Episode 7 - Repurposing Your Content to Create Digital Products - a podcast by Vanessa Shepherd & Terrica Strozier of Shes Got Vision

Episode #007 Repurposing Your Content to Create Digital Products

[00:00:00] Terrica: Welcome to the marketing cocktails podcast. We're your hosts. Terrica Strozier, that's me a brand designer and sugar attic and Vanessa Shepherd  launch strategist and content creator. With the love of all things Disney each week, you'll hear, our behind the scenes conversations and expert advice on marketing and launching your next offer while doing it all ethically and organically.

And given that bro marketer advice, the book. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Grab a drink and let's jump into today's episode.

Welcome to episode seven of the marketing and cocktails podcast. Today's episode is all about repurposing your content to create digital products, which is super important as we embark on the holiday season.

And many of us are prepping for launches first and foremost, black Friday, which is right around the corner.

So hopefully today's episode gives you some ideas on products to [00:01:00] create. If you don't have one already lined up. And help make your upcoming launch. If you do decide to launch just a little bit easy because in this day and age, We all deserve just a little bit of easy so let's jump right in

So let's start about using what you have to create digital products.

Vanessa: So we can't stress this enough. Absolutely. Can't stress this enough. If you create content on a regular basis, you literally have. A treasure chest that you can pull from any time to whip out a brand new product. And I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people cause like, I don't understand how that, how that works.

I'm creating one thing, I'm putting it up in one spot. How is that supposed to lead me to create a whole bunch of other stuff really easily? Well, let's walk through a few examples. Shall we? the best one that I, that comes to mind that has the most flexibility. Is blog posts.  if you blog, [00:02:00] even once , a week, once a month, by the time you do it for, I don't know, a couple months to a year, two years, however long, depending on how often you're creating stuff, you can actually take those blog posts, find common topics or common threads, and reassemble them in different ways.

So you can use say a blog post on a specific topic. I don't know. Maybe you're. Blogging all on a set of recipes and you can, you can actually take all those blog posts and all the recipes and assemble them into a recipe book. And you can have that as a digital product, as an ebook, when you're ready, when you have like a huge audience and you want to go, into like the offline realm, you can also assemble it into a physical product.

There's so many different ways that you can repurpose. Your blog posts and reassemble that content into creating digital products. We took all of the blog posts that had ever done on the topic of Pinterest and I assembled them into a course, and that was the first ever Pinterest course that I created [00:03:00] Pinning for Business.

You can also take them and make them into, to digital downloads. You can take how to blog posts and turn them into worksheets. Like there's so much potential. And that's why I keep stressing that if you create content, you have so much potential to pull out other types of content without having to really reinvent the wheel and waste a ton of time in the process

Terrica:  I'll come at it from a different angle.

Cause I don't blog a lot. but as a designer and anyone else who is in more of a one-on-one creative field, so photographers or designers, or even web designers, many of us have. Either done something for a client  it was a rejected concept.

Nobody decided to use it. Maybe you decided to design something for yourself and then you don't quite love it, but you started, but you never quite [00:04:00] finished or that's just sitting on your hard drive. I have a whole folder of half done projects  I would take some of my all rejected concepts, spruce them up a bit and. if I wanted to, depending on where your audience is, you could use Canva or InDesign or make them an editable PDF. And then now you have a template that you can like pop up in your shop and sell, and it hasn't really cost you any time because you always had it there. So now you're just sprucing up it and making it like cohesive and come together.

Also, if you have a process that you do for your business, that for some people they think yeah. That nobody will ever know, but I'll use an example. A lot of creatives used Dubsado. People are always looking or ways to effectively use that CRM. Even better than what they have. And if they're in the same niche as you, or the same industry that really [00:05:00] could use it, you can easily turn that into a quick little ebook or a little mini course so that someone can use those and they can immediately see the results in their business.

Vanessa: Absolutely. Like even. You know, you're talking about those digital service providers like photographers. I know so many photographers who like go out and they have edits and they saved the way they edit certain things.

