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You are here: Home / Archives for Marketing

Feb 04 2019

Marketing & Business Development: How Many “Touches” Before a Sale?

Marketing Channels

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

“How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” If you were a kid growing up in the 1970s, you heard this question in a series of commercials in which a boy queried a cow, fox, turtle, and owl. While the boy was busy doing his research (and if you care, research by Purdue University students found that it takes an average of 252 licks!), the minds behind the advertising campaign were also doing their own: how many exposures – or touches – does it take for someone to take action, like purchasing a Tootsie Pop?

This is a question that advertisers have asked since the earliest days of advertising.

Flash back to when Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were providing movie-goers with an amazing experience; advertising executives were diligently contemplating the number of marketing touch points required to make a sale. At its core, this 1930s-era advertising research was about reaching prospects multiple times in a short period, typically through advertising messaging. Later named “The Rule of 7” by Dr. Jeffrey Lant, the concept posits that you must “touch” a prospect 7 times within a defined period before they will become aware of your product or service and take action.

This generalized rule has been applied everywhere, from “A prospect must see your advertisement 7 times before they establish name recognition” to “You must contact a prospect 7 times before they will buy your product.” Sometimes it is transformed into “You must contact 7 prospects to get a meeting, and you must have 7 meetings to get a sale.”

The reality is that these figures aren’t hard-fast, and the rule is really no rule at all. Especially in the 21st century.

Frequency Builds Familiarity

When originally created, the 7-touch concept was mostly about advertising messaging and the importance of frequency to build familiarity. Consumers didn’t have access to information, so they had limited say in how much information they received and when they received it.

The game has changed greatly over the nine decades that this “Rule” has been around. Think about the transition from going to a theater to see a motion picture to owning a TV to owning multiple TVs to having a computer to accessing the Internet to having a smartphone in your pocket or purse! Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 song, “57 Channels and Nothing On” seems quaint by today’s myriad options for media consumption. (He ended up shooting his television at the conclusion of that song!)

Studies have found that in the 1970s, the average American was exposed to about 500 marketing messages a day. Today that number can run as high as 5,000 to 10,000 marketing messages a day. In other words, marketing has become noise to most of us. I may be a marketing professional, but I’m also an expert at tuning out noise – as we all are.

Consumers today – whether purchasing a microwave or commissioning architecture, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) services – are far more savvy than their predecessors, and have an entire arsenal of information at their disposal. Studies have found that as much as two-thirds of the buying process has already taken place before a buyer reaches out to a potential provider of services or products. In the consumer products world, that means that you’ve done your research, checked out Consumer Reports, read online reviews, and you’re pretty far along before you decide to head to Best Buy or Lowe’s to check out that new refrigerator. You think you know what you want, but now you want to see it in person, perhaps to verify that your research is correct.

But what does this process look like in the A/E/C market space?

First of all, it is inaccurate to conclude that the buyer of A/E/C services is two-thirds through the process when they contact you or send you an RFP. They may only be 20% through the process – or 80%! However, they have access to tons of information about your firm (and your competitors), and they can do much of their research when you are not around, thanks to online content.

Marketing messaging is all about channels, and today there are so many channels to reach your clients and perspective clients:

  • In-Person Meetings
  • Telephone
  • Email
  • Text
  • Direct Mail
  • Social Media
  • Website
  • Blogs
  • Articles – online, in print
  • Presentations
  • Networking Events – society meetings, trade shows, conferences
  • Advertising – online, in print, broadcast media
  • Podcasts
  • Proposals
  • Brochures
  • Case Studies

And the list goes on and on. Notice that while some of these examples involve active direct interaction between the buyer and seller (like a phone conversation or meeting), many other approaches are more passive, like checking out your firm’s website or LinkedIn profile.

Sometimes, one channel can be highly effective. Mutual trust and lasting relationships can be forged through in-person meetings, and few buyers of A/E/C services would make a purchase “sight unseen” (unlike that impulse buy you had Alexa make for you last week).

In some cases, a blog, article, or website can provide a high-quality lead that ultimately leads to a contract. For my training, facilitation, and consulting services, I’ve landed several clients based upon my website or a blog post.

Often, however, it is a combination of several of these channels that lead to an opportunity and eventually a sale. Maybe you connect with a prospect on LinkedIn, they see your post about a company blog, and click through to read it. When you reach out to them via phone or email, they are willing to talk with you because they’ve sampled the merchandise (experienced your firm’s thought leadership in a blog), so they agree to take your call – or even schedule an in-person meeting with you.

