The following guidelines should help you in determining what type of content to publish:
Educate Your Audience: Everything you write is an opportunity to educate your audience on who you are and what you stand for. So if your differentiating factor is your expertise on a certain strategy, or asset class, or the way in which you gather and process research, then center your content around those topics every single time. Ultimately you want to connect with the ideal audience, and this cannot be accomplished without your most relevant audience understanding exactly what differentiates you and how they can apply that to their goals and strategy.
Mix Up Your Content: Regardless of your scheduled publishing goals, mix the content up a bit. If your goal is to publish something twice a month, then post one longer form piece for every three that are more brief. You should also alternate the topic, while still focusing on your core differentiation. For example, if you are branding your firm as experts in a specific strategy, first publish a philosophical piece explaining your process, then follow that with how you view the current investing environment through that strategy’s lens. Note that you can effectively brand your expertise without ever mentioning a single “idea.”
Brand Accretion, Not Best Ideas: Don’t treat your content marketing efforts as an idea forum! I’m sure you have great research and great ideas, that said, what are you gaining by branding yourself through those ideas on a consistent basis? The content marketing goal is sustainability and consistent brand accretion. An idea or call is great every once in awhile, but this should not be the sole focus of your strategy. Look at it this way, even if you’re right on the idea, anyone interested in your offerings is now aware that they just missed your best call.
Humanize It: Finally, this is a personal business, so humanize it. It is ok to talk about yourself, your background, your family, and whatever else serves to put a personality behind a name and a brand. The more that you can build a relationship with a prospective client the more likely they are to engage with you, and the faster that sales cycle is likely to be. Similarly, the more that you can build a personal relationship with a client, the less likely they are to churn and the more likely they are to increase their allocation to your offerings.
Remember: The content you share on Harvest serves as the trigger to get new and prospective clients interested in you and your firm. Content is the discovery engine on Harvest.