The truth about done-for-you health content

Done-for-you health content are pre-written articles, emails, programs, etc. that save you a huge amount of time when it comes to consistently staying in touch with your community. You simply choose the topics that are most important to you, purchase the pre-written documents (at a much, much lower price than having them created from scratch uniquely just for you), spend a few minutes customizing them to suit your style and brand, and then publish them as though they’re your own.

You essentially cut your creation time to about one-fifth of what it would be if you created your content from scratch for yourself.

Done-for-you content is a very easy way to regularly communicate with your readers, subscribers, and followers with excellent information and helpful tips that looks as though you spent a ton of time researching, writing (or recording), and editing, when in fact, you outsourced most of that work and have most of that time still available to help your paying clients and run your business.

Full transparency: I’m a prolific creator of done-for-you health content.

But honestly, done-for-you (DFY) health content is not for everyone. If you absolutely love finding and reviewing studies, writing, and editing, AND your time and effort in these areas pay off to get you clients and/or patients, then, done-for-you health content is not necessary for you.

This article goes over some of the major pros and cons of using DFY content—truthfully

For me, creating credible health content (i.e., based on legit scientific studies) is seriously my jam. Not only do I create a range of different DFY health articles that I sell here; but, I’ve ghostwritten and/or edited hundreds of health and wellness articles and emails. Hundreds! My clients and customers include nutritionists/dietitians, fitness pros/yoga instructors, physicians, chiropractors, health coaches, mental health professionals, health-centred non-profits, online magazines, dietary supplement manufacturers, etc.

Let me spill the truth about DFY health content. (I surely don’t want you to have buyer’s remorse!)

First up…

What exactly is done-for-you health content?

Done-for-you (DFY) content goes by a few other names, like “white-labelled” or “PLR” (Private Label Rights). It’s basically pre-written content (i.e., articles, emails, programs, etc.) that you buy the right to use as your own.

For example, the DFY health articles I write are created specifically for health & wellness professionals who want to build their brands with easy-to-understand, engaging, research-based content. They’re fully science-backed and created in Word docs that are instantly downloadable so you can customize or personalize them and use them almost however you want to.

You can re-purpose them in so many ways to finalize them the way you want and then become the author:

• publish them as your own blog posts
• copy them (or parts of them) into your newsletter
• pull out excerpts and quotes for social media posts
• give them away as opt-in incentives to grow your email list
• add them to your paid health & wellness programs or ebooks
• talk about the research in your podcast or video

The only restrictions I have are that you don’t re-sell them, don’t use them as posts on more than one website, nor submit them to your prof as your school assignment (’cause that’s just icky!).

So, by purchasing pre-written DFY health articles or emails, you buy a license to use them for your health business. And you have a lot of freedom to customize and re-purpose them so they suit your needs, whether you provide the content for free or charge for it. The goal of done-for-you content is to be able to consistently support your health practice while saving a ton of time and money by outsourcing the research and writing.

Benefits of using done-for-you content

As health practitioners, we’re also entrepreneurs and online business owners. And we’re often our own admins, social media managers, customer service agents, and accountants. Sometimes we even design our own graphics and websites.

#EntrepreneurLife #WeAreAwesome

You get the picture. We wear many hats when we’re running our businesses. And that takes a lot of different skills.

If you’re like me, when I went to nutrition school I wasn’t that interested in (nor did I learn) the basics of bookkeeping, social media management, nor graphic/website design.

Done-for-you content rocks (for most people) because it allows you to outsource the time and effort to research and create high-quality health articles and emails yourself

Sometimes it just makes sense to outsource certain tasks and responsibilities—especially ones that we know are going to move our “business needle” forward. We simply can’t always dilute our energy into doing every single thing we need to do.

To be honest, I’ve outsourced many tasks for my biz. Sometimes because they’re not my passion or zone of genius. Most times it’s because I frankly suck at them and hate doing them. But when it comes to research, writing, editing, and keyword optimizing—that’s my jam.

I stopped pushing myself to do stuff I wasn’t good at

For example, several years ago I was a nutritionist. Now I’m a health writer/editor, content marketer, and research nerd. These last three are what I love to do. And I’m freaking good at it. (Oh, and I’ve been researching/writing science-based health info since I started university a long time ago—it’s not a new skill of mine.) 😉

Honestly, I didn’t thoroughly enjoy being a nutritionist and acting as a health mentor and coach. I had great clients, but it didn’t light me up. It wasn’t my zone of genius. It wasn’t my jam.

Personally, I’d rather research and write health articles All. Day. Long. rather than muddle my way through someone’s food journals or practise food photography.

And I have tons of respect if you are absolutely fabulous at coaching and being a health mentor for your clients. I can imagine how it feels when someone tells you that they’ve met their health goals, they’re feeling so much better, and they actually looove your recipes. That your professional recommendations and support with a new nutrition and lifestyle plan has benefited them immensely.