In this scenario, it has taken multiple touch points between you, your prospect, and your company just to get to that face-to-face meeting, which may or may not lead to a real opportunity.

I’ve seen a lead come from a single touch, and I’ve experienced how dozens of touches have turned into nothing. So the Rule of 7 is more concept than rule. However, as a concept it still holds true, although “7” may be “17” or even “70,” depending upon where the prospect is in their buying journey. They might not have a project today, but will in two years – so a lot of touches need to take place so you are not “out of sight, out of mind” when they are ready to move forward. This is critically important – design and construction services are not impulse buys – our clients are very deliberate and the sales process can take months or even years.

There’s an oft-quoted sales metric that may or not be true that states that only 10% of salespeople make more than three contacts with prospects yet 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact. In other words, the majority of business developers send an email or two, or leave a voicemail, and give up when they don’t hear back.

More concrete research from Rain Group has found that the most effective salespeople can schedule an in-person meeting in five tries, while the average is more like eight. That’s eight touches to set up a meeting – not eight touches to make a sale. In fact, the same research found that 58% of sales meetings are not valuable to buyers. Rain Group focuses on professional services, so their metrics are very useful for A/E/C firms.

Business moves so fast today that the original idea of 7 touches over 18 months is almost a guarantee for failure. You don’t want to inundate your prospect with sales and marketing messages, of course, but if you only send one message per quarter, you’ll most likely be forgotten – or at least be forgettable.

Your Call to Action

What should you do with this information? Identify your Top 20 prospects (can include former clients), and map out a full year of messaging for each one. How do you plan to touch them? In most cases, an in-person meeting should be a primary goal. However, they’re probably not going to meet with you every month of the year, so how are you going to keep your name in front of them? Sending personalized emails and company eblasts? Leaving voicemails? Mailing postcards? Joining the professional society they belong to? Networking with them at trade shows? Connecting with them on LinkedIn?

Out of sight is not just out of mind, it is out of opportunity. Be visible but not annoying. Add value but don’t disrupt. In the iconic movie (well, iconic if you are in sales and marketing!) Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin’s character drove home the importance of the ABC’s – Always Be Closing. The 1992 film followed four real estate agents trying to sell undesirable property, fighting for their jobs. In today’s world, perhaps the ABC’s should really be Always Be Connected (or Always Be in Contact), because if you’re not, your competitors certainly will be.

Let the concept of the Rule of 7 drive your sales and marketing efforts, but don’t be surprised when it takes way more than 7 touches to generate a real opportunity!

Do you have a plan of action to stay in front of your clients and prospects? Are your project managers great at communication during a project but neglect that client when they move on to the next project? jdbIQity offers customized training to build your your project managers and technical staff into better seller-doers.

Connect with Scott

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher

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Written by Scott Butcher · Categorized: Business Development, JDB IQity, Marketing, Seller-Doer · Tagged: Business Develompent, Marketing, Sales, Seller-Doer

Jan 02 2019

Stop! Should You Really Submit that Proposal?

 
By Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

Note: this blog post originally appeared as a LinkedIn Article as “Proposals: Red Flags and Dirty Tricks.”

If you’ve spent any amount of time creating proposals, then you’ve undoubtedly seen all sorts of questionable behavior by proposal requestors. Sure, they send out an RFP (or post it online), asking for responses, acting like they want many proposals in order to make an informed decision. And then then they create traps to disqualify those proposals so they don’t have to read them. Some common approaches:

  • Extremely tight proposal deadlines making it almost impossible to respond
  • Limited number of pages, making it almost impossible to be responsive to the RFP criteria
  • Strict requirements on font, point size, spacing, etc. – little things that make it easy to get your proposal disqualified (“You used 10-point font size? Off with your head!”)
  • Vague language with no knowledgeable person to contact for clarity
  • Highly restrictive requirements for staff experience, license/certification, or relevant past experience
  • Outrageous project schedule requirements or contract terms (that may not even be insurable)
  • Continually revising the RFP and changing the requirements / scope while not changing the due date

These are all red flags that demonstrate the pitfalls of responding to a proposal unless you really know the client/agency and have an established rapport with them. That’s not to say that you need to have a deep relationship with every client you submit a proposal to (how often are the final decision makers / selection committee members “hidden” to the proposers, anyway?), or even that a good relationship would prevent some of these behaviors. Rather, these are clues that if you’re not “in the know” about the opportunity, then you shouldn’t waste your time submitting a proposal (the proposal requestor doesn’t want it, anyway!).

