If you’re like me, your business generates mountains of paperwork, digital documents, e-mails, marketing materials, contracts, research and other “stuff” that you file away every year. I’ve got a lateral filing cabinet full of documents, and hard drives crammed with thousands upon thousands of files. For many of us, we’ve adopted the approach of file and forget—not realizing the enormous marketing goldmine sitting dormant right in front of us.
It’s time to make those bits and bytes you’ve been filing away earn their keep. They’ve been getting free room and board for far too long!
So how can you mine your business assets and reuse them for marketing? It’s pretty easy, actually.
Start sifting through old e-mails to customers, client projects, research, proposals, hand-written notes—you name it. See what you can rewrite, polish up and repurpose for use in marketing your small business. Think about materials you’ve previously written, or research you’ve conducted, that you can repackage to help educate and inform customers, answer their questions, and showcase your experience and knowledge. Keep your eyes peeled! Opportunity is everywhere.
Okay, so you’ve found something you think might work. Now what?
Post It On Your Blog
Condense or rewrite your document and give it a second life as a blog post. Blogs are a great tool for generating traffic to your website, improving search engine penetration, increasing search engine rank and social networking. Often, businesses use blogs as an informal tool for educating prospects.
Create A Checklist
Draw out key points of the document and create a checklist for customers. You can then turn your checklist into a downloadable PDF for your website, to e-mail to prospects, or to print off and hand out in meetings and other business events.
Create A Video Presentation
Summarize the key points of your document and create a PowerPoint presentation. Convert the PowerPoint presentation into a video file, add some audio narration, and voila! You can use the video to promote your website online at popular video sharing websites, such as YouTube.com, or in CD and DVD presentations.
Create A Podcast
Record an audio narration of your document, or pull out key points and discuss those in a recording. Then, convert the audio file into MP3 format and upload them to popular file sharing websites, or on your own website, so that prospects can download them to their iPod and listen to you at their convenience.
Submit To Article Sharing Websites
But the fun doesn’t stop there! Significantly rewrite your document or blog post and add an author’s byline that promotes yourself and your business for use in online article marketing. Then submit your articles to online article websites and e-zines for even greater reach. This approach will help build credibility in you and your business, while also generating traffic to your website.
The Hard Work Has Already Been Done
The opportunities are virtually endless for repurposing business assets to promote and market your small business. Sift through your files. Think about old e-mails, sale letters, product information sheets, press releases and proposals. Even something like a printed brochure or postcard marketing from ten years ago can be reused. Most of the hard work has already been done. It’s simply a matter of rewriting old ideas and plugging a few holes.
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