3 Opportunities Content Calendars Can Make for You

Tired of endlessly creating social media content with little return? This eye-opening episode reveals how content calendars can transform from tedious scheduling tools into powerful opportunity generators for your design business.

Miriam and Maria challenge the common misconception that content calendars merely help you post consistently. Instead, they demonstrate how planning eight weeks ahead creates three game-changing opportunities. First, you'll discover how advance planning facilitates strategic collaborations with complementary businesses like landscape designers or window specialists – effectively doubling your audience reach without doubling your workload. Rather than creating new content from scratch, you'll learn to repurpose existing portfolio images within seasonal frameworks that resonate with both clients and media.

The hosts share practical strategies for batching content production, allowing you to capture multiple posts in a single day. By thinking like a magazine editor with a seasonal editorial calendar, you can work smarter rather than harder. Most valuably, you'll learn how this approach positions you to become what the hosts call a "media darling" – a trusted resource that local publications, newspapers, and TV segments actively seek out for seasonal home-related content.

As a special bonus, the episode introduces a custom GPT tool developed specifically for designers that generates location-specific, seasonal content ideas with minimal input. This technological solution addresses the time constraints many designers face when developing strategic content plans, even suggesting potential collaboration partners and local publications to approach.

Ready to transform your marketing approach from reactive to strategic? Listen now and discover how simple seasonal planning can expand your reach, save you time, and elevate your status as a design authority in your community. Join our Academy to access this GPT tool and receive personalized coaching to implement these strategies in your business.

If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:​

• https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-146-3-Opportunities-Content-Calendars-Can-Make-for-You

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Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY

Episode Transcript

Jason Lockhart (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Designer Discussions
with Jason, miriam and Maria.
Today, miriam and Maria will betalking about three
opportunities content calendarscan make for you.
Welcome to Designer Discussionspodcast with Miriam.
Maria and Jason Tune in eachweek where we discuss marketing,
pr and business advice fordesign professionals us

(00:28):
marketing, pr and businessadvice for design professionals.

Maria Martin (00:29):
So this month in the Academy, we've been talking
about creating a contentcalendar and why you should have
one, and I think a lot ofpeople think, oh, content
calendars are there so that youmake enough content, so that
you're posting regularly.
But what we want to talk moreabout is why a content calendar
creates opportunity for you.
We're all about time saving.

(00:50):
We're all about takingadvantage of the work you're
already doing and then findingways to use it to your advantage
, and so today we're going totalk to you about the three
opportunities that the contentcalendar does create for you,
and why you should have acontent calendar and why you
should consider working thatinto your content that you're

(01:14):
creating, your social media,your blogs and your email
newsletters you're going to besending out.
So the first thing that acontent calendar is going to do
is that you will start having,each month, the content that
magazines are looking for andthe content that your client is
going to want at the right time.

(01:35):
So there is a saying that ifyou're going to go out and go
fishing, you might want to usewhat's readily available to you,
but you're not going to catchyour fish that you want without
their bait, right, and I know wetalk about your social media
should be a portfolio of yourwork and it should be all of the
things that you've been doing.
But what we're wanting you tostart thinking about is how can

(01:57):
you use all of your work you'vealready done and start creating
content that's more timely andjust sort of has the spin on it
that people are going to belooking for during that season?
And so, having a contentcalendar, the first thing that
you can think of that we couldbe doing is creating content

(02:21):
that is seasonal and you knowit's coming two months in
advance.
Okay, why does that two monthsin advance create such a benefit
for you?
Well, when you're talking aboutmaking a newsletter or a blog
post or three or four socialmedia posts, one of the benefits

(02:41):
of doing that is that, say, youalready know you're going to be
doing a summer content wheneverit's cooler outside.
This gives you an opportunityto collaborate.
So collaboration is your firstopportunity that your content
calendar is going to create foryou.
Because you're working in thislike eight-week window of time

(03:04):
prior to when you need theinformation, you could reach out
to your favorite landscapedesign studio and have content
about what people can be doingthis summer in their garden and
then that way, when that contentreleases, both the landscape
company and you especially ifit's local could then post that
content at the same time.