In many cases, your competitor very well may have written the RFP document. They wrote it so restrictively that only their firm could check all the boxes! And you know what? You’d do the same thing if given the opportunity (and many of us have). However, there’s also a trap here. Another bad behavior you’ll come across is the proposal requestor that reaches out to you for a proposal and detailed scope of work to a project that may not be well-defined. “What do you think this project will take?”, they ask. And then after you spend many hours pulling something together, everything goes quiet – or you get ghosted. You thought you had a 95% probability of being awarded the project, yet they won’t even return your calls or emails. And then, low and behold, one day an email arrives from that prospect. Unfortunately, it contains a Request for Proposal which just happens to include that detailed scope of work you developed – almost verbatim. And they sent the RFP to your competitors, as well. So essentially you did all the legwork for the RFP, and now you have to bid to get the project.

Most of my time is spent in the architecture, engineering, and construction (#AEC) space, but I’ve been involved with proposals from other perspectives as well, particularly in the nonprofit realm. Recently I saw some of the same old red flags and dirty tricks in an RFP – as well as a new one! These included:

  • Sending RFPs to groups that had no business in actually responding – they didn’t have the qualifications or the capacity
  • Including RFP requirements so time-consuming that it would be impossible to comply in the allotted time
  • Including RFP requirements so cost-prohibitive that few (if any) recipients could submit a truly responsive proposal

You may be shaking your head because you’ve seen this kind of thing before. But here’s the new one:

  • Not publishing any limitations on word count or file size (only that the proposal must be electronically delivered in a single Word document), and then rejecting any file 1 MB or larger at submission

So you could spend weeks working on the proposal, trying to cross as many t’s and dot as many i’s as possible (not that it was possible to get them all!), finalize the proposal just before the deadline (the world most of us work in), click the link to upload the file, and only once you have attempted to submit the file find out that there is a limitation on file size!

I don’t have a fundamental problem with file size limitations, but there are two glaring issues here:

  1. Not making proposers aware of any file size limits in advance.
  2. Requiring files to be less than 1 MB – what is this, 1993?

The average smart phone photo is probably 2 or 3 MB – no different than it was in the early days of smart phones, thus a 1 MB file is small by today’s standards. For most proposals, it’s downright tiny. Therefore, a 1 MB file size limit would be a “red flag” had it been published to proposers. Not disclosing that limit and essentially using it as a way to reject proposals is a downright “dirty trick”!

You can argue whether there was Machiavellian intent, or it was simple ignorance that caused the issue. However, when you look at the other red flags – before even getting to this little trick – you can clearly see that the proposal requestor had little interest in actually receiving any proposals.

They had already pre-ordained the winner – and perhaps the “winner” was the status quo. (A colleague once told me that the biggest competitor will always be the status quo.)

If you make the RFP so restrictive, invite unqualified groups to submit, and then create a layer of “security” to disqualify any potentially-responsible proposals, it’s easy to say, “We didn’t receive any proposals that met our criteria, so we are going to (fill in the blank).”

And in this case, the blank may be “proceed as planned,” “stay with our current firm,” or “not move forward with the project/initiative.”

Downstream, however, there’s a feeling of frustration, disappointment, even dejection. Large amounts of time have been wasted in pursuit of an opportunity that was never going to pan out. The opportunity costs can be staggering when this kind of thing happens.

I’m a big proponent of making quality, objective Go/No-Go decisions based upon data and facts (as opposed to the all-too-common subjective, “Sure we can do that!” decisions). And yet, there are many red flags that go unnoticed or are intentionally ignored, costing organizations huge wheelbarrows of cash and their employees massive black holes of productive time.

What are some of the proposal red flags and dirty tricks that you’ve seen?

Interested in upping your proposal game? jdbIQity offers a four-hour proposal workshop for project managers and marketing professionals to learn about best practices and proposal trends. Contact Scott Butcher at sbutcher@jdbe.com or 717-434-1543 to learn more.

Connect with Scott

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher

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Written by Scott Butcher · Categorized: A/E/C Industry Posts, Business Development, JDB IQity, Marketing, Proposals, Trends · Tagged: A/E/C, Marketing, Proposal, Proposals

Oct 25 2018

The Secret Value-Add to Your Project Team: You

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

I’ve been a member of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) for more than 25 years, and in that time I’ve contributed more than a dozen articles (solo or with co-authors) to Marketer, The Journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services.

