Producing value added content in any format consistently is hard work without a process.
This is a BIG problem that we’ve faced at InvisiblePPC. We’ve tried different solutions but have failed every time. In addition, if you’re the owner/entrepreneur, this should not be up to you to solve. You are the most valuable resource of the company and tasks like this should not be yours to deal with.
“Within a beehive, the most important member of the entire colony is the Queen Bee who lays eggs and sustains the entire colony. The concept is that within your business you have a ‘Queen Bee Role’” – Mike Michalowicz
Value-added content is not easily produced without a strategy and delivery plan. It’s easy to think of a topic, easy to send an email, but to CONSTANTLY do this over and over, unsystematically, take its toll on you in about a month – eventually, you’ll hate it. Not only will you hate it, but because you hate it – the process stops.
Today, we’ll be sharing with you how we wrote 52 weeks of content emails in less than 24 hours.
What’s awesome about our process is that both Rob Warner, founder at InvisiblePPC and Joe Troyer, CMO and partner at InvisiblePPC, barely need to lift a finger! All this was accomplished in less than 24 hours because of the system we built and our team.
This is a fool-proof system that was developed to protect Rob and Joe and their roles in the company. A system that can create sustainable content delivery with little to no effort from the owners.
Luckily we’re no stranger to fool-proof content delivery systems…
We use a similar system for Joe’s podcast:
Joe keeps a list of cool people (to which he is constantly adding names) that he wants to interview and he just shows up and DOES the interview. His team does all the work to invite the guests, and actually get them booked (really the hard part), do guest research, come up with potential questions, and finally do all the post production to get it out the door and to you.
Just like the podcast we needed to create a process that is highly leveraged for Joe & Rob (business owners).
The Apps You Need
- Google Docs – this is where we drafted the emails and where Joe and Rob enumerated their 26 favorite things.
- ActiveCampaign – this is where we entered the messages from Google Docs as emails and then scheduled them accordingly. You can use a different email broadcast platform, as long as it will let you schedule emails.
The Favorite List
The first thing we had to do was create a list of categories or topics that we wanted to write emails about. Things we wanted to share with our readers aka you.
Rob and Joe came up with:
- Favorite Apps/Software
- Favorite Things (can be objects, workout routine, training, website, etc)
- Favorite Books
How We Wrote The Emails
- Joe’s style is short, simple, and extremely to the point…. Let’s just say, blunt. Add in a bit of humor and some real-life situations. Images/GIFs are a must to portray humor.
- Rob’s Style is long and detailed – seldomly short. Rob goes into detail what the product is, what he gained, and how it works/how to use it.
- You MUST add images. This transforms a boring transcript into a great email.
- Always use affiliate links for your products. Since you want people clicking and buying, you might as well get something in return for it.
- All emails should be EVERGREEN. This means that you cannot put a specific date or even year (the phrase ‘rest of the year’ is a no-no too). You also cannot do the “in my previous email” sentence. Each email should be independent from one another.
How We Fit 52 Emails To Our Calendar
Planning this wasn’t simple, because we have a lot of emails going out each week. You need to pick a dedicated day, and time for this to go out. It HAS to be the only one to go out for that day, or at least, if unavoidable, be the very first one to go out.
Tuesday’s & Thursdays – Are days we typically run new webinars
Monday’s & Wednesdays – Are important days to promote any webinars we run
We ended up picking Friday as there were typically no other emails going out to InvisiblePPC subscribers.
I’m sure you’re dying to know – what happens after 52 weeks?
The answer: REPEAT!
The chances of your clients remembering the email you sent 1 year ago is slim to none, so all you have to do is reschedule the same list for another 52 weeks.
Conclusion
And there you have it – a step-by-step guide on how we wrote 52 weeks of content emails in less than 24 hours.
So to recap, all you need to do accomplish this is to come up with a list of 52 of your favorite things (apps, books, routines, etc), document everything in Google Docs, get access to an email scheduling service like Active Campaign, look for someone who can write the emails for you and then choose a schedule for the emails to go out, and then plot them. It’s that simple! 😉