(03:25):
So you are now creating contentfor this landscape company and
this landscape company isputting you out in front of
their audience.
Maybe, when the winter isrolling around, you may want to
talk about the importance ofreally high-quality windows and
what kind of insulativeproperties those have and how it
can reduce your electric bills,right.
So when we're talking about acontent calendar, we're just

(03:48):
crafting the amount ofinformation that rolls out to be
seasonal for the person who'sworking with you, and this gives
you an opportunity to postthose portfolio pictures, but
they're framed within thecontext of how you're serving
the people who are followingyour social media content, and
this is just creating more of adynamic like a magazine would

(04:10):
have structured for the year.
And I do think that a lot ofpeople have been overwhelmed by
the idea of a content calendar,but I think it's because they
don't see the benefits of it.
So, number one, we're going tosay get those collaborations
going now, because you do knowwhat you're wanting to write
about and you're looking tocreate one seasonal

(04:30):
collaboration per month, right,and then that would help branch
out your reach.
Number two because you knowwhat you're putting together in
eight weeks and what you'regoing to be posting in eight
weeks, we want you to look atbatching the content that you're
making.
So, if you know that the contentthat you're going to be putting

(04:52):
out in your newsletter, yourblog and partially in your
social media because we want youto reuse things it's going to
be around stuff magazines aregoing to be publishing, like in
January, like what's the colorof the year, you know what's
going to be the new trends thenthat way, you already have an
opportunity to start puttingthat content together.

(05:15):
You're walking a stone yard, youtake a couple of pictures.
Maybe you have pictures fromthree or four months ago, maybe
you have something that you knowis coming up on a project and
you already have a flat lay ofall those materials and you
incorporated a color that'sgoing to be your seasonal color

(05:35):
of the year.
So the goal is for you to startseeing that if you spend a day
getting content at a slab yard,talking to a rep about hardware,
looking at something that isgoing to apply to your clients.
We want you to start looking atit like, now that you know what
you're doing for the next two,three, however many months, so

(05:57):
that you don't get overwhelmed.
You should be putting togetheryour social media content in one
day, right?
We aren't talking about a lotsocial media content in one day.

Mirjam Lippuner (06:06):
Right, we aren't talking about a lot, and
so what's really interestingabout this is that, if you think
about the way that the mediawork, it's like they have what's
called an editorial calendar,and I've looked at a lot of

(06:26):
editorial calendars in my careeras a PR person and they're
mostly repetitive.
Okay, so if you look at theeditorial calendar of Kitchen,
bath Business Magazine, you knowthere's going to be the same
features that always show uparound the same time of year.

(06:47):
It's the same for designmagazines, like if you look at
House Beautiful or really anyother magazine, it's like the
content is going to.
It's going to be the samecontent with a twist.
You know it's like, whateverthey're going to have kitchen
and bath content in April, youknow they're going to have

(07:07):
outdoor living content inprobably July.
You know it's like it's alwaysthe same thing.
And so that we're not saying youshould be operating like a
magazine, you know that would beasked way, way, way too much
magazine.
You know that would be asked way, way, way too much.
And we actually are going tohave we developed a tool that's

(07:28):
really going to help youautomate content creation,
certainly even more than youalready have, and we'll talk
about that at the end, but it'sthe idea that you still have
your own.
You want to talk about yourproject, you know you want to
talk about your business, butit's like you want to have some

(07:51):
interesting it's almost likefiller content that's seasonal
and localized, that'sinteresting for your potential
customers, for the people thatare following you on social or
that are on your, or existingclients.
You know, just keep itinteresting, but in a really,

(08:11):
really simple, straightforwardway, and that's why I say the
content calendar is like ourversion of the editorial
calendar and it's always sees.
The most important things arethat it's local, that it really

(08:33):
it comes from you, you know it'sauthentic and that it is
seasonal.
People love seasonal content.
We see this all the time.