Below you’ll find my latest article, “The Secret Value-Add to Your Project Team: You.” The article looks at ways that marketing and business development professionals in A/E/C firms can engage with project teams to offer expanded services – billable or value-added – on projects. These include a number of approaches:

  • Provide content for client social media, eblasts, and newsletters
  • Conduct market research for the project
  • Help the client plan and manage events
  • Write or ghost write op-eds for the newspaper
  • Assist the client with media relations
  • Develop project presentations and videos
  • Prepare project talking points and value messages
  • Serve as project photographer / videographer
  • Manage components of the project that are beyond a typical design and construction project
  • Develop project graphics and signage
  • Create a project website to inform stakeholders
  • Serve as spokesperson for the project
  • Facilitate stakeholder meetings or community charrettes

The article also includes thoughts from Mandy Arnold, president of Gavin, a digital public relations and marketing agency serving firms in a number of industries, including A/E/C. Check it out:

Secret Value Add Article

Secret Value-Add

 

Copyright info for the article: ©Marketer, The Journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services, October 2018, www.smps.org.

Connect with Scott

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher

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Written by Scott Butcher · Categorized: JDB IQity, Marketing, Project Management · Tagged: A/E/C, Marketing, Project Management

Jan 18 2018

The Most Dangerous Words in Business

Most Dangerous Words in Business

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

I’ve heard it said that “We’ve always done it that way” is among the most dangerous phrases in business. I can’t say I disagree. Those six words effectively destroy innovation and keep companies from growing and evolving. And in the A/E/C industry, we hear those words a lot. In fact, we’re notorious for it: construction productivity is essentially unchanged since the 1960s. During the same period, manufacturing productivity went through the roof. Only now are terms like “Lean Construction” entering our lexicon. This “We’ve always done it that way” mentality, in a world of rapid change, is now the kiss of death for a business.

However, there’s another phrase stated all too often in the A/E/C industry, and I think this one needs elevated to the pantheon of creativity-sucking-backward-thinking-phrases-to-avoid. If you are an A/E/C marketer, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard these dangerous words – most likely very recently.

“That won’t work in our industry.” (Or it’s equally-ugly sibling, “That won’t work in our firm.”)

Sound familiar? Wow, it’s not just that these words are dangerous, it’s that this line of thinking can destroy companies.

The phrase is very much the bane of an A/E/C marketer’s existence.

I still come across some professional marketers who lament that they are not allowed to use social media at their company. Never mind that the most popular platforms are more than a decade old, and almost everyone has been influenced to make a buying decision by something they saw on social media!

Here’s a personal favorite for backward management thinking: a marketer told me that her company will permit her to use social media to promote the firm – so long as she does it on personal time.

I can’t imagine a marketing program that doesn’t involve social media. The people who don’t think it will work in the A/E/C industry actually have very little understanding of what it is – other than their perception of sharing dinner photos on Facebook. And the role of social media in driving traffic to your website and Search Engine Optimization is beyond their comprehension.

I recently had a spirited conversation with a salesperson who didn’t see any value in content marketing. He’s had a successful career in sales, but still believes in the traditional interruption selling approaches, like cold calling and stopping in at a company unannounced. He’s a big fan of trade shows. Although I would never stop in at a company for an unannounced sales call, which I find to be very disrespectful, I certainly understand that there are times when you need to make a cold call (although it is best avoided, if possible). And there’s no doubt that trade shows still have a place in the marketing mix.

But to disregard something as broad and proven as content marketing because you don’t really understand it makes no sense. My counter argument to the traditional salesperson was that I’ve heard him say in the past that he hates when he’s talking with someone and they’ve never heard of his company – content marketing is the perfect way to counter that. Plus, as a salesperson, shouldn’t he want loads of content at his fingertips to curate and determine which pieces could aid his prospects in their buying journey?

But no, “That won’t work in our industry. We’re B2B. We’re professional services.”

It’s the same argument professional A/E/C business developers have heard about social selling. Like a salesperson that doesn’t use LinkedIn (yes, there are still some!). It’s such an amazing tool for learning about your clients and prospects, much less connecting with them in a non-threatening way. Social selling should be a key tool within a seller’s toolbox. It is not “the” answer; however, it is an important tool.

But apparently “social selling won’t work in our industry.” Why? Because “Our clients and prospects don’t use social media.”

Still sounding familiar?

A/E/C firms need to be nimble and highly flexible. That requires change. That requires an open mind – from every employee, at every level of your organization.

