What is valuable content?

By Mark Brownlow | Post to del.icio.us

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Valuable content is useful content. It addresses a need or solves a problem. So ask yourself what problems or needs your readers have, and use that as a starting point for developing valuable content.

The thing here is not to be too constrained by what we typically think of as a need or problem. We're not just talking about practical, business or financial topics. People have a need to laugh and to learn, for example. Typically, useful content might:

Don't forget the value behind the newsletter, too. A great newsletter for building customer loyalty, for example, is pointless if the business behind the newsletter doesn't deserve that loyalty. A newsletter which does an excellent job at encouraging website visits is pointless if the website is awful at converting visitors to customers.

But useful content in itself isn't enough to create value. The content also has to be timely and relevant.

Imagine you've written a very useful article on barbecuing pork. Now consider the value of this tip if you send it out in deep midwinter. Or if you send it to an audience consisting mostly of vegetarians.

I have another criterion for you - uniqueness. Let's assume you have come up with content that is useful, timely and relevant to your audience. Now you have your valuable content, right? Well, maybe not. You've content that's valuable in absolute terms, but what about relative to the competition?

There's no denying that soccer fans will find match reports sent within minutes of the final whistle useful, timely and relevant. But if there are another 50 newsletters doing the same, then the relative value of your newsletter is rather low.

You can compensate for this problem through the other two elements of our "successful" newsletter - through professionalism and personality.

Nevertheless, it's worth adding "uniqueness" to our understanding of what makes a newsletter valuable to its readers.

Valuable content is useful, timely, relevant and unique.

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