The final boss of content creation tips

If I had to pick ONE way to create, monetize, use content, it’d be… Questions. Questions people ask you have nearly unlimited uses. Just one of which is your answer IS content. Questions, directly from your market, are the single best way to know you are in their World, talking about what is interesting to them, with no guess work needed. It’s gotten to the point where whenever I am asked to give a talk or teach I only do Q&A. It is pointless for me to guess what the audience wants, and I have no desire to bore anyone. But if I take their questions, coming from their brains, about what is important to them then there is almost no way I can bore or be irrelevant to them. Same goes with emails and other content. If you struggle with content creation simply encourage questions. You will never have to worry about “what” to say in your content ever again, will get endless ideas & fodder for everything from emails to paid content, and you will be doing your market a huge service in the process. It’s also hard not to be inherently engaging when you are literally telling them exactly what they want to know more about. At this point I refuse to create any slides, powerpoints, or structured lessons. Screw that. Give me Q&A and I’ll make sure everyone stays engaged and walks out happy. But if you insist I try to guess what they want, lecture them, try to get them engaged? No. It’s not too much unlike a lot of martial arts systems. I don’t pretend to know all of them (I think there are something like 400 styles of kung fu?). But I do know there are several, including the system study, where it is almost preferable someone throws a punch or tries to kick or strike you. It’s almost like a gift. Frankly, it IS a gift if in a lot of cases. You get to take that energy coming at you, use it on them, and do far more damage than you might otherwise. So it is with questions from your market. Let them give you something to work with. They’ll tell you exactly what they want to know by your questions. You won’t have to guess or wonder. And it saves you a helluva lot of time, energy, & frustration. I bring this up for two reasons: 1. The obvious reason — I think the content creation world will be much better off if more content creators took this approach, instead of dreaming up listicles and spouting lame Gary Vee-like one-liners and calling that content. 2. It is one of the 18 approaches I teach up inside the end part of the May Email Players issue. It’s not always possible or practical to get questions like that. In some cases, it can be like pulling teeth. Thus, I have an arsenal of ways I use to get ideas, inspiration, motivation, thoughts, etc for my content — and are the ways I primarily use to create more content in any given month than probably 90% of so-called influencers and content creators prancing around social media all day do in a year. I don’t care if it’s content for writing Email Players issues or books, or the often nearly 100+ pages of emails I write most months (sometimes as much as 200 pages… not to mention email campaigns for new offers, etc), plus for the Twitter Spaces calls I do for BerserkerMail now, plus for the videos I create for the BerserkerMail YouTube channel, plus for the fiction I write, the ads I write that run inside Email Players, not to mention stuff I post on social media, the courses I create and/or co-create for BerserkerMail and other ventures (like completely re-doing my 10-Minute Workday course, for example, next month) or my other companies, and the list goes on. My entire business life revolves around content. Lots of content. And it can’t be shallow Gary Vee-level content. It’s got to educate, sell, entertain, engage, and (ideally) elevate peoples’ thinking. At least, to the extent that I can. And the 18 approaches I write about inside the May issue help me get it all done. Okay, that’s it. I’m done promoting this issue. This is the last email I’m sending about it. When I send the list in to the printer it’ll be too late to subscribe in time for it. Here’s the link one last time: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Here’s a “sneak preview” of what’s waiting for you inside the May issue: * An “off the cuff” comment the great Matt Furey made on a Zoom call (while we showed him BerserkerMail) that is probably the single most valuable content monetization lesson I’ve heard (and used) in the past 10 years. (He talked about everything from publishing, email, & health… to Bigfoot, aliens, &, yes… flat earth… but this “throwaway” comment he made about jump ropes was something I wrote down, have been thinking about, and have since doubled down on using to move probably even more offers than I normally would have.) * How the world’s greatest living copywriter used ordinary steak knives to sell a small fortune in subscription offers. (He wasn’t selling “content” necessarily — but I have been using this ditty for nearly 20 years since hearing him teach it to sell all kinds of content-related offers. I suspect nearly anyone else in business can, too.) * The Marvel Cinematic Universe secret to selling people on wanting to buy your content literally months (possibly even years) in advance — including before you’ve even created or talked about it! (I noticed Marvel started doing this with its first Thor movie, and it’s been a free education in content offer launches since. Their movies may not be great, but their way of selling irrefutably is.) * A skeevy trick used by the crooked Chicago Democratic Machine for the past 60+ years that legit businesses can use to help make more profits that you can (legally & ethically — no corruption necessary) when monetizing your own content. * One of the “most published” writers on the planet’s bonafide creativity hack for tricking your brain into coming up with ridiculously profitable ideas for all kinds of content (books, courses, videos, audio, anything, really) you want to create. (I’m not usually a big fan of hacks — but even I admit this is one of the most cunning ways I’ve ever seen to create everything from subject lines and headlines to stories to lessons, newsletter issues, courses, and everything in between.) * The exact best time to create content to sell, use as premiums or teachings, for coaching, or probably anything else. (I learned this clever trick from my uncle — a very successful Amway distributor back in the day — and it’s made the content-creation & monetization side of my business both a whole lot more profitable and also a whole lot less stressful.) * A “hail Mary pass” way of using content you’ve created to potentially make more sales in a week than most businesses do in a year. (The downside is you can only break the glass and use this probably one time, so make sure you do it when it counts.) * A little known (inspired by something an old school Marvel Comics editor in chief’s once did) secret for creating bonuses & premiums that can help sell lots more of your other offers — and often without doing any hard pitching in your content or pissing anyone off. (Bonus: doing this can also help make it more likely your customers will be more successful with those offers, use those offers, refer others to those offers, give testimonials for those offers, want more of those offers, and the list goes on. A powerful tip indeed.) * A non-cringey way for using name-dropping in your content to help make it more likely to be consumed, taken seriously, and even back end sell your other offers. (This goes way beyond content creation and delves into what I teach about World & Marketing Universe-building as well… to help make it more likely customers want to enter your domain and not want to leave. I’ve been using this trick for years, and am finally now teaching it in Email Players.) * Clever ways to use “Lore” to help give your business top-of-mind Status amongst your market, customers, & clients. (This also delves into World & Marketing Universe-building as I teach it. And it can also help add depth to the info you teach, create a “mystique” about your content, and potentially make that content inherently more valuable as a result.) * How one of the most prolific writers in history shrewdly used “dangling plot lines” to keep people reading, engaging with, and, yes… buying his content for literally decades… and how to adapt what he did to your own content. * Why the value you create in your content is bull shyt and what is far more useful and beneficial to your customers & clients. (The “give value” shtick was always an illusion used and pushed mostly by people who can’t sell… and has done far more harm than good. Inside I show you what can work far better while helping make you look like a hero to your audience instead.) * The psychology behind how to combine content with promotion in such a way where customers & clients will probably have no idea they are even being pitched and might even thank you for selling to them after. (Combining content with promotion is like a lost art in 2024 — and hardly anyone does it much less can teach it. But the May issue shows you in great detail how this can work and what it can look like straight from one of the most prolific and profitable content creators who ever lived.) * 18 ways for creating content that can give you such a rush of ideas you might even have to quite your brain just for some peace! (These 18 ways are basically like a “sequel” to my best-selling Breakneck Content book —delivered in rapid-fire style inside, and that I use myself to pound out more content in a month than most content creators probably do in a year.) There’s more. It is, after all, a King-Sized issue (32 pages vs the usual 20). But that should give you an idea of what to expect. To subscribe by the looming deadline go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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