How to create content for your newsletter

Clients ask me every week, “Fabienne, HOW do you come up with new content for your ezines every single week!? I can barely make the time to write one newsletter a month and I just don’t know what I’d talk about if I wrote it weekly or every other week! I’m busy enough networking, following up on prospects, setting up speaking gigs, and seeing clients that I just don’t have the time to create a brand new article each week!”

I don’t blame them. I used to think the exact same thing. When I first started with my ezine (“enewsletter” was the common term when I started doing one 7 or 8 years ago). I wrote it monthly, at best! Sometimes, MONTHS would go by without me working on one. And when I had my first child, I took an entire year of hiatus from my ezine.

To tell you the real honest truth, it wasn’t because I had a new baby that I didn’t want to write an ezine more often. The real story was that I knew writing one worked so well in attracting clients to me that I was afraid I would attract MORE clients than I could handle. I already had the clients I could handle, and I just didn’t want to be overwhelmed and feel I didn’t know if I couldn’t handle what new ones came my way. (Ever feel that?)

But since I rarely admitted that to others, I used the excuse that coming up with content each week was too hard; I just didn’t have the time that I needed to work on it. I imagined it taking hours and hours to work on one issue and I thought once a month would satisfy my subscribers. But I noticed one thing.

I was utterly FORGETTABLE when I wrote to my subscribers only once a month or every two months. My list wasn’t growing fast and I certainly wasn’t turning more prospects into paying clients with it. I realized that if I wanted to make this ezine thing WORK, then I had to commit to providing high-value, high-content credible ezines on a regular basis and more often.

Today, my ezine is responsible for bringing me the largest majority of my private clients, group clients and purchasers of my home study manuals. I believe it’s a combination of a lot of little things. 1) Creating the Know-Like-Trust factor; 2) being authentic about the struggles I have or have experienced and 3) hands-down, it’s deciding to send it bi-weekly at first, and then after a few months, taking the plunge and going weekly.

So, writing so often meant I had to figure out SYSTEMS for coming up with content and doing it every single week, because NOTHING is worse than sitting there, in front of your computer screen, being on deadline and not knowing what to write about.

With my many clients who are first-timers to writing articles more often, I ask them to make a list of topics for the ENTIRE year. So, if they’re writing bi-weekly, that means coming up with 26 topics by our next session, all in one fell swoop. Then, each time they sit down to write the article, all they have to do is pull out the list and write it, not have to futz around wondering what to write about. Much easier.

This gets them in the habit of writing regularly and we all know that once a habit is formed, it’s hard to break. (I actually look forward to writing my ezine each week. It feels like I’m talking directly to you and that feels like I’m creating that relationship even further each week.)

To be honest, I actually don’t write out a formal list for the year any more. That worked in the beginning for me. Instead, I keep a running list of possible ezine topics on my desk. Some months it’s an actual list on a piece of paper. Right now, I’m into these colorful sticky notes and I have a series of them posted to the right of my computer, each with a topic idea. When I use one idea, like today’s; I simply take the sticky note and throw it in the trash. One down!

The ideas come from a few different places, mostly from my work with private clients. For example, today’s topic came to me because I talked to several clients last week about finding content for their own ezines. If it’s something that they ask me about in private sessions, and it’s coming up often, then it’s probably something my readers who aren’t clients yet are interested in too.

Another source for content is more personal. I find that if I’m learning something new, working on a particular project, or encountering a specific obstacle in marketing, then you probably are too. So I write about that. I talk about the struggle or challenge, and then I share what my process was for solving it. Readers really seem to enjoy that and can relate more to me, even if we haven’t met in person yet.

The idea is to get over the fact that coming up with content is a struggle. Whether you write the list ahead of time for the entire year or you keep a running list of ideas that you add to each time you get inspired in the moment, it doesn’t matter. The key is to write it down and then create the article later.

Your Client Attraction Assignment:

Commit to reaching out to your subscribers more often. And once you do, start writing down some topics ahead of time, so that you don’t ever have to stare at a blank page, wondering what to write about, as the deadline looms. Create systems for this each week, using my ideas above or your own. Whatever’s going to work for you, as long as you systematize it. When you do, you’ll attract just the clients you need, without much effort at all. That’s what happened to me.