to write each time. You can simply zero in on the calendar topic.
While you’re filling in your blog calendar, add one more thing. Look three months out, and carve out time for your winter blog planning afternoon.
Add Any Helpful Notes
Now that you have your fall blog topics lined up and know what you will be writing and when, you can take one more step to make your writing process easier.
Go through each topic and make a short bullet-point list of any notes that will help you write the post later on. For example:
- List any promotional tie-ins.
- If your post is based on a common client question, jot down that question.
- If you’ve thought of particular examples, note them.
- Write down any thoughts that have come to mind about that topic, so you’ll remember them when it’s time to write.
Your bullet-point thoughts don’t need to be in any particular order, just there to jog your memory when it’s time to write the post.
You can put those notes in your calendar or create a separate document that contains your fall blog topics and notes for each one. Do whatever will make it easiest for you when the time comes to write.
Think about how helpful it will be to open your blog topic down the road and find a bullet-point list to help you get started, rather than wondering, What was I going to say about this? It’ll make your writing a lot easier, and you’ll be glad for those notes. Even if you think you’ll remember something, assume you won’t; go ahead and write it down now.
While you’re at it, if you have any ideas of how to repurpose a topic for social media or an email newsletter, make a note of that too.
And that’s it! You’ve just planned out your blog calendar for the upcoming fall season. Your fall blog is shaping up to be relevant to your clients’ needs, attractive to prospects, and aligned with your fall blogging and business goals. You’ll be ready to write each time and won’t have to scramble for ideas.
Now that you know this planning afternoon is doable—maybe even enjoyable?—you can schedule and keep this process going for future seasons too.
Janet Eriksson 