ProBlogger always has some great advice. Today I wanted to write about a ProBlogger post from yesterday, but I ran into today’s post, How Small Victories Help You Create Big Products for Your Blog. So, I decided to write about this one instead. In this guest post by Paul Cunningham from Blogging Teacher, repurposing your old blog content into a new info products is discussed. The point is that you have content – why reinvent the wheel? Just use what you have, you’ve already worked hard enough!
I’m going to summarize some of his tips:
Grab some of your old blog posts and repurpose into a killer info product. He’s right, you will have new visitors to your blog, but they will never see your great info from months, or even years back. They will only read the new stuff. So bundle up that old stuff and create an ecourse or free short report or if you have a great many posts, maybe your first ebook! Use that new product to build your mailing list.
My advice is if you go this route, do more than just copy and paste your blog posts in to Word and PDF them. Take the time to format them correctly. Add in some nice images and get an ecover made. Then setup a separate URL specifically for the product, in addition to your blog URL – even if you’re giving it away for free. This makes it a true “product” and it’s easier to promote: “Go to www.improveyourinfoproducts.com” vs. “Please visit my blog at www.gwentanner.com, then look in the right menu and find the link that says improveyourinfoproducts.com and click that and follow the instructions…”
Create a membership site centered around your old blog posts. Now, here’s a nifty idea. Take your old, but awesome, content and enhance it with multimedia. Convert it to video tutorials or supplement the text with video presentations. Convert old posts to podcasts, or just add a downloadable MP3 file to go along with the post (super easy because all you have to do is record yourself speaking). Then get a simple to use membership script (this allows your buyers to create a user name and password to access your protected content) and start selling access to your membership site. You can even have a number of different membership levels that can access different content types.
The key here is that it’s content you’ve already created, you’re only enhancing it. So most of the work is done, you just have to decide on which membership script to use.
With all of that said, are you now going to go through all of your old blog posts and see if you can get started on your product?
Follow me on Twitter: KarenWWehrle
Ooh, good one! I’ll keep this in mind for when my blog isn’t quite so new, because I could use a product, that’s for sure. Thanks!
Follow me on Twitter: melaniekissell
The whole time I was reading this, Gwen, I kept thinking how we humans are always trying to COMPLICATE matters and make more work for ourselves. Not really sure why we do that, but we do!
What you’ve offered here is a SIMPLE solution and strategy for recycling all the hard work we’ve already done.
Makes total sense. Thank you!
Melanie
Melanie Kissell´s last blog ..Tweeps and Twitters and Peeps, Oh My!
Follow me on Twitter: ToddTemaat
You know, David Meerman Scott has turned his blog into several best selling books on Amazon as well as a ton of free reports. And now he’s a recognized expert on New Media because of it.
Another great tip is to do your posts in video for your blog. Then have them converted to audio for a podcast and transcribed for article submissions and/or products. Then you get triple duty from one post from the very beginning. Truly beginning with the end in mind, huh?
Todd Temaat´s last blog ..Blog Traffic Getting Plugin for WordPress Review
Follow me on Twitter: YvonneAJones
This is a really great recommendation. I’ve recently taken some of my older posts from late 2008 to early 2009, made some changes and re-published them. However, you’ve taken it a step further – re-purpose into “a killer info product.” Love it! Thank you, Gwen for this excellent post. Yvonne
Yvonne A Jones´s last blog ..5 Ways to Grow and Expand Your Business for Success Online
Follow me on Twitter: gwenatanner
In response to Yvonne’s comment:
Hi Yvonne,
Its amazing how hard we can work ourselves, isn’t it? Good luck, I’m going to go through some old content to see if I can use it in my blog and next product as well!
Thanks for visiting,
Gwen
Follow me on Twitter: gwenatanner
In response to Todd’s comment:
Hi Todd,
That’s cool – converting for Amazon. Great idea, I’m going to keep that in mind. I sometimes (sometimes) think videos may be quicker – so that’s a thought, create a bunch of videos for your YouTube channel – then make ebook products out of it. Like in reverse.
Gwen
Follow me on Twitter: gwenatanner
In response to Melanie’s comment:
Hi Melanie,
Thats so true – analysis paralysis. It’s like a plague. Then add in worry, procrastination and confusion and you have a recipe for doing nothing LOL!
Thanks for visiting,
Gwen
Follow me on Twitter: gwenatanner
In response to Karen’s comment:
Hi Karen,
I think you might have a good amount with #blog30! You have a cool topic, perfect for video!
Thanks for visiting,
Gwen