The Challenge of Scalable Content (Part II) – Looking Ahead to 2025
by Joe Kovacs, APR
One benefit of scaling content is brainstorming fewer topics but making them as meaningful as possible to more targeted buyers.
In last week's issue of Marketing Strategies 4 Growth (subscribe here), I looked at the beginning of a process to help scale content – with content scaling identified by the Content Marketing Institute as a major challenge headed into 2025. We set up a spreadsheet that shows:
Today, I’ll show how to plan the content to be scaled and set up a publishing schedule. Also last week I suggested not being too ambitious with scaled content planning and that your team should only consider planning about three months’ worth of content.
I was inspired to recommend this approach from a book called The 12-Week Year, which focuses on maximizing productivity by breaking out execution and the pursuit of your goals into 12-week blocks. It’s worth reading.
Two benefits of scaling content are
Back to the Spreadsheet
Open the spreadsheet you built last week and get ready to add a few new columns (and bump one existing column over). By now you have a list of your buyer audiences with at least a few rows of challenges facing them in the adjacent column.
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This is where accountability starts. In conversation with your team, develop a plausible publishing schedule. You could decide to publish one new piece of content a week or, more or less frequently. It depends on your other commitments and your own preference.
I recommend starting with your first audience and a piece of content addressing their first challenge. This should be the very top row under the column headings.
Column C and Content Planning
In Column C for this row, enter not only the publish date but, right after it in the same row, the type of content it will be. For example, if I’ve decided to draft a blog about tax credits for small business owners (my first audience and the first challenge to address in the top row), I might put “12/8 – Blog” in Column C. Then, look at the columns immediately to the right, where you have listed the members of your content team. In the column under the name of the team member responsible for developing blogs, add an “x”.
Let’s say the team member’s name is Joe (because I like that name). Put an “x” in the row under Joe’s name so he now knows:
I’ll assume your practice has a content development and approval process that your team members are familiar with. We won’t muddle up our calendar by adding that level of detail here.
Quarterly Content Planning
You won't be able to address all challenges for all buyer audiences that you have recorded in your spreadsheet for this first three-month period. Just stick to the publishing frequency you established and do what you can.
So now you should take time to plan out your content for three months by assigning dates and content types in Column C. You won’t be able to address all challenges for all buyer audiences that you have recorded on your spreadsheet for this first three-month period.
Just stick to the publishing frequency you established and do what you can.
I’m also not going to tell you what type of content you should develop for each deadline you put in Column C (a blog, a video, a podcast, etc.).
It’s quite possible you can have multiple team members working on distinct forms of content simultaneously, in which case your Column C might look something more like “12/8 – Blog / Video” with the appropriate team member columns tagged with an “x”.
There are too many different marketing preferences between firms for me to tell you what to do. My goal is to give you a framework within which your team can operate and make decisions.
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Scaling Existing Content
As you develop your publishing schedule, you can now take that first piece and repurpose it for another buyer audience on the spreadsheet with that second audience member’s buyer persona close at hand to assist. When you do that, consider the following:
From the Kovacs Communications blog: How Marketing Helps Service Launches for Accounting Firms
The last bullet point above is where your SEO team can do its magic, perhaps in collaboration with your website management team to display a link series in the most accessible, user-friendly manner. ?Additionally, although URL slugs are not considered a high-ranking element by Google, they should be built similarly so Google can better crawl and understand the structure of your site. For example:
Although a lot still needs to be decided within each content planning process, your team should be able to handle it. I hesitate to go into more detail because each firm operates differently with its content preferences, publishing schedule and the set up of its website, YouTube channel and other digital assets. ??
Ongoing Scalable Content Planning
As you execute on your first quarterly content planning schedule (with content types and team members assigned), be sure to mark your progress with something as simple as coloring each row (green could mark something done, yellow could indicate a delay and red to indicate something has been FUBARed). ??
Inevitably, it will be time to think about planning for the second quarter’s worth of content. This should be relatively simple. Shift your team member columns over to the right (this should start with bumping Column D over to Column E, etc.). Your new Column D should be given the header “Publishing Deadline Q2” or something like that. You should now notice on the spreadsheet:
Are we there yet?
As we head into 2025, it's time to address a challenge that's been facing marketers: creating scalable content
Although this process may seem complicated (oh, who are we fooling – it IS a little complicated!), it’s really the start-up and planning process that takes up the bulk of time. The rest is planning content with your team, working on the execution and having your “task master” keep everyone on schedule.
Your analytics team can examine metrics such as:
Other metrics may be important too, to determine how engaging your content is. Goals can also be set up and tracked in Google Analytics. But it’s beyond the scope of this newsletter to go too deeply into your analytics strategy.
Scalable content planning saves you time from having to brainstorm too many unique topics. Instead, it leans on the idea of repurposing existing content for different content types and distinct audiences.
As we head into the new year, it’s time to address a challenge that’s been facing marketers (according to the Content Marketing Institute, anyway): creating scalable content.
Best of luck with success and happy 2025!
Are you a solo practitioner, a small accounting firm or the division leader at a larger firm struggling with your content to drive growth strategies? The Marketing Strategies 4 Growth newsletter offers weekly insights generated from nearly 20 years of professional services marketing experience. Subscribe here or visit the Kovacs Communications website for additional insights. I specialize in delivering high-impact writing and marketing solutions to get professional services firms unstuck and back on course for growth.
Joe Kovacs, APR ([email protected])
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