How to Recycle your Ideas


This is the 250th article I've written for my own blog, started way back in May 2010. Do you think each of these 250 articles is an original idea? Not by a long shot.

Even if you've been following this blog for awhile, there are many older articles that you've never seen. Some may be outdated and some may be irrelevant. But some of those articles have great ideas... and you won't know unless I recycle those ideas into my current posts.

That's the strategic reason to recycle your ideas. It's not just something to do when you're stuck for something to write about.

In order to stay a bit organized, I typically look back to what I wrote about in the same month last year. Often I'll find something I haven't written about since - a good candidate for recycling.

The goal is not to simply re-write an article, but rather to expand on the idea. Here are some ways to think about that:
  • Does the article still make sense? Or has it become outdated by changes in technology, your industry, politics, or other? If yes, write about why it's outdated - provide an update.
  • Are there details left out of your original article - on purpose or because you didn't know them at the time? Write about one or more of those details, providing further information on the subject.
  • Do you still agree with the article? If not, write about why not.
  • Can you represent the information in a different way? Try a simple infographic, a bullet list, a quick summary, or an old-fashioned graph.
  • Are there pros and cons? Benefits and risks? How else can you slice and dice the information? Try a simple table format for listing or comparing.
In all of these cases, make sure to include a link to the original article for reference. Note that this works for newsletter articles, too!

photo by timtak / Flickr

Click to Tweet this Article

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to Write About

Image
Your website is about what you do and your blog is about why you love what you do. I wish I could say I made that up but I read it somewhere. It has really stuck with me though. What an easy rule to follow! For newsletters and email communication, your content will depend on your strategy and goals. Choose to send either a mostly promotional email or a mostly informational email. I recommend 80% information and 20% promotion – or vice versa. Having this focus makes it clear to your subscribers what to expect. You are better to send two separate emails than to send one email that is 50/50. Each type of email has its place. I can get just as excited about a shoe sale as I do about a new idea. What do your subscribers want to read about (or look at)? That is more important than what you want to write about. (It’s also the difference between blogs and newsletters.) Content creation is one of the big challenges for my newsletter clients. I always tell them that it gets easier
Keep reading »

Is your Sign-up Form CASL Compliant?

Image
You already know about the identification requirements that need to be in the footer of commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to be compliant with CASL : name, mailing address, plus either phone # or email address. Do you know that this information must also be near, or "easily accessible" from, your sign-up form if you want to gain express consent? Take a moment and check your website to see if this contact information is there. Perhaps you have a contact page with this info on it, or have it in your page footer - that's good. You might also put it on your redirect page if you have one. (That's your web page where a new subscriber ends up after clicking 'sign up'.) Also note: "An individual must take action to opt-in to a stated purpose ." Is there a description of what people are signing up for? (It's also a good time to test your form by signing up to make sure it works.) While you're there looking, think about how you can mak
Keep reading »

Count your Contacts: In or Out?

Image
I get it... this anti-spam stuff is onerous and complicated. So you might be thinking that you’ll send your current subscribers a consent request just to be safe. It can’t really hurt anything, can it? Safe, not sorry, right? This is a situation where safety has a significant price tag. Here is an example to show how your current email marketing efforts will be impacted. Let’s say you have a list of 1000 subscribers . (Keep in mind that you may already have express consent from some of them.) We’ll be generous and say you get an average open rate of 25% (industry average is 20%). That means that 250 people open your newsletter, but not always the same 250 people. Out of those 250 who open your email, how many do you think will opt-in? Statistics (and my experience) show that it will be about 30% - in this case, 75 people . With one swift move you've reduced your mailing list from 1000 to 75. Will you continue to publish a newsletter for 75 people? And what about
Keep reading »

Does Your Mother Know What You Do? (Part 2)

Image
It's hard to believe it's been over 4 years since I took my mother to her first (and only) business networking event and wrote about it here . I'm a big fan of the "Mom test" for simplifying our small business marketing messages but I didn't fully appreciate it until yesterday morning. I was driving out Waverley Road taking the long, more scenic route to Bedford with my mom in the passenger seat. Because she's my biggest fan, I was telling her about some of the exciting new things going on with my business. Oh, she was making all the right noises and nodding, as moms will, but that's when it hit me - she really had no clue as to what I was talking about, much less about why it's interesting and valuable work. I thought I passed the Mom test years ago when I explained I do newsletters and websites and generally help small business owners implement their marketing plans. She could, and does, tell people that. But since she's never used
Keep reading »

