3. Blog Editorial Plan

_The blog is where Breadwinner earns authority, ranks in search, and gives the social team something substantial to point at. It is also our only channel that compounds._

Dependency to flag now: the site does not have a blog section yet. Recommended

build: articles at /blog with proper titles, meta descriptions, sitemap and RSS, so

each post can rank. Ask the Breadwinner team to build it before the editorial calendar

starts, see §3.6.

3.1 What the blog is for

Rule: the blog never posts generic "5 ways to save money" filler. Every piece must contain something only Breadwinner can say: real prices, real mechanics, or real data.

3.2 Editorial pillars

3.3 The first twelve briefs

_Each is written to be published in the order shown. Target 1,200–1,800 words unless noted._

1. How Botswana's grocery retail actually works

Pillar A · Intent: curiosity + authority · Target angle: "grocery retail Botswana", "supermarket chains Botswana" Outline: the players and their formats (chain supermarket vs wholesaler vs spaza) → how a chain buys, distributes and prices → why location and format change the price of the same tin → where the margin hides → what this means for your basket. CTA: "You can't change how they price. You can measure what you pay: scan a slip." Internal links: product demo article #12, basket watch #3.

2. Why the same item costs different prices in different shops

Pillar A · Intent: high-volume question · Target angle: "why are prices different", "cheapest supermarket Botswana" Outline: identical product, three prices: the anatomy of the gap → what drives it (volume, supplier terms, store format, stock rotation, promotions) → the "promotion trap" (a promoted price that's still higher than elsewhere) → how to check your own basket. CTA: free plan, 10 slips a month. Internal links: #12, #6.

3. Basket Watch: what a Gaborone grocery basket costs this month

Pillar C · Format: recurring, monthly, 800–1,200 words · Target angle: "grocery prices Gaborone", "cost of living Botswana" Outline: what's in the reference basket (state it precisely) → total this month vs last month → the three items that moved most → what a family of five should expect to spend → method note. Data source: the platform's aggregated, consenting-user price data (see §3.5). CTA: "Want this for your own basket? Scan a slip."

4. Feeding a family of five on a plan, not a prayer

Pillar B · Intent: evergreen practical · Target angle: "grocery budget Botswana", "meal plan Botswana" Outline: a realistic monthly figure → the three baskets most families buy (staples, fresh, household) → where the money leaks → a worked one-month plan → the weekly rhythm that makes it stick. CTA: the product makes the plan measurable.

5. The unit-price trap: why the big pack isn't always cheaper

Pillar B · Intent: genuinely useful, screenshot-worthy · Target angle: "unit price", "bulk buying worth it" Outline: price per kg/litre vs shelf price → three real examples where bulk lost → when bulk genuinely wins → how to compute it in your head (and in the app, where the unit cost is extracted from the slip). CTA: "Our app shows unit cost for every line on your slip."

6. What loyalty programmes actually give you

Pillar A · Intent: high curiosity · Target angle: "loyalty programme Botswana", "is loyalty worth it" Outline: how store loyalty schemes are designed → what the data they collect is worth → worked example of a points basket → when loyalty beats price and when it doesn't → the honest conclusion: measure, don't assume. CTA: Breadwinner points are earned on what you already buy, anywhere.

7. Reading inflation in your own trolley

Pillar C · Intent: news-adjacent, linkable · Target angle: "food inflation Botswana", "cost of living" Outline: why the national figure doesn't match your receipt → the staples that move first → a simple personal inflation calculation from your own slips over 90 days → what to do about it. Data source: platform aggregates + the user's own history (a Premium feature, 90-day window).

8. Seasonal eating in Botswana: what's cheaper when

Pillar B · Intent: evergreen, seasonal re-promotion · Target angle: "seasonal produce Botswana", "cheap vegetables Botswana" Outline: calendar of local produce → best-value months → preserving and batch cooking in glut months → what to avoid out of season.

9. How to teach household money without lectures

Pillar B · Intent: shareable, emotional · Target angle: "teaching kids about money", "family budget" Outline: make the invisible visible (the slip) → a weekly five-minute routine → involving teenagers in the shop → the "one number" habit.

10. The trolley audit: find P100 this month

Pillar B/A hybrid · Intent: conversion-adjacent · Target angle: "how to save money on groceries" Outline: the five minute audit anyone can do with last month's slips → the four leakage patterns (brand creep, pack-size drift, promotion chasing, forgotten items) → how to fix each → proof from our own users. CTA: strongest of the set: "scan three slips and we'll show you yours."

11. How we compare your basket (and how we protect your data)

Pillar D · Intent: trust + branded search · Target angle: "Breadwinner how it works", "Breadwinner privacy" Outline: how the comparison is made, item by item → how we normalise units so 1kg compares to 1kg → what we do and don't do with receipts → the four separate permissions a user controls → how to opt out. CTA: none, this page exists to remove doubt.

12. From slip to insight in ten seconds

Pillar D · Intent: product explainer · Target angle: "Breadwinner receipt scanner", "receipt scanning Botswana" Outline: what happens when you snap a slip (in plain language, no ML jargon) → what the app gets right and when it asks you to check → what you see first → what to do with the insight. Internal links: linked from most other articles; the most-shared evergreen piece.

3.4 Cadence

• Launch: 3 articles live before any paid spend (recommended: #12, #1, #2) so paid

traffic lands somewhere substantial.

• Then: 2 articles per week for six weeks, then 1 per week, plus the monthly Basket

Watch.

• Re-promote: the monthly data post is re-shared on social every month; explainers

get resurfaced quarterly; seasonals return on schedule.

3.5 The content engine nobody else has

Breadwinner is accumulating measured prices for staples across Botswana chains. With aggregated, consenting users' data we can publish:

• Monthly Basket Watch: a fixed reference basket, tracked month on month.
• Staples index: the ten items that matter most (maize meal, bread, milk, oil,

sugar, rice, chicken, eggs, tea, soap), with movement.

• "Cheapest basket" features, which chain wins for a given basket this month.
• Price-move alerts as content: "oil moved 6% this month; here's what it does to a

family's month."

This is our moat. No competitor, journalist or blog in Botswana can write it because nobody else is reading the slips.

Consent gate (non-negotiable): only users who have opted into anonymised and market-wide insight participation are included, never individual attribution, never a named user's basket, and always with a stated methodology and sample size.

3.6 Technical requirements for the blog

To make any of this rank and convert, the site needs:

Breadwinner's team can build this in the existing Next.js app; it needs sign-off on the approach (files in the repository vs. an admin-managed editor). Decision needed.

Update 2026-10-05: the approach is now proposed — see

document 7: Blog Build Plan for the recommendation (repo-managed

MDX) and the full decision list.