Maria Martin (08:48):
So next, on our third opportunity that your
content calendar is going tocreate for you, we are wanting
you to be prepared and be readyto go for any online press
placements ahead of time, andthis is also going to give you
an opportunity to see which oneof your projects or photos are
best for seasonal content.

(09:08):
So, miriam, is this also anopportunity where you can pitch
your local newspapers and stuffabout an opportunity to publish
some of your images and theirpublications?

Mirjam Lippuner (09:22):
Absolutely, and I mean it might be more than
that.
So the two things that we teachin the academy every year is
number one, the reactive mediaopportunities, which is where
you go find journalists that arealready working on a story and

(09:43):
they're asking for input fromyou.
So it's usually short commentson a specific trendy topic and
sometimes they ask for imagestoo.
So it's just, it's a good ideato be prepared and because it is
seasonal and repetitive, it'snot that difficult, you know

(10:05):
it's.
I wouldn't advocate to reusecontent that you've used.
It's not that difficult, youknow it's.
I wouldn't advocate to reusecontent that you've used.
It's important to giveeverybody something, mostly
original.
But honestly, with AI today, ifyou, it's so easy to adapt and
tweak things and if you put thefinal touches on that, it's

(10:26):
going to take you five minutesto do it.
So that's the number one thing,because we know that you know
what back to school is going tobe.
A topic it probably starts inJuly and then in August it's
going to be top of mind.
It's always the same topics andit's very easy to prepare for

(10:47):
that and even if you don't havethe perfect response canned and
ready, but you've alreadythought about it and it'll be
much easier to pick up and sendit out quickly if you already
have some preparation done aheadof time.

(11:09):
Ahead of time and, like Mariasaid, the other opportunity
definitely is with your regionalpress and they you know what
they love projects to featurebut they're also interested in
trend information and if you cangive it a local hook, they're
going to love you.
You know, they're going to bereceptive, they're going to say
oh no, that's really interestingand maybe it'll even trigger a

(11:30):
story idea for them that theyhadn't thought of.
And it's also a really goodidea just to develop that
relationship, because what themedia really like is people that
provide them with timely andrelevant information on trends,

(11:51):
tips and tricks, content withimages that you have.
So, yeah, definitely it allties together and you can use
these assets and the contentthat you create for many
different things in the world ofPR.

Maria Martin (12:09):
And so when we're talking about creating content
for the seasonal topics right,we're not talking about going
out and doing a photo shoot ofyou, decorated in pencil and
your whole entire team screamingabout like a seasonal
celebration.
We're literally talking about,like when Thanksgiving rolls
around and people are thinkingabout how they are going to do

(12:32):
entertainment for their guestsyou featuring one of your
projects, your professionalphotography, something that you
haven't maybe posted within thelast you know couple of weeks
and talk about Thanksgiving andhow that house is going to
create that Thanksgivingexperience for your client, or
how your client is excited toentertain in that kitchen.

(12:53):
So we aren't necessarilytalking about, like, creating
these huge photo shoots.
We're literally talking aboutdigging into what you have
already done and applying thosethings you want to feature about
your business within theframework of seasonal content,
and so I think, once you realizethat you can do that, you'll

(13:13):
find that this is pretty easy toimplement, but it just takes a
little bit more forward planningthan just posting what you're
doing today and what your nextproject is and what that job
site looks like.
However, this is a great way torepurpose content and get your
face out there as more like aleader in design in your local

(13:37):
area.

Mirjam Lippuner (13:37):
Yes, it really shouldn't be all that difficult,
right?
And because our mission andpurpose really is to make things
easier for the people that wework with is and, as you guys
may or may not know, but Mariais an app developer, so she's
super techie.

