OK…you’ve promoted your free offer and now have a list of subscribers. The question now becomes, “How do I come up with topics to write about?”
That’s an important question since “staying in touch with your subscribers” is arguably the most important part of the whole marketing strategy. Somewhat ironically, it’s also the part that people tend to give the least amount of attention to.
If the swing-thought is to simply send people “stuff”, it’s not terribly surprising if no-one actually reads it. And if no one reads your stuff, it’s sort of difficult to develop a relationship with your subscribers.
So back to the original question, “What to write about?”
My personal belief is that the more your reading tastes are eclectic in nature, the easier you’ll find topics to write about.
So let’s start with the newspapers you read. I’m sure there’s the local daily. But what about the Wall Street Journal? You don’t have to be a financial type to get a lot of value from it. In fact, I’d argue that if you’re serious about business, the WSJ ought to be on your reading list every morning.
But let’s not stop there. How about USA Today? For my money, it’s hands-down the best daily newspaper if you want to get up to speed quickly on what’s going on. In fact I only get the Atlanta Constitution on the weekends, since USA Today does a much better job of giving me the overview I need about the worlds of Sports, Culture, Current Events and Business. Plus, it’s got the coolest weather map!
But wait…there’s more. Since I do most of my writing in the mornings, this next daily read has probably given me more great ideas to write about than any other newspaper I get. I’m talking about the Financial Times. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent outside of the USA, but the rest of the world does think differently than we do. Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they’re rather substantial. What’s great about FT is that it makes you think about things differently–and that’s what causes the neurons in the brain to start to fire–which in turn gets your creative juices flowing.
Having an eclectic reading list makes us interesting people. And if we’re interesting people, it’s likely that we’ll write interesting stuff.
Moving on to magazines. Let’s take a look at what’s on the night stand. Egads, the pile is huge! We’ve got Monocle, Financial Advisor, B2B, The Hollywood Reporter, Fortune, Business Week, Steve Harrison’s Reporter Connection, Fast Times, Rolling Stone, INC, The New Yorker…
Now do I actually read all these? Candidly, the answer is, not really. But I do thumb through all of them, and I’d guess I read at least a couple of articles from each.
For those of you who like formulas here’s a great one to jump start your thinking when you find you’ve run out of ideas for what to write about.
I was reading an article in (Name of publication) which got me thinking about how (the topic) relates to (your area of expertise).
I was reading an article in Monocle which got me thinking about how an eclectic reading list can help us come up with ideas for what to write about to stay in touch with our readers.
What’s interesting about this exercise is that it will stretch you creatively, which will make your writing more interesting. Since there’s certainly no shortage of boring-same-old stuff being dumped into our in-boxes, it’s bound to help you break out of the pack.
Try subscribing to one new publication and see what effect it has.
It certainly can’t hurt.
Food for thought
Mark
Thanks for all the support for Unique Sales Stories 
