Self-publishing is a whole different ball game to the media world that has been my world for the past 16 years. As I embark on building my own newsletter, I find it easier and easier to understand how it is that so many businesses get this wrong.
Writing great content for my newsletter is my top priority; I’m experienced, super-fast at writing, have brilliant contact book … and yet I struggle to get the job done.
Why?
My todo list is one reason: emailing prospects, going to meetings, following up meetings, doing the work, invoicing, payments, the endless technology headaches with Outlook, Mail Chimp, WordPress (my kingdom for a tech helpdesk!) … There’s my daughter, my partner, my family, the holidays, my health, my friends, my garden, my broken back door screen, my, my, my …
I cannot believe how luxurious my life as a content creator has been – until now. As a BRW reporter I walked into the office and sat at my desk to read, interview and write. I went to events, met people. Then I went home and enjoyed the other part of my life.
Online, as editor of LeadingCompany, the pace ramped up enormously … as well as editing, writing and publishing 10 stories a day with just two staff, I was navigating the incredible, exciting and overwhelming world of social media, of webinars, and e-books. I had a million priorities a day, but my tech team was behind me, my publisher, my journalist, my production editor, the marketing team, the CEO running the whole show.
Now, it’s down to me. It’s astonishing how fast the hours fly before I can be where I want most to be and where I am happiest — interviewing fascinating people, reading books, articles and ideas from around our incredible globe, and tapping our stories on my keyboard.
If you are struggling to create “magnetic” content – the kind that pulls readers and converts them effortlessly to customers – I feel your pain.
But this is an unstoppable trend – each of us has the opportunity to reach out to our market (readers) and offer them access to all our knowledge, our excitement, our purpose and our skills in the world of new media that has dubbed us all publishers overnight.
By offering readers quality content – trusted (unbiased), relevant and timely – we are communicating our respect. And what the world needs now is respect, sweet respect.
Creating content to share with your customers, and prospective customers, is more than marketing – it’s one of the ways we can change our world from one in which companies market the old way – misleading and manipulating us into our purchases – to one in which we are all richer for the exchange.