We’re entering a new world of advanced automation and artificial intelligence. There will soon be “push button design” for some of the more prescriptive aspects of architecture and engineering. But there are naysayers who don’t believe that this technology will ever work in our industry. (Google “generative design” and see how it is already being employed.) Sure, I understand that it can be threatening.

There’s a statistic out there from McKinsey that roughly 45% of what you currently do in your job – 45% of what all of us currently do in our jobs – can be automated with technology available right now. Many see this as a threat. I see it as a wonderful opportunity. I certainly don’t have enough hours in a day or in a week to accomplish what I really want to do. If I can free up 45% of my workweek, there’s so many more, higher value things I can be doing.

(But that will never work in our industry, right?)

We hear a lot of talk about setting priorities. Do you focus on the important, or the urgent? Do you spend your time doing something that has a good value to your firm – or the highest value?
What if you could shed many of your less important, but necessary, tasks to focus on those that have the highest value?

Instead of saying, “That won’t work in our industry,” say “How can we get this to work in our industry?”

All it requires is a change in mindset.

Autonomous vehicles are something else that will never work in our industry, either – right? And yet, there are autonomous bulldozers and construction trucks available for sale right now! Some are appearing on jobsites as you read this.

The phrase “But that will never work in our industry” is going to be incorrect the vast majority of the time. All it takes is some innovation and creative thinking, and ideas from other industries can be easily applied to our own.

So yes, social media plays an absolutely critical role in marketing today.

And yes, A/E/C firms not incorporating content marketing into their strategy are falling behind the competition.

Yup, social selling is a necessary component of an effective sales strategy.

And beyond a doubt, automation and artificial intelligence will change the way we do business in the future – it already is changing things right now.

Firms with a “We’ve always done it that way” attitude are holding a nail to their coffin. Firms that compound that with “But that won’t work in our industry” thinking are hammering the nail and sealing their fate.

When your marketer says, “This is going to revolutionize our industry,” believe them. Embrace them. Follow their lead.

When your technology strategist says, “This is going to change our business and make us more productive and profitable,” ask where to sign up.

Everyone in your firm is a Subject Matter Expert, and they each have their specialized areas of expertise. Trust them. Follow their lead. Sure, conduct the appropriate due diligence – don’t follow blindly. But you hired these professionals for a reason, so listen to them, support them, and then get the hell out of their way.

And don’t ever say, “But that won’t work in our industry,” lest you unwittingly preside over the demise of your company and chase highly talented people – who could take your firm to the next level – into the outstretched arms of your competitors!

Or have you always done it that way?

Is your firm having trouble embracing current marketing thinking, technology, and strategy? Need to talk through an idea or train your staff? Reach out to Scott Butcher at 717.434.1543 or email him.

Connect with Scott

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher 

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Written by Scott Butcher · Categorized: Content Marketing, JDB IQity, Marketing · Tagged: Creativity, Leadership, Management, Marketing

Nov 30 2017

Use the “Three R’s” to Simplify – and Strengthen – Your Blogs

Three R's of Blogging

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

I’ve been beyond excited to see a number of my co-workers step up and become bloggers for www.jdbengineeirng.com. There’s a vastly inaccurate perception among far too many technical professionals that they don’t have anything important to say (write). The reality is that they are oozing with knowledge, and things that they don’t deem important, much less consider thought leadership, may be exactly what their clients and prospects are looking for. Technical professionals in the A/E/C industry are Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), but it can sometimes be difficult for them to understand that most people don’t know what they know! Our clients and prospects may be SMEs in their own right – but typically at other subjects or in other industries. Otherwise, why would they need to hire us?

For some people, writing comes easy. But for far more people – particularly those in highly technical occupations, like within the A/E/C industry – writing a blog or an article can be an intimidating pursuit. Authoring a study or crafting specifications is one thing, but providing insight to the masses is another!

I recently shared the “Three Rs” with my colleagues. No, this is not a groundbreaking scientific formula, but rather three simple things that a beginning blogger (or accomplished blogger, for that matter), can do to easily develop meaningful content.

They are:

  • Research
  • Report
  • Repurpose

Content can come from myriad places, but for those struggling to come up with an idea to write about – or actually generate content around that idea – these R’s are a good place to start!

Research – There’s an unlimited world of content out there. All it takes a bit of research! In fact, I rely heavily on research when it comes to blogging and developing presentations. Research can make a Subject Matter Amateur look like a Subject Matter Expert.

