With six distinct blogs on different websites, each catering to a unique product, staying on top of things can get pretty intense. And let's not forget about the talented group of writers who contribute their brilliance to our blogs, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, spinning a whole load of plates.

At least that's how it used to feel until we discovered a game-changing WordPress editorial calendar. And let me tell you, it's completely transformed our content management experience.

It's called the Strive Content Calendar, and I couldn't wait to share its magic with fellow content creators and blog managers like you.

After using Strive for the past few months, I've come to realize just how invaluable it is for streamlining the content management process.

Ready to rev up your content game? Let's go!

Here's why you probably need Strive

If you're immersed in the world of content creation or blog management, you understand the vital role played by blog content calendars. These invaluable tools serve as the backbone of your operations, enabling you to:

• Track and organize topics
• Structure ideas
• Assign tasks
• Schedule posts
• …and so much more!

Now, if you're as organized as we are, you know that your blog content calendar is just a piece of the puzzle. Enter the mighty main content calendar, where you manage not only blog posts but also a myriad of other content types, such as guides, infographics, ads, and PDFs, all neatly organized by topic.

At WishList Member, we rely on Asana to construct and maintain our colossal main content calendar, which effectively captures the bigger picture. However, we encountered a couple of challenges along the way:

1. The sheer size of our main calendar made it too cumbersome for a practical working blog content calendar.
2. Not all our esteemed writers are housed in our office premises, granting them easy access to Asana. This led to a time-consuming cycle of back-and-forth emails and Google Docs exchanges when assigning topics to external writers.

Thankfully, our salvation arrived in the form of the Strive Content Calendar, which swiftly resolved these hurdles and presented us with a seamless solution. Allow us to shed light on how Strive effectively transformed our content management woes.

Now onto the best part: the Strive Content Calendar

The Strive Content Calendar is a remarkable WordPress plugin, just like WishList Member. This means it seamlessly integrates into the WordPress backend, creating your very own blog content calendar right where you need it most.

This ingenious solution directly tackles my two primary concerns:

1. By housing the blog content calendar within the WordPress backend, each of our six blogs has its own dedicated calendar, distinct from our main calendar. This streamlined approach simplifies the management and organization of topics, ensuring an efficient workflow. (Curious about how we amalgamate all the blog calendars into our Asana main calendar? Keep reading, we'll reveal our secret!)
2. Each of our writers has access to the WordPress backend. With Strive, our blog content calendars are now nestled within WordPress itself. As a result, it's now a cinch to assign, review, and process posts for all involved! No more back-and-forth Google Doc sharing. (We'll delve into more details about this later on!)

Plus, Strive's drag-and-drop functionality just adds to its overall incredible ease of use:

Want to change the date of your post? No problemo! Strive lets you effortlessly rearrange posts to your heart's content, swiftly moving them between scheduled slots and the unscheduled drafts sidebar. Each relocation instantly triggers automatic scheduling within the WordPress editor for seamless organization.

This feature stands out as a personal favorite, but the Strive plugin boasts a whole array of other impressive offerings. Let's take a look at some more.

More of Strive's great features

In addition to its user-friendly setup and seamless integration, Strive is tooled up with impressive features designed to save you valuable time. Such as…

Effortless content revisions

Getting your blog to rank highly and stay there requires regular content revisions. However, the revision process can be a real headache. You certainly don't want to disrupt the SEO performance of a live post that already has substantial value.

Enter Strive's Revisions feature, the ultimate solution to streamline your revision workflow. Upon installing the plugin, you'll notice a “revision” option linked to each published post. Accessible via the frontend admin bar in WordPress or your list of posts in the backend.

This feature works its magic in two simple steps:

• Clicking the “revision” link generates a new draft of the post, separate from the published version.
• As you make updates and hit “Publish,” Strive seamlessly merges the revised version with the original. The result? An optimized article without the hassle of confusing redirects. Your SEO juice remains intact, while you save precious time.

