Leverage your blog posts

If you write regularly for your blog, you’ll be generating a wealth of information around your area of expertise.  If you’re running a business and understand the power of marketing you probably also create social media posts, newsletters, and, possibly, YouTube videos, a podcast, a lead funnel and even email campaigns.

It all sits under the heading of content marketing.  And it means you have to write a lot!

But if you already write a blog, most of these other things can be extrapolated from your original blog posts.  This is how we do it for our own marketing and for our clients.

Social media posts:  Take one line quotes from your blog post and use it on social media to intrigue and engage potential readers, then add the hashtags and link to your blog.  Sometimes I have to edit a bit to make a line work as a stand-alone, but that takes a moment!  From one blog post you might get five or more social media posts.

Newsletters:  Nobody reads newsletters that are literally your news.  They’re not interested in what you do (or have done), but they are interested in what they get.  That means you need to lead with an article that has value.  Your blog posts are perfect.  Maybe not the whole article, but the first 3-4 paragraphs, with a ‘read more’ button linked to your blog.  It will improve your newsletter open rates and people visiting your website

YouTube video: If you use a platform such as Invideo.io you can drop in your blog article and it will create a whole video for you.  Or you could simply do a talking head video and narrate it using an autocue on your screen, so you stay looking into the camera.

Podcast: This is even easier than video as you don’t have to tidy your hair or smile at the camera!  You can use an app, such as Anchor to create your podcast.  Find some royalty free music for your intro and outro (or persuade a musician you know to create something original for you) and graphics to represent your brand.  Once it’s set up, you simply upload to your chosen platforms.

Lead funnel: Building your list is a valuable way to grow a community of people who have actually told you they’re interested.  If you nurture them well, they’ll turn into customers.  A lead funnel is the most effective way to do this.  You offer something that is of specific interest to your ideal customer, your lead magnet – free of charge – and they provide their name and email in order to get it.  Usually this is a report or document that is available as a download from your website.  With a bank of blogs to draw upon, you can edit three or four blogs on one subject into a valuable report or guide that will help the reader.  However, remember that your lead magnet is only the first level of your funnel.  There will be other elements to build.

Email campaigns: Nurturing your list keeps them interested.  A newsletter will help, but if you want to promote a specific product or service, an email campaign that includes something of value as well as your promotion works better than just a sales pitch.  Draw on your blogs for relevant tips to lead each email with.

And don’t forget you can also post your blog as an article on your LinkedIn profile in its entirety and many community networks have opportunities to post member’s blogs too.