Sheena Bianchini shows how monthly themes keep community members engaged and progressing toward their goals. A theme is a story-driven topic that invites sharing, not a yes/no question. She walks through theme calendars from four communities like Mindbody ONE and Grown Folks Business, showing how to map themes to member needs and unveil them as a small spectacle.
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At exactly that point in time where the conversation might be getting a little bit stale, boom, you have a new monthly theme. Hey Gina, should my monthly themes be like a curriculum where each month you've learned a new topic, or should they be more like jumping off points for the community? Struggling with how to frame them. What you want in a monthly theme is something that people can contribute their stories, their experiences, and their ideas. These are not yes/no questions. These are meaty topics that really allow your members to make connections with other members. And at exactly that point in time where the conversation might be getting a little bit stale, boom, you have a new monthly theme. Monthly themes provide novelty. They give your members a new surface area every month to share their stories, their experiences, and their ideas. And when done right, your monthly themes all ladder up to their best year ever. Now, the trick with monthly themes is that you want something that is big enough for your members to be able to talk about them for a month and that at any point in time, a new member can come in, see that monthly theme, and be able to start participating right away. So to do that, you want your monthly themes to preview progress. Preview progress means that, hey, by doing this, you are on a path to your best year ever. And because there is a new monthly theme every month, you're going to be able to offer your members some novelty that will bring them back. So let me show you some examples. Mindbody ONE is for customers of the software platform Mindbody, and those tend to be wellness practitioners and small business owners. So the kinds of monthly themes that Mindbody ONE has are around how are these wellness practitioners and small business owners able to build the best businesses that they can. So in January, there's goals and goal settings. February is all about customer love, defining your purpose and passion, scaling your business, branding and positioning, taking big bets, improving your customer experience, redefining your processes, planning for the holiday season, building loyalty and customer retention, celebrating your customers. And finally, in December, it is a phenomenal month to reflect and reset. The thing about December for most of us is that the first 2 weeks are super busy and the last 2 weeks are quiet. It's the time for us to be with our families and to also be able to spend some time preparing for the next year. So I actually see this across a lot of different communities, using December as the month for reflection and resetting. That is an example of how they have mapped out monthly themes for their ideal member, those small business owners and wellness practitioners that are all seeking to have their best year ever. What's nice about these is that what you can see is that you can spend an entire month talking about scaling your business, for example, that's April. Alright, here's another example. From Verbal to Visual, which is a community for sketch note takers, their monthly themes again have a really nice balance between things that are universal, talking about new beginnings in January, to topics around nature and outdoors, urban life, music and art, gratitude and giving, reflections. And how to use each of these areas to practice the skills of sketchnotetaking. Let's go to another example. Grown Folks Business. I love this. This is for chefs gearing up to launch their own cooking shows. In January, Cooking Atomic Habits. Again, how do you set up for the year ahead? Using YouTube, business basics, marketing basics, air fryer recipes, Better than Five Guys, better than Chick-fil-A, better than Chipotle, Instant Pot recipes, cooking in a mason jar, vegan Thanksgiving, and filming basics. So you see how you can spend an entire month as a member of this community just on filming basics alone. That is an example of monthly themes. The Rock Retirement Club for recent retirees navigating their retirement journey. This is a paid membership. In, for example, March, they're going to talk about navigating uncertainty. What is a major transition? Going from working to retirement. June, estate planning. July, business planning. October, retirement transition. November, early retirement. And December, ideal retirement. So you can see how, again, new members can come in and they're not going to be disoriented. They're going to be able to immediately start contributing. And so that's the power and magic of monthly themes. They bring novelty to your community. And what's beautiful is you can set them up in advance and sort of think through them. My recommendation is to use your monthly theme for the next month as a little bit of a spectacle ending the current month. So unveil it, make it fun, make it magical because people want novelty. And that is what you're getting with monthly themes. This is People Magic. I'm Sheena Bianchini. Until next time. Woo!
