I recently put together my 2008 Editorial Schedule, and boy am I pumped! I admit that it’s been a struggle the last couple of months to blog as frequently as I’d like to.

With this schedule in place, I know exactly how I’ll be creating content this year. I haven’t chosen all of my topics ahead of time, so there will still be plenty of room for spontaneity and creativity and HEY, I can always blog MORE.

What I’ve laid out in my editorial calendar are the SOURCES for my content, so that it’s an automatic process.

For example, to write my fifth blog post of every month, I’m going to cull through my "Learning" folder in Outlook. "Learning" is one of my 2008 Business Plan strategies, so it gets it’s very own folder for the newsletters and blog updates that interest me (and that I think might interest you).

I don’t even try to read all of these when they come in, but when it’s time to write my blog post, I can skim through the subject lines, articles and posts for ideas that jump out at me.

This is the first year I’ve used an editorial schedule, so let’s all watch and see how well it works! Hopefully you’ll notice that I’m posting more frequently.

Writing Prompt: Put an editorial schedule to work for you in 2008. Simply plot out a space for everything you want to publish this year, and fill-in-the-blanks. You can do as I did, and think of HOW you’ll write the content when the time comes, or you can go one further and actually create your list of topics for the year. If you publish a monthly newsletter, that’s 11 more spaces to fill in and you’re done! Imagine the relief!

Too often there’s a disconnect between what we want to sell and what our ideal customer is looking to buy. I’ve heard marketing experts share that we need to, "sell them what they want, so we can then give them what they need."

For example, even though we know, as coaches, that people need life balance, serenity and better self-care, they may not be ready to even think about those things. They may, however, be very open to a solution that addresses what they ARE ready to deal with.

To write in a way that your ideal customer will relate and respond to, imagine that you’re a fly on the wall at a coffee shop.

Your ideal customer is confiding in a friend about a problem. It’s a big problem, and it’s keeping her up at night.

What words would she use to describe the problem? Get as specific as you can about:

1. What is the problem?
2. Why is it a problem?
3. What’s the impact of the problem?
4. How will her life be (and how will she feel) if the problem continues or gets worse?
5. What solution is she searching for?
6. How will her life be (and how will she feel) when she finds that solution?

The closer you can match the words your actual customers and potential customers are using to describe their problem and YOUR solution, the quicker they’ll be able to see that your product or service is the match for them.

Writing Prompt: Write out the conversation between your ideal customer and her friend. Read it out loud and really get into character. Channel your customer! Now bring that exact language into your next article, blog post or promotional email and get ready to connect.