Notably, the Strive calendar view prominently labels revisions, allowing you to easily track the ratio of new-to-updated content.

Alternative Pipeline view

While the Calendar view serves as my primary workspace, the Pipeline view gives you a big-picture perspective. By clicking the Pipeline tab, you get visibility into the statuses of all your posts in a single, organized space.

This prevents any posts from slipping through the cracks, providing a holistic snapshot of their progress. Whether they are scheduled, in progress, ready for editing, or not yet started, you can easily identify and manage each post's status. Additionally, you have the flexibility to toggle between row and column layouts based on your preferred workflow.

Customizable Checklists

Crafting a well-structured blog post involves juggling numerous details, from grammar and style to meta-data and image settings. This challenge becomes even more pronounced when working with new writers.

Strive's Checklists feature comes to the rescue, eliminating any guesswork and ensuring consistency. Simply compile your list of essential details under the Checklist tab, and you're ready to go.

Whenever someone works on a post, they can access the checklist directly from the WordPress editor, and check off items as they progress. This not only streamlines practical writing tasks but also serves as a valuable tool for your process.

Clear Post Statuses

Post statuses play a vital role in organizing your content workflow. How do you know if a post is in progress, ready to edit, or edited and ready to go? Strive's Post Statuses feature offers unparalleled clarity in this regard.

Unlike the default WordPress setup, where it's challenging to differentiate between posts requiring edits and those ready for publication, Strive introduces a crystal-clear solution.

The Strive plugin enriches your WordPress environment with the following intuitive post statuses:

• Not Started
• Writing
• Editing
• Complete
• Published

Each status is associated with a distinct color, providing a visual cue throughout the Strive Calendar. Updating a status in the WordPress editor triggers an immediate reflection in Strive, and vice versa. This feature enables efficient organization, ensuring that you never lose track of your posts' progress.

These are just a few of the remarkable features that make Strive an indispensable asset for optimizing your content process. Now, let's delve deeper into how Strive can revolutionize your blog workflow management.

Streamlining Your Blog Workflow with Strive

In this section, I'll walk you through how the WishList Member Content Team effectively uses Strive to manage our blog post workflow. With several writers contributing to our six distinct blogs, maintaining an organized and controlled workflow is super important.

Thankfully, Strive provides two great features that simplify the process and ensure seamless organization. Let's explore how we leverage these features:

New Drafts

Located on the right side of the Content Calendar page, the “Add New Draft” is your launchpad for your next blog.

When clicked, it opens a pop-up window where you can effortlessly input all the essential details required for a post.

We make use of the Title field to indicate the assigned writer by including their name before the post title.

The magic happens when you click the Add New Draft button at the bottom of the window.

Strive automatically creates a new draft in WordPress, populating all the entered information into the WordPress Editor. This integration between Strive and WordPress eliminates the need for time-consuming data transfer, ensuring a smooth and efficient workflow.

When you create a new draft, Strive auto-generates a dedicated box in the Unscheduled Drafts column, conveniently displaying all pending assignments for our writers. This feature enables clear visibility and easy access to ongoing tasks.

Streamlined Workflow with Color-Coded Progress

Strive's vibrant color system not only adds visual appeal but also serves as a powerful tool in our blog post process.

Each color represents a specific stage in the workflow, allowing us to effectively communicate the next steps and responsible individuals. Here's how we utilize these colors:

1. Not Started (Red): When I create a New Draft, it automatically adopts the Not Started status with a striking red color. This signals to the assigned writer that the blog post is ready to be written.
2. Writing (Orange): Once the writer begins working on the draft, they transition the post status to Writing, accompanied by an eye-catching orange hue. This change lets me know that the post is in progress.
3. Editing (Yellow): When the draft is completed and ready for review, the writer updates the post status to Editing, represented by a vibrant yellow shade. This notifies me that the post requires my attention for further review and revisions.
4. Complete (Green): After I finish the edits and consider the post ready for publication, I switch the status to Complete. The post box promptly transforms into a reassuring green color.

