Curated content—including content from other sources—can be a big boon to companies that use it effectively. A strong mix of curated and original content in newsletter marketing boosts visibility. It also helps direct focus to key products and services.
According to a recent survey, 82% of polled businesses believe properly curated content plays a big role in their success. While original pieces tailor the content to suit your newsletter, curated content needs more care. A few guidelines on the best practices for content creation can help improve your newsletters and other forms of marketing.
Understanding Curated Content
The internet provides an almost infinite variety of content on any subject a user could wish for. Accordingly, that includes content useful and pertinent to any business. The trick is finding content that engages readers in your newsletter.
For example, research from Snov.io indicated that emailed newsletters that contain video content are more likely to be opened and read. By including a pertinent video, businesses can increase engagement and improve sales with comparatively little effort. That’s the kind of impact that effective content curation can provide.
Best Practices for Curating Content for Newsletters
Good curated content is relevant, interesting, and valuable to your audience. It doesn’t necessarily come from a simple Google search—and without a good plan, locating appropriate content can be time-consuming and frustrating. With a keen sense of where to look, however, the process becomes much easier.
While each company has needs and expectations for strong newsletter content, some general guidelines apply to almost any situation. The following tips can help anyone new to curating content find the best material for them.
Identify Reliable Sources of Content
Good content sources provide reliable information, cite their sources, and have a strong reputation for reliability in their field. Poor sources promote misinformation and untrustworthy content, which don’t serve a newsletter well no matter the field—so vet sources carefully. Industry websites and forums are a good place to start looking, and the local chamber of commerce can also provide reliable resources.
Look for content that aligns with the company brand and that comes from experts and industry leaders. Create a list of reliable content sources, then return to them whenever new content is required. It speeds up the process considerably by providing reliable content with minimal time.
Evaluate Content for Relevance, Accuracy, and Authority
Curated content needs to be relevant to the topic at hand, the information it presents must be accurate, and it should come from an authoritative source. Once you know where to look for relevant content, you should be able to evaluate it to ensure that it fits the needs of your newsletter. In most cases, it’s also important to contextualize the content so the reader understands why it’s included.
Properly Crediting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a huge problem on the internet, and proper citation is vital to responsibly presented content. Never copy content verbatim, and always provide a link to the proper source. In addition, every piece of curated content should be properly accredited, and if possible, cite the original source rather than a second- or third-hand article on it. Always be prepared to take curated content down if the original poster asks, and there may be additional legal concerns depending on the nature of the material.
Balancing Curated Content with Original Content
If properly applied, curated content can save you a great deal of time while enhancing the quality of your newsletter. At the same time, it’s important not to lean too heavily on curated content, detracting from reader engagement and turning the newsletter into a sorting house. Furthermore, there are likely topics specific to your business that lack quality content. As such, you’ll need to fill it with original content. Generally speaking, a successful ratio is about 60% curated content and 40% original content.
Crafting Authentic and Valuable Newsletter Content
Original content demonstrates authenticity and value to your readers, enhancing your company’s brand and showing your expertise. Combining it with curated content can demonstrate your expertise and add considerable value to your newsletter.
This starts with determining and sticking with your newsletter’s single focus: It enhances the brand and lets customers know what to expect. Tailoring your original content to fill in the gaps left by curated content is also important. For instance, make sure you cover topics without curated content and demonstrate how those topics are connected.
Using Data to Evaluate Newsletter Curation Success
No matter your steps to source high-quality curated content, you need hard data to evaluate its success. It’s not enough to send it out in an email. You have to evaluate specific metrics, such as open rates (how many people opened the email), click-through rates (how many followed any links in the newsletter), and conversion rates (whether that translates to a successful sale). AI analytics and similar methods can collate and analyze data, giving insight into how well your curated content works.
Curated Content with AI Systems
AI “adaptive learning” systems are the future of business, no matter what that business may be. Without them, your company risks falling behind the competition. Daily.ai offers fully autonomous AI content creation. It’s like having a team of data scientists analyze what your subscribers are looking at, then translating that into more effective content curation. Contact us today to see how Daily.ai can deliver for your business!
