What to share on your blog vs. your newsletter

One of the biggest things I see small business owners struggling the most with is what content they should share on their blog and what they should share on their newsletter.

This, honestly, is going to be different depending on what industry you're in but there are a few “rules” you can follow or guidelines you can use when trying to decide what to share where.

Let's talk about each one a little first though:

BLOG: Your blog readership is going to range from your previous customers to someone who just found you on Pinterest when they weren't looking for you to your business competition. All of those are great and it's amazing that they're finding and reading your blog and you want to give them valuable information but…

NEWSLETTER: The readership here is going to be fairly targeted and loyal. These are the people who are going to want what you're selling.

• Why did your newsletter subscribers sign up? So, you probably gave away some type of freebie when people signed up for your list, right? But what was it? Are you like me and you gave away a to-do list specifically designed for entrepreneurs, meaning that my whole list is made up of small business owners? Or did you give away a discount or coupon code for your products, so all of your subscribers are your customers or potential customers? Maybe you're a coach and you gave away a free e-book so all of your subscribers are potential customers who wanted your free e-book and could potentially want to pay for your services. No matter what, determine why your newsletter subscribers signed up and who they are in relation to your business. You're not going to want to send your newsletter subscribers (who are hopefully all potential customers/clients) a newsletter full of information about your family vacation, right?
• How long is it going to take you to write the topic? Ok, this one is kind of neat, I think. You have a topic in your head (or on a list somewhere) that you want to write about and you feel like it'll be valuable to your audience but you can't decide whether to share it on your blog (which could reach more people/numbers) or on your newsletter (which is hopefully targeted to real potential customers) – just sit down and write it down. If it required honest, deep thought and really dug into your knowledge-base, then send it to the your newsletter list. If it was a bit shorter and/or easier to write, blog it.
• Product Releases should probably be done in different ways on both! If you have a product-based business and you're releasing new products – use both at different times. Release those products exclusively to your newsletter subscribers first, make them feel special and give them a reason to stick around, and then, when you're ready, release the product on the blog to the people who aren't necessarily going to be loyal customers.
• Shareability. <—-that's a word, where the heck is Webster? I'm adding it! It's not a super easy process to share a newsletter. I mean, you CAN do it but wherever you share it, the person is going to be prompted to sign-up and then go through the opt-in process and then you'll have to have your newsletter subscription service set-up to send those old campaigns to new subscribers, etc OR it'll have to be shared via the forwarding option in email – so not wide spread like it would be on social media. So, think about whether you're writing about something that you want to be shared over and over and possibly become viral or if you're writing about something that is super valuable to your audience and it'll be worth the struggle if they want to share it.
• Will it keep your newsletter subscribers loyal? It's one thing to get those newsletter subscribers but then you have to keep the dern things, right? Take a minute when you're getting ready to send a newsletter and examine whether it is going to be valuable to those folks on your list; is it going to help you KEEP them on your list or is going to be trashed within 2 second of opening it and then maybe cause some unsubscribes?

Hopefully that'll help you when trying to determine where to share what content. Sometimes there's no definitive answer BUT maybe you can at least narrow it down and then use eeny meeny miny moe? That's it – when all else fails, go back to 4th grade with the eeny meeny option.

On the topic of newsletters – I totally sent out an amazing one today full of lots of information on how you can put YOU in your business! If you're a subscriber, stop reading right now and go check your inbox; if you're not a subscriber…um….go subscribe, you're missing out! <—-and once you subscribe you get our to-do list AND an archive list full of our latest newsletters. We rock, we know it.