Green plays a vital role for us, as Strive offers an optional setting that automatically publishes any Complete (green) post according to its scheduled date and time in the WordPress Editor. This feature significantly saves time. However, it necessitates diligent checking of dates and times whenever we “go green.”

Finally, once a post is successfully published, it transitions to black, indicating that the entire process is complete.

By employing this color-coded system, we maintain an organized workflow, ensuring clear communication and seamless progression throughout the content creation process. Let's explore more valuable features and benefits that Strive brings to the table.

Seamless Integration with Your Main Content Calendar

Strive's individual blog content calendars simplify our blog workflow tremendously. However, what about our main Asana calendar, where we track all the deliverables associated with our topics?

Transcribing each WordPress post into Asana would be a tedious and time-consuming task. Luckily, our remarkable Dev Team devised an ingenious solution using Zapier.

Through a custom Zap, triggered whenever a new draft is created in WordPress, the draft seamlessly transfers into our Asana content calendar, specifically the “New Blogs” section I established.

The Zap automatically assigns the corresponding task to me, ensuring I receive an alert about the presence of the draft. From there, I simply navigate to Asana and effortlessly drag the post into the appropriate topic section.

It's an absolute triumph, streamlining our workflow and eliminating the need for duplicate efforts.

The Takeaway

The Strive Content Calendar is an invaluable asset for creators. It offers a wealth of features and benefits that can revolutionize your content management process all at a very reasonable price.

For only $7 per month, you gain access to all the remarkable features we've discussed and more. Not to mention, the first two weeks come free of charge.

Consider the value of your time, which is estimated at around $100 per hour. With Strive, you'll be paying less than half a cent per hour, making it an incredibly cost-effective solution. Factor in the time-saving advantages it provides, and it's an absolute steal.

Ready to experience the power of Strive firsthand? Click the button below and embark on a test drive that will transform the way you manage and organize your content.

Start optimizing your content process with Strive today!

TRY STRIVE CONTENT CALENDAR FOR FREE FOR 14 DAYS

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Dripping content is a very effective solution.

It's simply a method of releasing content bit-by-bit instead of all-at-once. So, when a new student joins your online course — instead of dropping all 70 lessons on them at once, can “drip” out your course module by module.

It keeps them from getting overwhelmed.

And, keeps them engaged because they have a reason to come back to your site each day/week/month (whatever schedule you set).

So, how do you do it in WishList Member?

Click here for step-by-step instructions on building your membership site using WordPress.

To get started, click on the Content Control menu option in WishList Member:

You'll first need to make sure the Content Scheduler feature is enabled, so click on the “Settings” link:

Then click the enable toggle next to the “Enable Content Scheduler” option:

While you're here, you can edit the settings for Content Scheduler by clicking the “Settings” button:

As the text here explains, you can set the Page, Message or URL members will see if they try to access content that is scheduled but they don't yet have access to:

There's several ways this could happen, but you can set what they'll see by editing the options here. We've included a basic message, by default.

Next, select the “post type” you'd like to edit. This will usually be your posts or pages, BUT if you (or a plugin you're using) have created a custom post type for the content you're dripping, you can still select that post type here:

Next, select the post you'd like to edit the scheduling settings for:

Then, select “Set Content Schedule (Drip)” from the dropdown:

In the dialog box that appears, select the membership level(s) that you'd like to apply the schedule to. You can select one or multiple levels:

Next, set the number of days after the member registers that you'd like the content to start showing. In this case, we want the post to show right away to new members, so we select 0 days:

Next, you set the number of days you'd like the post to “show for”. In this case, we want it to always show, so we'll leave it blank:

Then, click the “Set Content Schedule” button.