That's like instant presets, bundle them together, sell them individually. You could pop up. A set of presets. You could even go through like the process that you do to onboard people, on onboard clients or to get people thinking about their brand or what they want out of a photo session, turn that into a worksheet or turn all your expertise and your brain into a tip sheet, even on how to get ready to do a session or how to, plan for one, you know, in the months before you're ready to do.

And there's so many ways. To use all this information that you have at your fingertips. And there's so many [00:06:00] things that I think people don't, they don't realize what they have until they start going through it. Heck I don't realize what I have until I start going through like Google type folders and they have that in there.

I wrote that for fun one time or, Oh yeah. I started creating that and I didn't finish it. Go through what you have, think about it and kind of sit down and come at it from a different angle of not, maybe not like how can I use this or what was the original intention, but. What else can I use this for? How else could this be beneficial?

Just because one person rejected your design or one person rejected, you know, a certain concept doesn't mean that somebody else out there isn't going to love it and fall in love with it instead.

Terrica: Exactly. And another way, even though we're talking about creating digital products for sell, you can easily use a blog post that you wrote, or maybe you even wrote an Instagram caption and you got really good engagement and you're like, Oh, people need more information about that. Or they're really in tune with that. You could use that to create a lead [00:07:00] magnet.

So even though you're not making initial money off of it, you literally put that out to the universe. It's for free people get immediate access to it and they can learn some from whatever you're offering, but then you, as the creator can see, use it as a test. Do people really want more information about this?

Is this really effective? How can I change it? How can I make it better? And it's like immediate,

Vanessa: it's, it's putting it out there and testing your audience. I know exactly where you're coming from. It's all good.

Lead magnets are an excellent way to test the waters. And if you're out there, especially if you're somebody who's creating awesome Instagram, captions, and. You're like, man, people love what I'm putting out on Instagram, but they're not, they're not loving so much on my website. Paul, you can pull things, the pull those like little nuggets from there and infuse them into your website.

You're probably infusing more personality into Instagram than you are into some of your website copy. So you can [00:08:00] take that into consideration too, and even use what you have to, to fix up what you already are putting out in the universe to make it even better.

Terrica: Right. And when crafting. An idea, some of the things I know you're talking about going through a lot of your old folders and what do I have, but the easiest access that we have to information is our brains.

And there's so much stuff that's really simple that we would never think that people want it. I was on Facebook recently in a group and, someone posted and they thought it was just like, Really funny, but at the same time enlightening that their mom who's older.  came to them and was like, look, I was on YouTube and I saw this video and it was  10 things you need to have in your home.

And she's like, Oh, okay. That's really interesting mom.  Well, what where they? And she's like, Oh wait, let me go back. And she came back with a notepad [00:09:00] and she wrote down in that YouTube video, the 10 things that you should have in your home. And none of these things were rocket science or anything.

It's like. You should always have a duvet and you should always have a really large area rug or a runner for your dining room table. It was really simple things, but she said, what was enlightening for her mom is even though these were simple things, she said it helped. Kind of corral her mom's thoughts. And when she was deciding to spruce up her home, rather than thinking about all the things she could buy, now, she had a list of 10 things that she's like, Oh, I don't need a new cupboard, but I do need new knobs on my cupboard.

So I'm going to go buy new knobs on my cupboard and it helped. Corral her spending so that she wasn't like spending all the money, but there wasn't that extra anxiety over, what should I spend? It was [00:10:00] like, no, I know exactly what I need to buy. I know exactly what I need now. I'm going to , just take this list and compare it with what I have in my house now and my style and sales.

And now you have a whole plan on what to purchase next and I'm pretty sure we all have information in our brain. as simple as the 10 things you need to have in your home, maybe it's the, the five things that grew your design business, or you are in finance and the mistakes that you see, business owners making that they could change to save my thing on taxes and to boost up profitability.

It's so many things you can just take that. Throw into a little mini ebook or something and put it out to the universe. Won't even take you that much time. you can find a template. Well, if design, it's not your thing. And you just add in your brand colors, your logo put your information and it's done.

[00:11:00] Vanessa: Absolutely.  even that example you gained from the video, that person say they didn't actually sell products. That they're just like a blogger who just loves talking about home renos, home, design, whatever. even as, you know, a mommy blogger would just put together lists like that, cause it makes her life easier and, and put it out into the world, hoping that it's going to make somebody else's life easier.

