Make September great for your audience

I hope you are looking forward to a nice three-day weekend, but before we get there I’ve got a nice roundup of September content ideas you could consider doing next month:

1. Have all of these family guides covered These are all useful guides that can help families explore the amazing things to do this Fall in and around your community. These also make for great SEO stories that you can update year after year.

• Halloween & Trick-or-Treat Guide: Share neighborhood trick-or-treat times and a roundup of trunk-or-treat events.
• Corn Maze and Hayride Roundups: Highlight local farms that offer corn mazes, hayrides, petting zoos, and other Fall activities.
• Fall Festival Calendar: Compile a list of Oktoberfests, craft fairs, church festivals, and school carnivals that families can attend.
• Apple Picking and Pumpkin Patch Map: Provide an interactive map with farm locations, costs, and what each place offers.
• Haunted Houses: Share the best attractions by age-appropriateness, from family-friendly haunted trails to scarier experiences.

2. How to make Halloween easier on the wallet From candy to costumes to decorations, Halloween can get pretty expensive pretty quickly. So show families where they can save by comparing prices at local stores, thrift shops, and dollar stores.

Tip: Do this by price point showing how you can do Halloween on a budget locally for under $100.

3. The best mini Fall road trips close to home Create a map for three or four local drives that can be done after work or on a weekend morning all tied around getting the most out of Fall. Have a nice consistent format for each of these:

• Best place to stop for coffee
• Best photo-worthy lookout
• Historic landmark to check out
• A hike to try

4. Local September bucket list challenge Create a checklist of 10 things to do in your town before the month ends by publishing it in one of your products. Think of including things like visit a farmers market, check out a local gallery opening and attend a football game. Readers can tag your publication on social media when they complete an item.

Tip: The revenue piece to this can be in the form of having to tag each place, as advertisers can be the featured places.

5. How to celebrate football’s return in your town Football is just as much about what happens on the field as the fun that happens outside the stadium and in the stands. Build a local guide to help readers enjoy all of the fun of football by including mini guides on the following:

• Best bars and restaurants where alumni groups gather
• Best places to eat if you travel for a game
• Local tailgate tradition ideas and where to get the ingredients
• Ask readers to share over and over again their tailgate experiences
• Go mix it up with fans and go live on Facebook at a tailgate

6. Where your tax dollars are going this Fall Is your city council or county government going through a budget process this Fall? If so, it’s the perfect time for a clear explainer.

Break down three of the biggest funding goals: parks, schools and  infrastructure as an example, and use a format like:

What’s this year’s budget:

What’s the budget being proposed:

What will be different next year:

You can do that for each of those focus areas.

7. Is your city really prepared for the worst September is National Preparedness Month, but how prepared is your city if a true disaster happened?

The horrible floods that hit Texas this summer can serve as a backdrop on how prepared your city is.

Think about things that readers might be wondering about and resources you could provide them:

• Emergency alerts to sign up for
• Evacuation routes
• Flood maps

8. What to know about changing energy bills Utility companies often announce Fall or Winter rate hikes. Lay out current costs, what is being projected and why, as well as some historical background on rate changes.

But make the content useful for your audience by offering ways to cut costs, especially if the rates are rising.

Tip: See if you can find a family that has been able to save money on their bills by sharing their practical experiences.

9. Friday Night Lights and the local economy While news organizations will rightfully cover the athletes who are making the big plays this Fall, there are also opportunities to write about others who are making headlines of their own.

• Feature booster clubs, concession stand workers and restaurants who really depend on those Friday night crowds.
• Feature all of those who create the energy for the games: cheerleaders, drill teams and the bands. These make for great weekly galleries of each of those.
• Suggest ways that you can support the local economy while you also support local teams: Where to eat out before a game, get dessert after and get game day apparel.

We can help create a great content strategy

We’d love the chance to share how we can help your team develop content strategies that truly get results. Contact me at David@davidarkinconsulting.com today so you can learn more.