How to know what to write about

--> it's not as easy as it seems

When you first start writing emails and newsletters your initial challenge is usually “what on earth am I going to write about?”

At that point you’ll pretty quickly realise it’s a good idea to write about your client’s problems and goals. That’s what they’re interested in.

The next step is cottoning on that writing about topics you’re not interested in is pretty much impossible. At this point you’ll probably stumble onto advice like this:

Which seems pretty sensible. Ideas expressed in Venn diagrams always seem more insightful.

The trouble is, it doesn’t really work. Not from a practical perspective. It only narrows down the range of things you could write about from close to infinite to a few million. Not much help.

So next you’ll probably hear advice that you should go really narrow. “An inch wide and a mile deep”.

That gives you a little niche where you’re saying something different to everyone else.

The problem is it often narrows your writing way beyond the services you might want to offer. And frankly, you end up running out of new ideas after a while and your writing begins to feel a bit repetitive. If not to your audience then certainly to you.

The answer?

It might be different for you, but what’s worked pretty well for me is to write about three different areas and to mix them up a bit over time.

1. I write about my area of expertise generally. In my case for the last few years it’s been email marketing/newsletters. In the past it’s been “marketing for consultants, coaches and trainers”. These are broad enough topics that I have plenty to go at to keep the emails valuable and varied. And it establishes me as someone with broad enough knowledge in that area to be able to help with a wide range of problems.

2. I also write about one specific area within my field of expertise. This allows me to differentiate from what others are saying and mark myself out as a deep expert and the “go to” person for that specific topic. When I was writing about marketing for consultants, coaches and trainers my “deep dives” were into online marketing/email marketing. Now I focus only on email marketing my deep dives have been into using AI to aid your writing.

Mixing between these two levels roughly 50:50 allows me to establish myself as a broad and deep expert in my field. It means I’m the go to person (or at least one of them) for anyone wanting help in a narrow area like using AI to help with writing emails, but I’m also well in the mix for the much larger range of clients who want more general support with their newsletters.

And it means my writing is varied and interesting for my whole audience. Not everyone wants to hear about a single narrow topic all the time. And even if it’s your main focus of interest, just like with music or TV or films, we all like a bit of variety.

Hold on Ian, you said three different areas…

OK, so the final area I write about - maybe 5% of emails - is…

…anything I fancy

I suggest you reserve 5% for something similar too.

If writing about something completely off-topic makes you happy, or you really need to say something about a specific topic: do it.

If you’ve built a good relationship with your readers they’ll indulge you.

It’ll also help build a more rounded, more human perception of you.

They might well find it valuable or interesting or inspiring too (first rule of email: as long as your emails are interesting and your readers keep coming back for more, you win).

Of course, if you stray massively from the reason people signed up for your emails too often, you’ll eventually lose them. They won’t feel you’re relevant any more. That’s why I say make it at most 5% of your emails.

But doing something different every now and then is good for the soul. And it’s good for your emails.

- Ian