Cause that's typically where we start, but the place that we come from when we start creating content and putting things out there. So where my brain goes is I can take that same list. You said you can use it as a lead magnet. That's one option. The next option to step it up, you can actually turn it around and create it into a resource guide and become an affiliate for, I don't know, somewhere, like, I don't know.

I don't know, maybe Wayfair or some sort of like home furnishing store or I don't know the container store. There's so many different options and. For the list of things you would have, like, so the debate, maybe it was a mixer or whatever. Those 10 things were having affiliate link for every single product.

Now, not only are you providing a way to be helpful to [00:12:00] somebody, you repurpose the same content. Now we're at three times and you've monetized it by being able to make a little bit of money. If somebody actually goes through, read your thing is like, Oh my gosh, it's super helpful. I needed to pay. There's a link.

I'm gonna go buy me today. And they all in the same day, week, month, year, whatever. but you've taken that content. You've created two digital products out of it and you might've gone into it thinking I'm just, I'm just putting it out there to be helpful that people, and you can be helpful to people in so many different ways, utilizing the same thing in slightly different ways.

And it's not, I just want to say this, like it's not cutting corners. because every time you're using it in, in a new way, you're adding a layer of that to it.

Terrica: And that adding affiliate links, we know so many people, who have either built complete businesses off being affiliates or a good portion of their business income.

Is, [00:13:00] being an affiliate for the preferred products that they use and why some people look at it. Okay. So you're making money off of selling other people's things. I like to use a real world example and how many of us are walking resource libraries for our family and friends, every time that they need something they call and I get it all the time.

Hey Terrica, you're good at that. so I need a good resource for these shoes. Where should I buy them? Or. Oh, you use tech a lot. What do you use for this? Where do you go? Or who do you trust? Because then it takes the time out. People. Time is such a commodity and people don't want to have to research. They don't want to have to vet.

They don't want to have to read through reviews. They want you, someone they trust to tell them that, Hey, this is a good product because you've used it or it's a good course, or it's a good item, whatever it is. And they'll respect you for [00:14:00] that. They're like, whoo, you saved me so much time. I seen your stuff.

It looks amazing. You use it, it done and you educated and save somebody time. And then most of them would affiliates. You probably saved them some money too. So it's a win, win situation for everybody.

Vanessa: Absolutely. Like I'm the same way. So I'm the go to person in my family. If people want to shop and save money at the same time.

So I get calls from my sister all the time. Okay. I need to buy a new sweater, pair of boots or whatever, whatever the heck it is. She's calling me. Who's got a sale this week. Cause I need something new. I'm like, you can sign up for all the emails you get inundated with all that information. Just like, why would I do that?

I have you. You're my older sister. That's what you're here for. And I've done. I've turned around and used that concept. Just the, what you're talking about and, use it in business, use it at my personal blog. And it's kind of funny when. You don't really think about it. and so you actually go back and look like every time when I go back and again, I kind of look at what my income was over the last year.

Where did it come [00:15:00] from? Like last year I had a steady stream of affiliate sales from creative market. And I was like, I had no idea that the content I put out two years ago all about the stuff I was using on creative market was still bringing in affiliate sales. And stocking up my credits on, on creative market.

And I hadn't actually paid out of pocket for any new design stuff it about two years.

Terrica: See, that's awesome. So, right, right there, it shows you that creating a new digital product, doesn't have to be this whole exhaustive product, a process that you can use things you have. You can use the information that's already in your brain.

You can even use. The resources that you use on a normal basis to make income as well. So with black Friday looming around, right, right around the corner and everyone hurrying to put something [00:16:00] to sell this will cut your time in half to find something to offer to your audience by using what you have already.

Thanks for listening. Y'all you can find the show notes at she's got vision.com/podcast. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, please leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. And because word of mouth is still the best marketing Avenue. Please tell a friend to share it. If you do, don't forget to tag us.

Yeah, she's got vision on all platforms until next time. Y'all we're wishing you much success. I remember there's always time for cocktails.

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