A record comes out. A few weeks later there's a radio edit, a club mix, a dub version for the DJs and maybe something slower for the end of the night. Same song. Different crowds.
I've loved remixes for as long as I've been playing records. And they're the answer to the thing I hear all the time from business owners. I haven't got time to make all that content.
You don't need to make it all from scratch. Record, remix, release.
Record
What are you already doing that you could capture? Conversations, talks, meetings with clients (with their permission), the questions people ask you every week. A lot of that is already in your diary.
Often the best content is collected rather than created. Documenting what you actually do shows the real you, and that beats anything too polished or staged.
And look at what you've already got. Old posts, old videos, old talks. Most of it can be edited into something new.
Remix
Two questions matter most. Who is this for? And how will they be watching, reading or listening?
Make a version for each crowd and each place you share it. Think about Harry Potter. It started as one book. Then came more books, audiobooks, films, games, a stage play and theme parks. Every one of them is a remix of the same original idea.
Your thing doesn't need a theme park. But one good conversation can easily become a video, a short clip, a post and an email.
Release
Once it's made, put it where your people already are, in the format that suits that place. Make it easy for them to find you and easy to reply.
A remix of a remix
The post you're reading is a remix itself. I first wrote it in 2017, and here it is again, rewritten for now.
The tools for remixing have got much quicker since then. AI can turn a recording into a transcript in seconds. What hasn't changed is the first question. Who is it for? Which is the whole point of Marketing isn't about you.
If you want ideas for what to record in the first place, I put fourteen of them in Stuck for something to post?.
Look at your diary for next week and find one conversation you're already having that you could record. Ask permission, record it, and then make one short version for the place your people actually spend their time.
First published September 2017.
