From email to blog to article — multipurpose writing increases your mileage

Here’s a quick way to produce a set of writings for your email list, blog, and article directories.

First, get an idea for the topic related to you niche. It might be a new skill you’ve picked up or something from the news.

Let’s say, for example, you’re working in the dog training niche. Search Google news for items about dogs. There might be several good ones, but let’s say the one that captures your interest is an article about dog poisonings in Spokane, Washington.

Start with an email

Open a text file of some kind and draft a note to your email readers about the dog poisoning. Since you’re in the dog training niche, relate it to dog training, in this case the importance of teaching your dog the “leave it” command.

It will be very short, just 150-200 words at max. People don’t want huge emails. Give just the highlights and leave the details for your blog post. Sign off, but don’t send it yet.

Now Write the Blog Post

Take the same news item email and write your blog post. It will be longer and it will make all the connections you skipped over in your email. Your style is very personal, and you emphasize the timeliness of the event.

You’ll give step-by-step instructions on training a dog to obey the “leave it” command. You can include your affiliate link in the “dog training” phrase you use in your concluding paragraph. Illustrate the post with an eye-catching photo.

Take the permalink to this post and add it to the email. Now you can send it, although I would recommend scheduling it for a few hours, but less than a day, later, in case you want to make some changes later and to give you time to finish tweaking the blog post.

Now Write the Article

Now you have the basis for your article. Instead of a timely news item, though, now you’re talking about an evergreen problem. People will be reading and clicking your article years from now. You don’t want to call attention to the fact that the starting news item is out of date.

So the opening of your article mentions the problem of malicious dog poisoning in a general way. But when you take the time to dig a little more into the problem of dog poisoning, you find that malicious poisoning is a very small part of the overall problem.

The authoritative Americal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has a list of ten top sources of dog poisoning, and they’re things like household chemicals and human foods. You can include their list (with a citation) and some of your own commentary in the article.

Another aspect of your research in preparing your article is to find out what search terms people use when looking into this problem. Is it “poison dog” or “dog poisoning”? Find the keywords you’ll use in crafting the final draft of your article.

Now offer your four — or however many — tips to prevent dog poisoning. One might be to keep poisons locked up away from dogs. Another might be not to let dogs roam the neighborhood. The last item might be train the dog to obey a “leave it” command. You’ll just give a brief summary of the command, but not go into great detail here.

In your resource box, include a link to your blog post, noting that the reader can find step-by-step instructions to train the dog to use the “leave it” command in the blog post.

Putting It All Together

You take basically the same topic and optimize it for each genre. You keep it brief and breezy for the email, more formal and informational for the article, and more conversational and in-depth for the blog. Directories — and Google — like links going to solid information. Readers like to get an overview of what they’re going to read and if they’re interested, they can click through for more information.

The trick in the email and the article is to give good information. Give the reader confidence that clicking through will lead to good information. But also realize that the reader may not be interested in the problem of dog poisoning. You show your respect for your reader’s time by making it clear what the link will teach but not giving excessive detail in the article or the email.

I’ve gone from email to blog to article, but of course, you can do the process in any order that works for you for this topic for this niche. Expand, condense, rewrite.

In a few short paragraphs, you’ve communicated with your readers in three different directions, providing solid value in a short space of time.