Sandy is a coach for financial, insurance, and sales professionals, lawyers, and coaches. He came to me in February 2015 as a result of my effective marketing activity on LinkedIn. I pointed out that the challenge he was facing was he had too MUCH content on his site. He had blog articles posted on his site dated 2003! He worked tirelessly every week to provide his audience of newsletter subscribers and his occasional website visitor with engaging, actionable content. Yet Sandy was concerned and confused as to why all of

His exhausting efforts were not bringing in any new clients.

Sandy’s mailing list is what I call a ‘dead list.’ He has over 1,500 subscribers, but only 200 or so had been opening his newsletters and emails and it was the same 200 every week when his broadcast email messages were delivered. Yet none of these people were taking action to consult with him and work with him. We assume they were reading the content, finding some great tips but ultimately implementing them on their own. It was clearly an issue that he spent

So much energy and time providing content that was not bringing new clients.

Although he had his social media platforms set up, he was simply not using them in an effective manner. He was not sharing all of his valuable content and helpful tips on these platforms. I suggested to Sandy that he re-purpose his content, update old posts from previous years, and as these ‘new’ articles were posted I would have my team create excerpts for every updated post. In March 2015 we were ‘ready to roll,’ and by May—in just two months—as can be seen from this social media metrics report, we increased the number of visitors to his website from 23 to 212. His page views demonstrated equally improved statistics from 27 to 209, and the average time people spent ‘clicking around’ his site increased from 3 seconds to 35 seconds…these metrics prove the importance of knowing how to use specific social media strategies.

I continue to offer suggestions to Sandy, most especially to share not just his own content, but content from others which his audience would find to be valuable. I’m a firm believer that if you

Act as a ‘filter’ of great content

…and you will become someone people want to engage with.

Key Takeaways:

• Lessen your self-imposed obligation to constantly write new articles; instead, repurpose older existing content. (Additional Tip: Have your web designer remove the dates from your posts, so they don’t appear ‘stale.’)
• Continue to connect with new people and grow your audience on several platforms. If your current mailing list is not interested in what you are promoting and sharing and they’re not taking action to engage with you beyond being on your mailing list, you need to find new people who potentially would be.