In internet marketing, writing a series helps you do several things. First, it helps you maximise mileage on a topic. When you need to write content regularly in order to capture new attention as well as feed the attention span of your existing audience, a subject with some elasticity is going to be very welcome to you.
And second, a series gets people interested and invested in what you have to say. When your audience feels invested in a discussion because of following along from the start, they’re more likely to follow that discussion through conclusion.
People will look forward to part 2, part 3, or subsequent parts. Then, at the conclusion, you might (or maybe you should) have a call to action and by following a path from grabbing someone’s interest to walking a customer through the sales process, you can often cross the finish line with more people at your side.
Using A Series To Increase Sales
Another benefit of writing a series is that if it’s published online, it can become a permanent sales funnel for you and it can become a source of passive income. People who land on the first blog post or article in a series can be guided throughout the series on an indefinite basis.
The series could sit online and work for you for years. People who opt in to your website for a series or a free course can jump into your sales funnel as well. If you are writing content that is evergreen, you can use that series indefinitely to help you convert new prospects into customers.
Tips For Writing A Series
• If you are writing a series for your blog, tag the series with a common tag so that people can search your blog to find the entire series.
• Refer to the starting post in every piece of the series when blogging or posting in articles. That way it’s easy, if someone finds your series but doesn’t find the introduction first.
• Create banners or widgets for other sites that promote the series. An opt-in page offering a free course is a great way to do this.
• Promote your series online in social circles. Use tools like Twitter and Facebook to tell people when a new installment in the series is available and to have discussions about it.
• Promote your series in articles and blog posts to get people’s attention and to point search engines to the series as well.
• Build hype around the series online so that you will get people’s attention. Make sure your first installment really delivers so that people will be interested in reading the next installment in the series.
• Add a teaser for the next item in the series toward the end of each one. A ‘preview’ for next week is a good way to approach it.
• Deliver the series on a schedule. Be consistent! You’ll lose interest if you promise a ten part weekly series and after week two you take a three-week break.
• An autoresponder series can be more profitable for you than writing a series for your blog (although both are advisable!). By doing an autoresponder series, people are required to opt-in and give permission to be contacted. This can enable you to market to them in the future, after the series has ended as well.
About Sean Rasmussen
Maybe for some more handy tips on this topic, watch a week’s worth of Days of Our Lives or some other soapie to see how they do it!
Writing a series is a really good thing to think about to keep attention… Provided you write about something interesting in the first place. Hmmm… Food for thought hey…
Thanks for this article.
I know that for me the most difficult thing is to make sure that I actually update consistently. A series is the easy way for me, but there is so much to learn and to do in this business that I have to be careful not to slip up when it’s time to update my series.
Thanks.
Hi Sean,
I think one of the benefits of writing a series that I’ve found is that it can save me some time. I can write the whole piece in one hit and then break it up into smaller parts. So far I’ve only written a two part series but even that saved me a lot of time.
I’ve seen the success of your Mindset Mastery series and how much interest it generated. Your readers definitely were keen to get to the next installment. So, I learned a lot just by reading that series myself and seeing how you built the anticipation. Now all I need is a topic.
Hi Sean,
Thank you for this article. The information is well received. Writing a series of articles makes good sense and saves much time in the long run. I believe I had this plan in mind before the first article post but got caught up in the moment after creating it and published without considering the next post.
I must now go back to that original idea. That is of writing a series and making regular posts like is suggested here. Thank-you also for the tip on directing the reader to the first article post so that they can follow the series. Makes a lot of good sense.
I love the idea of writing a series for several reasons.
- you can go into more detail with a good topic
- you have stronger SEO on a chosen keyword
- you can keep the attention of the reader and get them to read more than just one page
- and I can write them all at once, write one long post and “just” split it up at the end
So I agree, there are a lot of advantages to writing a series!
I started to use post series on my photography blog. The ROR has been good. My feed subscribers increased by a 10% with the first series. Have been incresing since then.
I agree with the extra benefits Renee wrote above and with the ones on the post.
Hi Sean
The benefits of writing a series as you point out here is an excellent idea for many reasons.
I like that I can expand on a subject and make it compelling over a few weeks. This will hold the readers attention and would be more economical for me in terms of time as I can just write one article and break it up into say four chapters.
I also like the idea of doing a series for an autoresponder. I think people will be more likely to read mail outs if they are really interesting and inspiring and I can keep them curious to read more with each one they receive.