For example, earlier this year I was invited by a friend to present about workforce trends. She’s an HR professional. I’m a marketing and BD guy. What could I possibly have to offer? Well, I love researching trends – our industry and beyond – and it is one of my favorite topics to present about. I had touched on a number of critical workforce trends over the years, and after I agreed to co-present, I dug deeper. I visited human resources websites and read workforce publications. I came up with a ton of trends, and after another meeting with my friend, had a whole bunch more! This research – which was undertaken for a specific presentation opportunity – became the basis for a series of blog posts for Engineering News-Record.

Think of all the things that you’ve researched recently. New products. Alternative delivery approaches. Trends. Industry-specific best practices. The latest code revisions. All of these make perfect content for blogs.

Report – Think like a reporter. Understand that there’s a lot of extremely intelligent SMEs out there, and use them to help develop content for your blog! Interview them – gain their insight, quote them in your blog, and everyone wins. Your interview subject gets to be viewed as the “outside expert” (or “inside expert,” if you are quoting a co-worker!). Your blog content will be elevated. And your readers will gain a greater understanding of the topic you are blogging about.

Using the example of the workforce presentation, when it came to writing my ENR blog, I felt it important to interview my friend and co-presenter. On one hand, she really is the Subject Matter Expert on workforce – she’s a successful workforce advisor for a living. On the other hand, we collaborated to develop and give the presentation, and she is a part owner of the content we generated. It was only fair to make sure she was an important part of the blog! So I quoted her liberally throughout the series of posts. She added great insight and helped to interpret the trends that I addressed.

Who do you know that you could interview? Co-workers? Vendors? Clients? Friends? Colleagues at professional societies? Community leaders? Social media connections? When you think about it, the list is endless. As an added benefit, when you quote someone in your blog, you earn goodwill, strengthen a relationship, and have someone else sharing your content. Be sure to include their picture, a link to their company or institution website, and a link to their LinkedIn profile or online bio – with their permission, of course!

Repurpose – This one is as simple as it sounds. Look around you – you are constantly generating content, whether you know it or not. Much of your job involves content creation – often for clients. In the example of the workforce blog, the research was originally conducted for a presentation for which I was co-presenter. I was subsequently invited to give a presentation with similar content – but needed to greatly expand it and present as a solo act.

When I create a PowerPoint presentation, I tend to be fairly liberal with the Notes section so that if I give the presentation again in the future, I’ll know what I was thinking when I originally created the slide deck. (I often use a large image with a few words on a slide, so it is important to populate the Notes to understand the content intent.) Such was the case with this second workforce presentation. A few weeks after delivering it, I was on a train and found myself with a lot of time at my disposal. So I pulled up the PowerPoint, copied the Notes content into a Word file, and began using that information to write a new blog post. In the process, I realized that I had far more content than was needed for a single blog, so I broke it into a series of posts – combining my repurposed content with quotes from my friend.

But repurposing doesn’t stop there. The content of the blog post you are currently reading actually came from an email I sent to several co-workers about, you guessed it, the Three R’s of blogging. I shared the same insight and anecdotes, and joked at the end that I was going to turn the email into a blog post! A few minutes after I sent that email, a coworker responded that he had just submitted a report to a client, and there were four or five paragraphs within the report that were education-focused – information that would make perfect content for a blog post!

Yes, this blog post is essentially a repurposed email. Consider everything you’ve researched and written over the past few years – what could be repurposed? Obviously, you cannot share proprietary information or violate Non-Disclosure Agreements, but there’s a lot of information that can be shared generically. Think about studies you’ve written. Presentations you’ve given – even within your own department or for a company lunch-and-learn. Content that you’ve shared with clients along the way – even as simple as the pros and cons of a certain type of system, delivery approach, or product/material. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, you have an email or two that could be used. You’ve already generated the content, now repurpose it for a blog post or two!

Information is all around us, and everyone has value to offer. However, it can be difficult to translate that value from the brain to the computer. Using the Three R’s formula – Research, Report, Repurpose – you can enhance your content, simplify the process, and provide more value for your readers.

You’ve reached the end of this post – more than 1250 words created by repurposing an email sent to a handful of people!

Need help with your content strategy or training for your staff? Check out jdbIQity’s services, or contact Scott Butcher.

Connect with Scott

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher 

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Written by Scott Butcher · Categorized: Content Marketing, JDB IQity, Marketing, Seller-Doer · Tagged: Blog, Blogging, Content, Marketing, Seller-Doer

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