A Week as a Content Strategist: Tactics for Retainer Clients (Nov 2022)

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Anyone else ever overwhelmed at ALL the ways we can be a content strategist?

There are endless ways to offer value as a strategist. 

Endless ways to combine deliverables…

To position yourself as an expert…

To pitch your services…

How do we decide OUR way? 

So I’m recapping a recent week in my work life as a content strategist. I hope it sheds light on just one of the million ways to be a content strategist. 

A week in my work life as a content strategist

I picked this week because it was mostly tactical — and that’s ok! 

Sometimes, my weeks are mostly strategy setting. Sometimes, they’re not. 

This week, two long-term retainer clients took my focus. They both set their content strategies with me last year. So now, I help them create and market content that upholds those strategies.

(In another “Week in the Life,” my focus was all about ramping up new clients and new work.)

Generally, I work about 20 hours per week Monday-Thursday. 

Monday

  • Record Q&A videos for a retainer client’s LinkedIn account. We just spent a month deciding what types of video and audio we should expand into. For now, it’s short and sweet clips on LinkedIn.

  • Edit educational blog posts for another retainer client to ensure that the writer met the brief.

Primary challenge: Ensuring that our recording was in line with our plan.

Solution: Extending our meeting to get everything right.

Tuesday

  • Create and schedule marketing emails. The content strategy for this client strictly uses marketing emails to build trust. So I scheduled a few emails sharing new and helpful content.

Primary challenge: My son had to come home sick from daycare.

Solution: Push a non-urgent strategy proposal and discovery call to next week.

Wednesday

  • Grab coffee with a fellow content strategist and newsletter subscriber (hi Julie!) to talk shop. 

Primary challenge: Same as Tuesday

Solution: Same as Tuesday. I ended up pushing a kick off call to next week too.

Thursday

  • Complete a retainer client’s content roadmap for Q4. We held a meeting to review and approve my recommendations.

  • Meet a prospective client to learn about her content needs. 

Primary challenge: This prospective client’s scope is wide open. I don’t know where to begin and I don’t have enough information yet. 

My solution: I don’t want to put the cart before the horse and create a proposal that may miss the mark. I’m going to draft 3 loose directions we could take and get her feedback first. 

Friday

  • Meet with a prospective referral who may be a good fit for collaborating on projects down the road. 

  • Write and schedule my weekly newsletter.

Primary challenge: I don’t work on Fridays, but I had to thanks to my light Tuesday and Wednesday.

Solution: Give myself grace and don’t be too hard on myself for breaking my boundary this week.

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