Experts Blog

Don’t Reduce: Reuse and Recycle Your Content with Email Marketing

By Erika Napoletano on Nov 15, 2011 - 04:28 PM

When you publish a blog post, do you ever feel like it’s lost in the ether within an hour or so after tweeting it or posting on your Facebook page or LinkedIn profile? It’s not surprising to feel that way, especially when Sysomos published a study last year demonstrating that 92% of retweets happen within the first hour. So once a tweet’s been sent and you’ve posted your blog or article everywhere, how can you get even more mileage out of your content?

Email marketing is the answer.

It’s a three-step process to reuse and recycle all of the great pieces you’ve created for your blog: identify, schedule, push. Let’s go over the steps and what’s involved with each so you can be on your way to making even more out of your existing and future content.

Step #1: Identify

Not every blog post or article you write is going to be recyclable. If you write timely posts about current events or industry trends, you’ll find those to be outdated quickly. However, when you write blog posts that are broader and more “big think” than “small nuance,” you’re in prime territory for identifying content that can be reused at a later date. Go through your blog and existing article archives if you do article marketing on third-party sites like eZineArticles and make a list of all the pieces you can potentially reuse.

Step #2: Schedule

You have a list of blog subscribers – now’s the time to put it to use! Take that listing of articles and blogs you identified and go back to the pieces with dates furthest from today’s. Now, use the email marketing platform of your choice and create an email newsletter that introduces your audience to your older content. You don’t have to tell them it’s old, though! This is a great way to reframe your existing pieces into a current-day context, applying them to headlines in your industry and other trends where they might be applicable. Schedule the email to go out. The great part about this step is that you can get a few email blasts scheduled at once.

Step #3: Push

When your email goes out, be sure to watch your Google Analytics for click through information as well as statistics like open rate and clicks from your email marketing provider. Remember – the goal of the newsletter remarketing is to drive traffic back to your site, so just post a teaser or excerpt from the article into the newsletter body and a link like, “Click to continue reading” to get your audience where you want them most: your website.

Over time, you’ll see what types of articles resonate the most with your newsletter audience and be able to tailor future issues to contain information they want most. But most importantly, you’ll continue to have a new outlet to reshare your older yet evergreen content so it’s no longer subject to that one-hour Twitter window or fading into the Facebook timeline background.