The Serial Newsletter

Image
TV folks realized a long time ago that ongoing stories keep people coming back. Everyone (my age) will remember General Hospital and the Nescafe ads . Using ongoing story telling as the basis of your newsletter can create that same thirst to know “What’s going to happen next?” This is not a strategy for the uncommitted. It requires planning and writing skill. Your continuing saga may be a real life story or it may be fictional . For either approach you’ll want to sit down and plan your storyline several issues in advance, while creating a vision of where it will go beyond that. If your story is fictional, you can make it exaggerated and funny, or serious and believable... or whatever you can dream up. Perhaps your main character will be your ideal client . Your story could be about the types of problems that you help your clients overcome. Corinne Boudreau, a lawyer, uses a continuing story in this way to illustrate her expertise. She uses realistic circumstances but without
Keep reading »

Don't Dilute Your Message

Image
Let’s say you own a business that sells services to the general public. And, because you are so good at what you do, you also sell different services to other businesses in your industry. This is a common scenario for successful small businesses. You want to start an enewsletter - let’s talk content . Stephanie sells financial advice. She also sells advice to other advisors about how to sell and deliver financial advice. Stephanie's approach to financial advice is unique in her industry and she is a crusader. So when it comes to Stephanie's advice, what content will appeal to both of her target markets? Be interesting or useful to both? Be of value to both? Can you write a list of potential topics? It won't be as long as you might think. The type of financial advice that appeals to you and I is not what financial advisors want. A diagram of all the possible content might look like this: If you have two distinct target markets, you need to find content that will
Keep reading »

How I Emptied My Inbox!

Image
This is what an empty inbox looks like! It's the first time I've seen mine like this in at least a couple of years, maybe longer. It looks kind of strange, doesn't it? Even a little hard to get used to. What a boost of self-gratification I got from accomplishing this (been patting myself on the back ever since). So much so that I'm now determined and motivated to keep it this way. Does this mean that I have nothing to do? That all my action items are completed? Not by a long shot - but now they're not staring me in the face all the time distracting me. My inbox will no longer be used as an ineffective to-do list. Now I realize this is a bit of psychological manipulation - it's all about my state of mind. But I've learned that my state of mind is about the most important consideration to accomplishing anything. What brought about this most awesome accomplishment? A handy little online app called Follow Up Then . It is by far the most useful ap
Keep reading »

Get Read to Get Ranked

Image
Years ago when I first started doing email newsletters, each new client had questions about writing the introduction to their very first issue. Eventually, I prepared a tip sheet for new clients and also posted the info on my blog thinking it might be useful to others. That was in 2012. Three years later I realized 2 things: the advice I was giving needed to be refined/updated and this was the top-performing post on my blog (by far!) so others were indeed finding it useful. I published a refreshed version with a similar subject line. That was in 2015. Now you can see that these two posts account for a huge chunk of the traffic: all-time stats 2010-2019 And you can see what that organic traffic is searching: all-time stats as of 2010-2019 These readers didn't come to my blog because I did something magic to get Google to rank the posts. People came (and still come) because it's a topic they're interested in and the information is useful. (If you search &
Keep reading »

A Marketing Strategy Gone Wrong

Image
The first thing I said when he answered the phone was, "Josh, I really feel sorry for you today!" Josh is a pleasant fellow who answered the phone last Thursday when I called the Centre for Arts and Technology in Halifax. I was just a little upset. I was pretty sure that mine wasn't the first call of this sort that he had received, and it wouldn't be the last. It started when I received 17 identical promotional emails to 17 imaginary Daley Progress employees from the Centre for Arts and Technology back on April 17th. ( Click here to get the back story on our imaginary staff.) That's the footer of an email addressed to mikehopkins@daleyprogress.com. (There is no Mike Hopkins.) At the time I replied and asked for all email addresses ending in my domain name to be deleted from their mailing list. Of course, I also took the time to preach a little about the dangers of buying mailing lists. I was disappointed that a reputable organization had been duped .
Keep reading »