Repurpose your content

I hear a lot of business people say “I don’t have time to write a newsletter – besides I don’t know what to write.”

Newsletters that are a list of what’s going on in your business are boring.  So what makes a good newsletter – and one that people stay subscribed to?

Answer: VALUE!

If you don’t have time to write a newsletter, think about your potential readers.  How much are they prepared to invest in reading your newsletter?

Let’s look at this from the other end – which newsletters do you actually read?  Why?  And which ones to delete without even opening them – or maybe even get around to unsubscribing from?

My guess is that the reasons you read newsletters is because:

• They have value for you
• They are entertaining and easy to read

I’m a believer in repurposing content – I’m busy too.  It’s not lazy; it’s practical.

The audience that sees your social media posts are not the same people as those who find your blog on your website and, mostly, not the recipients of your newsletter.

Even if you’re connected to the people you want to impress with your knowledge and expertise on social media, there’s no guarantee they’ll see your posts.  Firstly, they may simply not be looking at the time your post goes live and it can be way down the feed by the time they are looking – and how far do most people scroll?  Not that far.

Secondly, people who find your blog on your website are those who you probably don’t know, and who have searched on some terms that have brought up your blog.

Finally, the people who get your newsletter are those who have provided their email address and actively said ‘I’m interested’.

That means your newsletter is reaching people who have already expressed interest.

The cheat sheet for newsletters

If you write a regular blog post, this is how it works:

1. Publish the blog post
2. Break the blog down into shorter stand alone posts for social media, you could even do a series of short videos around individual points.
3. Use the blog as the value lead for your newsletter, followed by your current offer or promotion.

If I’m writing short blog articles for a specialist audience I send the whole article in a newsletter.  But for a more general audience, I’ll lead with the first 2-3 paragraphs of the article with a ‘read more’ button that takes the reader to the full article on my website.  Then continue with an offer or promotion. 

If more than one blog article has been published between newsletters, then I will follow the promotion with more links to the remaining articles – adding even more value.

So – the only time you need is to write the original article for the blog, and then repurpose it (which can be done by an admin assistant or VA to save you time).

In fact, if you don’t want to write the article – give me a call; we do this for clients all the time!