When I’m busy, one of my favorite things to do is to bring out some old (but great) content and let it make the rounds again. After all, I worked hard on creating that content and if my readers responded well to it, it’s worth giving it that extra push.
For example, if I’m about to go camping for a week and I run out of time to write one of my weekly emails, I’ll dig through some old stuff to find a gem that is relevant to what we’re talking about today. It might be a blog post, a report or even an email that I sent out previously.
I do this for a few reasons:
• I’ve likely gathered plenty of new readers that haven’t seen this useful resource and it’s new information for them.
• Even for those who followed my work back then, not all of them would have seen the content, so sending it out again, gives them something fresh they haven’t seen before.
• It’s a refresher to those who may have seen the content before. Plus, when I reintroduce the content, I try to add something new and valuable to make my readers think on why the information is important.
• It saves me a heck of a lot of time from having to create even more new content from scratch. I produce new content regularly, but a little break now and then is much appreciated.
Look back at previous content you’ve created. Which posts got you the most thank yous, replies or comments? Could you reintroduce that to your audience and give them even more value?
If you’ve got content, you want to bring out again, here are a few things to do:
• Review it to ensure the information is still up to date. Add any extra information that you think will be of interest to your readers.
• Tell your readers why you’re bringing it out again. What takeaways do you want to share or what feedback have you received about the content?
• Spread it around. Share it with your mailing list, post it on social media, allow your affiliates to brand it and more.
• Advertise it. For extremely successful content that leads to product sales, consider setting up a pay-per-click program to generate even more business.
Good content is meant to be shared and reshared. You’ve probably got some gems in your archives, just waiting to be shined and shown again.
When you do this, do you copy it to a NEW post, or do you just tweak and republish the original one?
I just tweak anything that’s necessary (like a date or mention of an event that has passed) and republish the same one. If you want it to appear again at the top of your blog, just change the date to the current date.
Remember you are often emailing your list about the post. Or you’re tweeting about it. Or maybe you added a good-looking graphic that you can post to Pinterest – or Facebook. In those cases you can leave the original date and just point to the URL.
One of the things we forget is that not everyone is keeping up with us. Even if you mailed your list the first time you published the article, many new people have joined since then. Many of those who were subscribed didn’t open the email. And even others opened the email, meant to go read the article, and just didn’t get around to it. So there are multiple reasons.
Bottomline – most of us can use reminders about great content!
SUCH a great idea!! I have been terrible about continuing to contact my email list and this would be a great way to get content for that without having to create anything new.
You’re right, Jeanine. I’ve taken a lot of time off in the past year, using this exact technique. Enjoy!