(13:58):
Design Appy is the app that sheyou've been working on this for
many, many years, so she knowsthe ins and outs of app
development and her and I I justwas happy to be there and see
the magic come to life.
But we developed a GPT for youguys that is going to help with

(14:23):
content creation help withcontent creation and what it
does is all you do is you put inthe location where you're
located and the month for whichyou're trying to create content,
and it will give you an outlineof various different social

(14:45):
media posts, as well as anewsletter and a blog post.
And we've gone through differentiterations of this with our
students in the academy and Ihave to say and I'm pretty much
a professional content creatorof sorts in the world of PR, not

(15:05):
as an influencer, but it reallyworks well and the outline that
it develops.
You can iterate on that and yousay, oh, maybe I don't quite
like this or I'd like to expandon that and all you do is you
tell chat to say change it likethis or add this, or you can

(15:27):
even say give me ideas forcollaborations to make this
content more interesting.
You can really build on it.
And this, the idea, is thatthis is going to enable you to
create the content which youthen use to batch, produce it
ahead of time for the like.

(15:50):
Right now we'd be definitely.
We'd probably already want tobe working on September and as
we're taping this, it's the endof July, right.

Maria Martin (16:01):
So one of the things that this GPT can do is
it can also give you anopportunity to say since I'm
located in this area and this isthe service I provide and I'm
creating content for this monthwhat businesses would be good to
collaborate with on this topic,and it'll give suggestions, and

(16:21):
then you can decide if you wantto work with those companies or
you want to just send out anemail to all of them and see
which ones respond back to you.
You can also ask it to give yousome localized publication
suggestions.

Mirjam Lippuner (16:33):
And it'll give that Absolutely yeah.

Maria Martin (16:36):
Wow.
So all of that time you wouldspend researching and getting
online and looking for companiesnow has been bite-sized down
for you.
That that's just one more step,using this GPT, where you ask
for collaboration concepts andideas based on the seasonal
calendar, which is alreadyembedded into the program, and

(16:56):
then it'll tell you, based onthe seasonal content, these
would be the businesses in yourarea you would collaborate with
and, based on the seasonalcontent, reach out to these
local publications and then youcan build on that and ask it to
help you.
You know, write your PR pitchto the local magazine, the local

(17:20):
newspaper, your local TVnetwork.

Mirjam Lippuner (17:21):
It does a really good job at that,
actually Shocking.

Maria Martin (17:24):
Yeah, most of these daytime news networks in
most urban cities have some kindof midday color commentary that
has more to do with home decor,entertaining, new fun stores
that have opened up in the area,and all these places are
looking for content, and if youare perpetually, like every

(17:46):
month, reaching out to them withthe type of stuff that they
need when they need it, they'regoing to be you are absolutely
going to be the first personthat they are going to reach out
to when they're in a pinch,because they know you're already
prepared and you know exactlywhat they need.
So what we're doing here isturning you into what is it?
A media darling Isn't that whatthey call it when you are the

(18:08):
person that the media wants tohave do stuff for them and that
you aren't reaching out to themedia?
So this is what we want you tostart thinking about your
content calendar is anopportunity building machine for
you.
We don't want you to think of acontent calendar as something
where you're just grinding,creating content, or just

(18:33):
wanting you to see that.
We can have you batch, we canhave you use a GPT to give you
the outlines for everything wecan have.
The GPT suggest the topics wecan have the GPT.
Suggest the topics.
We can have the GPT.
Suggest your collaborators wecan have the GPT.
Suggest your media.
This is just part of how we aresupporting our group within the

(18:55):
Academy and we have these toolsavailable for our listeners at
the podcast.
Honestly, you know, if y'allleft us a a review, maybe we
would let you have access to theGPT.
Miriam, what do you want togive someone the link to the GPT
?
I?

Mirjam Lippuner (19:12):
I have a.
I live in the spirit ofabundance, so I think that
everybody who wants it shouldhave access to the GPT.
So we'll put a link in the shownotes that will take you to the
GPT and hopefully, if you agree, to sign up for a newsletter
you know that would work for me,you know.

Maria Martin (19:35):
That sounds fair.

Mirjam Lippuner (19:39):
All right, awesome.
So that's all we have for today, and we hope to see you again
in two weeks here with DesignerDiscussions.
Thanks, guys.

Jason Lockhart (19:49):
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(20:10):
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