Get To Work! How To Make Your Content Work For You

Many small business owners, especially those with an online presence, understand the importance of writing and publishing a blog or newsletter. Without fail, they write well-researched, relevant content and email it out to their customers and prospects, hoping to gain sales and customers.

What these small business owners/authors don’t realize is that they are leaving easy money on the table! It’s simple to make your content work for you – after it’s initial job!

Are you leaving money on the table by not re-using your #blog articles? Click To Tweet

I’m currently working with Ken, the owner of a local brick-and-mortar store; a hugely successful garden center. One of the reasons his business is so successful, even during periods of economic challenges and major road construction, and is still able to compete head-to-head with the Big Box stores in town, is through the quality content that is emailed weekly to subscribers. Ken knows the power of content!

Since the garden center is known as the place to go to for local plants, garden supplies and knowledge, at first glance it looks like all that weekly content is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: establish credibility and bring people in the door.

There’s work to write, edit, and publish each article. But after the customers are at the garden center, the content is no longer working on Ken’s behalf.

101215-SockDrawerMoneyIt like the old adage: make your money work for you. Most people agree that it’s better to get even the tiniest fraction of interest on money in a savings account than to have the money sitting in a sock drawer, lazing around. Money earning interest, even a miniscule amount, is money that is working.

So why not treat articles the exact same way? What do you do with your articles after you send out your newsletter or publish them on your blog?

If you archive it on your website and then forget about it, it’s the same as letting your money watch bad daytime TV while hanging out in your sock drawer! Content you’ve already written can be put work for you – bringing in additional dollars from a brand-new market.

Ken and I are working to take all the great content that has been created for the garden center’s newsletter and refreshing and repackaging it into books that will be sold on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major on-line retailers.

Publishing books is a great way to increase the revenue of a brick-and-mortar store. Click To Tweet

Even though it seems like a cut-off market, written specifically for this area, the gardening tips, tricks, and techniques are relevant for other gardeners facing similar challenges. The articles are relevant, well researched, and written by a gardening expert.

Just for the record: this is NOT just grabbing a dozen blog articles, slapping a cover on it, and calling it a book! We’re using the materials as the FOUNDATION for a book!

The brick-and-mortar store is the local market leader, hands down. While it brings in the lion’s share of all gardening dollars locally, at some point, there are few additional local dollars to be had. But by using the existing content as the roots of a book, we are able to add an additional revenue stream into the business and expand the potential client base far beyond a local reach.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist the gardening pun!)

Ken has already spent the time to write and edit the articles. And it’s paid for itself in customers walking into the store. But, each week, new content has to be written and edited for that week’s newsletter. Then the customers come into the store.

101215-WritingIsLikeExercisingJust like vitamins or exercise, it’s a never ending cycle: write the article, email it out, and get customers. Repeat weekly for consistent results.

Through a one-time re-writing and publishing process, the same root content can start earning passive income as books.

Is your content working for you? Is it bringing you revenue from the largest retail website in the world? Or is it just archived on a website or hard drive? Find that great already-written content and let it work for you!

In fact, you can register at FinallyWriteYourBook.com for a free training: “Finally Write Your Book: 7 Steps to Easily Write Your First Draft” where I give you my complete 7-step system for using the content you already have as the base framework for your book!

Kim Galloway
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