Okay, so it’s just you and me here at the moment, we’re behind closed doors and you’re safe in the inner sanctuary of the Harrisonamy Newsletter so I’m just going to start this lesson by saying:
Sometimes, when it comes to writing articles or blog content, we just want to be lazy.
If you’re like me it drives you nuts when this happens because you’re not a lazy person.
You have no problem with hard work, but sometimes you just get those “nyuh” days where you want to mooch and you don’t want to sit, brainstorm, write and edit…
Unfortunately, if you start skipping your regular content production, your customers will get sad and then they will click around for people who are writing regularly.
And we can’t have your customers being seduced elsewhere. That just wouldn’t be on.
So you can have lazy days and you will still be able to write content with my:
Copywriting Guilty Secret #3: The Lazy Person’s Guide To Writing Content
1. Create a “best of” post – 15 minutes
A round up post of some of your best blog articles, or even articles on other websites makes a great article, especially if you can group it by a particular theme in your business such as “5 articles for marketing on a shoe-string budget.”
New visitors can get a rounded view of what you write and regular readers can find little content gems that they might not have seen before.
2. Create a checklist post – 20 minutes
List posts, like:
“5 reasons why you shouldn’t wear 7 shades of purple lipstick at one time”
(would have really benefited of that when I was 14…)
whilst short, snappy and scannable for your customer, still take a lot of time and effort to create one from scratch.
A “Checklist” post, you can probably create in about 20 minutes maximum AND it’s the kind of thing your customer will keep, bookmark, print out and love.
How it works:
1. Take a process in your business you know how to do inside and out that would be useful for your customers.
2. Jot down all the things you do
3. Tell your readers to keep it, bookmark it, print it and love it when they are doing the same process.
For example:
Your sales-copy checklist
“I have included” (tick when done):
* Relevant images
* Catchy “editorial style” headline
* Strong opening paragraph
* Conversational tone
* Illustrate customer’s pain points
* Introduce the solution
* Create credibility (testimonials)
* Highlight the benefits
* Use emotional language
* Use bullet points
* Explicit call to action
* Include a postscript
Now, I could expand on that and make it a more meaty post, but that took me about 5 minutes to write down. Would my customers find it useful? Yes. And you know what? If you promised them that you were going to come back and look at each individual item in detail at a later date (when the laziness has passed) you’re going to give them a hot reason to come back for more.
3. Turn Old Jeans Content into Hot Pants content – 30-40 minutes
Just like taking a pair of scissors to your favourite pair of jeans to spice them up into hot pants, you can take content you have previously published and re-work it into a new piece. Depending on how much you want to change this can take maybe 30 minutes but is a hell of a lot faster than trying to write a piece from scratch.
With a new title, sub headings and a fresh perspective on your original points it doesn’t take long to give your content a make-over that your readers will love.
Why these techniques work
As consumers of content, we don’t learn from reading once. After reading “The greatest book of inspirational quotes ever” how many do you think you can remember the next day?
Yeah…me too.
The ones you remember and the lessons you remember are the ones you see again and again.
If you repeat your lessons in new formats, your readers are going to feel like they’re really learning from you, like your advice is meaty and has weight and as your messages sink in, you are going to become an invaluable resource to them.
How often can you be lazy?
View this style of producing content as an emergency solution and don’t rely on it for your content strategy. If you’re producing regular content 1-2 times a week I wouldn’t rely on this any more than 2 times a month, and never the same method in a row. You might want to do a checklist, then a best of and then hot pants content in a row and that’s cool.
But remember, your customers will only love these posts if your original posts are great quality. This isn’t a way of churning our poor quality content, this is a way of reusing original fantastic content so that your audience can enjoy it again.
Well that concludes this week’s lesson and I hope you use this now that the summer months are upon us and you might need a little extra time relaxing with your family or loved ones.
Next week we’re going to be dipping into more of the sales side of copy which is
Copywriting Guilty Secrets #4: Why you should copy other’s copy!
And It’s going to be a shorter lesson I promise. I’m working you hard but I know you can take it! 🙂
Take care,
Amy
Find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/littleunred