You work very hard as an Internet marketer. Sometimes, it might seem like all you do is work. Don’t you wish there was a way to squeeze 5X more value out of everything you do?
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is to leverage my content. Use content in more than one way to squeeze every last drop of income from it.
Another very important lesson I’ve learned is to take advantage of all kinds of promotion, relationship building, and content generation. Some people respond best to articles and blog posts. Others respond best to video and audio. Still others learn best from hands-on tasks, such as checklists.
If you want to grow as a marketer, it’s important to pay attention to all of these things. You’ll reach so many more people on so many more levels. People will read what you have to say, watch what you have to say, and hear what you have to say. Best of all, they’ll put what you have to say in practice.
Many marketers shy away from exploring these different forms of content production and promotion. It’s completely understandable— it never seems like there are enough hours in the day. Not to mention that doing things like creating a video might seem foreign to you if you’re more comfortable writing content. Or creating a podcast or running a webinar might seem totally out of reach if you’ve never done it before.
It’s time to bust out of your comfort zone and push yourself to the limits of what you can accomplish in one-day. One of the best things about challenging yourself to create more is that you cut through the clutter and the self-doubt.
You’re fueled on adrenaline and excitement. You’re ready to overcome technical challenges and don’t care at all that “you haven’t done it before.”
Your challenge— you’re going to create one amazing piece of content and turn it into at least five different kinds of amazing content. By the end of this, you’re going to have:
- An audio file
- An article suitable for publishing
- A list building download
- A video
- A hands-on learning activity that can be part of mentorship, coaching, or value building
This list isn’t the be-all, end-all, but it’s a fantastic place to start. Feel free to mix and match if you’d like, since no two businesses are alike. You might benefit more from a webinar, transcript, video, list building teaser, and sellable product (Yes! You’ll be done by the end of the day).
If you’re stuck though, my best advice is just to go for it. There are a million and one ways you can get this done, but I’m going to give you what I think are the easiest steps to make it happen.
Is this challenge worth it? Let’s break it down.
How many more visitors would you get with one spectacular article posted to ezines, niche publications, and your own website?
How much traffic would you get from a helpful, targeted video on YouTube?
How quickly could you build your list with a highly sought after, unique, free download?
How many people could you attract by releasing a podcast or audio download, for people who only have time to listen to marketers in their cars or while doing laundry or what have you?
What if you combined all of these marketing and content creation methods into one action packed day? I’m sure you can imagine just how spectacular the results will be.
On an average day, you might get one of these projects done— two if you’re quite prolific. Today (or however much time you set aside), you’re going to get FIVE of these done, posted, and released. This is just one day, but the results are likely to be very significant for you. You’ll further cement yourself in the marketplace, you’ll get more traffic, you’ll get more subscribers, and you’ll get more sales.
Your Focus and Goals
Your exact results depend on your focus, of course. Maybe you want to grow readership to your blog. Maybe you want to promote one of your products. It’s important to think about your goal before you get started.
This is a choice I can’t make for you. If you’re just starting out, your goal might be to get traffic to a new website and start to make a name for yourself in the niche. If you’re more established, you might want to funnel traffic to a very specific project of yours.
Don’t dwell too long on this decision. The important thing is that you pick a worthwhile focus and decide what kind of outcome you’d like. You’ll be a lot more successful if you’re sure of your goals.
If you want to make sales with this challenge, write it down.
If you want to get more traffic with this challenge, write it down.
Write your goal down so you have something to shoot for.
An Overview of the 5 Types of Content You’ll Create
Ready? Here you go!
I’ve recommended you create:
- An audio file
- An article suitable for publishing
- A list building download
- A video
- A hands-on learning activity that can be part of mentorship, coaching, or value building
I’ll give you an overview of each style of content, as well as how each piece relates to the next. You’re going to get 5X the results without doing 5X the work.
An Audio File
Half of the battle is getting up the motivation to move forward. Sometimes you’re on fire and you can get something like an article out very fast. Other times, you sit there and stare at a blank screen for what seems like forever.
That’s a big reason why creating an audio file is one of the best ways to get started. It’s much easier to come up with a subject and just talk about it. Talking isn’t challenging or scary. You don’t have to have an audience there. Simply come up with a topic your audience will relate to, come up with some talking points, and record yourself speaking for about 20-30 minutes— longer, if the subject warrants it, or shorter, if need be.
There are tons of different ways you can do this. If you’d like you can schedule an interview with someone else so you can bounce off of each other. For this challenge, though, you might want to be self-reliant to eliminate the possibility of delays and hiccups. Remember— you only have today to get 5 types of content finished and ready to go. Record yourself and you have easy content.
First things first— what do you want to talk about? Come up with a hot subject your listeners and readers (or potential listeners and readers) will really respond to. If you’re selling a product, come up with a great pre-selling angle that will get people warmed up for whatever it is you’re promoting. Always keep the goal of your content in mind. Consider what today’s challenge is dedicated to achieving.
Now then, go to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and download the free audacity software. Sketch out your talking points, pretend you’re talking directly to someone in your audience, and talk away! Keep on topic, stay interesting, and don’t worry too much about how you sound. Focus your energy on being helpful and sticking with your goals and talking points.
Save your audio file when you’re finished. You’re going to use this file as the basis for creating the rest of your content. This recording took you about 30 minutes to create… it’s going to be easy to get the rest of the content types finished since the theme of the content now has shape.
After you finish the audio, it’s time to do something with it! You’ll want to use it quickly and efficiently. Send it to your list, send it to affiliates to send to their lists, put it up for sale, load it up to iTunes, use it as a list builder, put it up on your membership site. Use whatever is available to you right now and get it into the hands of customers, readers, or whatever you think will drive traffic, make sales, or achieve your goal. Use this audio in more than one place!
In part 2 of this topic, we’ll talk about what’s next.
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