You'll now see the schedules for each post in the post list:

You can edit or delete a schedule by clicking the icons that will appear when you hover over a post:

And, that's it. Your content is now scheduled! Of course, this is a basic example. Let's take a look at a more advanced setup option for Content Scheduler to drip content:

With this setup, the selected post would show to the member 7 days after they register to the selected membership level — and show for 14 days before “disappearing” again.

As you can see, there's lots of creative uses for this. Dripping out a course, managing an onboarding sequence, displaying time-limited content and a whole lot more. The Content Scheduler can drip content to your members based on the schedule you set.

Just part of our continued commitment to innovate and lead the industry in bringing you the tools you need to more easily and effectively run your online business.

Enjoy!

Tracy Childers
Founder, WishList Products

P.S. And, of course, if you haven't grabbed your copy of WishList Member, yet… why not get started, today? You can learn more about the plugin here: https://wishlistmember.com

Click here for step-by-step instructions on building your membership site using WordPress.

To find this new feature, you'll need at least TWO membership levels created in WishList Member. With that in check, you'll see a new tab in the Level edit screen:

Click the “Add Action” button:

This is what you'll see:

You start by selecting a “Trigger” — an event that happens in WishList Member that will kick off an “Action” (that you select). We'll use the “Added to this Level” trigger for our example.

Any time a new member is added to this membership level, this Trigger will fire and our Action will be performed.

What actions can you select?

Here's a look:

And, this is the full list:

• Add to Level(s)
• Move to Level(s)
• Cancel from Level(s)
• Remove from Level(s)
• Add to Pay Per Post
• Create a Pay Per Post
• Remove Pay Per Post

So, how can you use this?

Here's a simple example…

Let's say you offer a free trial membership. Members can sign up for free, get access to a limited part of your membership and then are encouraged to upgrade to the full membership.

When they DO upgrade, you want them removed from your trial membership. With this new feature, here's what you'd do:

1. Go into the settings for your full membership level
2. Create a new action
3. Select “Added to This Level” as the Trigger
4. Select “Remove from Level(s)” as the Action
5. Select your Trial level in the “Levels” dropdown
6. And, set the schedule to “After 0 Days”

Your settings will look like this:

Click the “Add Action” button and you'll now see your action listed in the “Actions” table for this membership level:

And, that's it.

Now, any time one of your free trial members upgrades to a full membership, they'll automatically be removed from the trial level — creating a seamless user experience.

Which makes YOU look good.

And, will help with retaining members.

Which is how you GROW your membership over time.

But, that's a simple example.

Want to have your mind really blown?

Let's say you're a coach and want to use WishList Member to help manage your coaching clients. And, you want individual pages for each coaching client. Creating those pages manually can be a real pain. Well, with this new feature, you don't have to. Take a look at this:

That's right!

When a new member is added to your membership level, you can create a new WordPress post, that's protected using WishList Member's Pay Per Post feature so ONLY that member has access to it — AND you can automatically include their user information in the title of the post.

AND, you can copy the content for this new post from an existing post.

Meaning… you can create a “template” post for all your new coaching clients. Include relevant information, videos, links to parts of the program — whatever you want since it's a WordPress post.

Then, each new coaching client can get their own version of that template, customized with THEIR information, when they sign up for your coaching program. Giving them that individualized experience that's so important.

But, it all 100% automated for YOU!

Pretty sweet!

This feature also supports custom post types — if you want to separate your coaching client pages from your regular posts and pages:

Just make sure you enable “Content Protection” for that custom post type after you create it:

In any case, these are just a few examples of the things you can do with the membership level Triggers and Actions in WishList Member.

Just part of our continued commitment to innovate and lead the industry in bringing you the tools you need to more easily and effectively run your online business.

Enjoy!

Tracy Childers
Founder, WishList Products

P.S. And, of course, if you haven't grabbed your copy of WishList Member, yet… why not get started, today? You can learn more about the plugin here: https://wishlistmember.com