#YayYou

Do you know how you feel when you’ve turned around someone’s health with a new amazingly better lifestyle? THIS is how I feel when someone tells me that the health articles they buy from me helps them:

• “Look smart! I look like I’ve spent a lot of time researching those articles.”
• “Save a ton of hours from looking. I know how to do this but there are only so many hours in the day.”
• “Establish trust with people so they’re willing to pay for my services.”
• “Get guest blog opportunities. People trust and share what I write. Because people trust me I’ve been able to develop ambassador affiliate relationships.”

#YayMe

What I’m saying is that businesses need a lot of inputs to be successful and no one is great at everything. Being an entrepreneurial health practitioner takes a TON of different skills and a TON of time.

These are some of the true benefits of using done-for-you health content.

If each of us goes “all in” on our strengths, we can rock as a team. We can change the world of health.

You can probably coach nutrition or fitness clients 10,000x better than I can and create fantastic recipes or workouts. That is amazing!

Technically, I could keep pushing myself to be a nutrition coach because that’s what I should do. My nutrition clients would never see and feel that spark of passion in how I help them.

If I forced myself to grind through every day, I would clearly be less effective and successful as my colleagues (you!) who are amazing with nutrition clients and recipes.

Do you remember those few teachers or professors who made each class a totally amazing, memorable experience? They’re the ones who filled it with enthusiasm and had that spark for their subject? Ya, that’s me when it comes to research and writing about health topics.

I would never help as many people or make as much of a difference if I constantly did what I “should” and spent So. Much. Time. on my weaknesses.

Pros of done-for-you (DFY) health content:

• Saves you time because you’re not creating everything from scratch.
  • You can have ready-made excellent blog or newsletter articles that you just have to customize and publish.
• Saves you money from hiring someone to create articles exclusively for you.
  • You don’t have to pay a freelance writer $500 for each 500-word article custom written for you (unless, of course, you want to truly stand out with unique outsourced content)
• Saves you frustration from doing something you don’t love that isn’t your superpower.
  • You don’t have to feel overwhelmed doing tedious work when you’d rather help your clients or market your business instead.

Win – Win – Win!

Consider these when it comes to done-for-you health content

Done-for-you content definitely solves a lot of problems for a lot practitioners.

BUT . . .

Let’s be honest, even awesome done-for-you health content has a huge drawback. It isn’t 100% unique to you.

Others, sometimes hundreds of others, are marketing that exact same content at the exact same time as you.

So, herein lies two opportunities:

• Investing in more exclusive (not as “mass market”) DFY products (more on this below)
• Customizing and personalizing DFY health content to make it yours

I would argue that you *can* use DFY content as is, but it’s important to make at least a small effort to customize it to your brand, your voice, and your community (Do you know how massive the wellness industry is? It’s too easy to get lost in the sea of sameness if you use content out of the box as is.) I highly recommend that you consider any content you invest in to be 80 percent done, where you just need to tweak it by 20 percent before you put it out into the world. (Hence how it takes only one-fifth of the time as doing it all yourself.)

You should personalize any pre-written content so it represents your brand in your voice speaking to your community and links to your other content (articles, recipes, related posts, etc.).

I’ve listed a bunch of ways to customize done-for-you health content here.

Spending 20-60 minutes customizing each DFY health article is well worth the massive time and frustration savings if research and/or writing are not your jam.

You can think about it this way too: what can you create from scratch in 20-60 minutes?

If the answer is: awesome content that your audience loves and you’re proud of, then you don’t need DFY content.

The key to successfully using done-for-you health content is in the niche-specificity, plus quality, plus exclusivity, plus customization.

BTW, any DFY content should be high-quality and error-free. If you ever find mistakes in something from me, please send me an email to let me know!

Cons of done for you (DFY) health content:

• It’s not exclusive to you (but it doesn’t have to be generic or mass market, either).
  • Make sure the DFY content is niche-specific and NOT “mass market” (i.e. NOT sold to hundreds upon hundreds of your colleagues, like mine that automatically discontinue once the 73rd person purchases it!).
• You still need to spend some time customizing and personalizing it.
  • The more you customize, the more it will speak to YOUR community, and the more exclusive it becomes online.

Conclusion

I love DFY articles because they allow inexpensive and quick outsourcing of some of the fundamental content you need to attract new clients, grow your health practice, and consistently stay in touch with your community. You can use them as blog posts, social media posts, free opt-in incentives to grow your list, and add them to products and programs to sell to your clients. If creating these from scratch is not your jam, then you don’t have to labour at it for a frustrating number of hours or days.

The main problem with DFY content is that it’s not exclusive to you. Other practitioners will have the same content as you, so you really should customize it, at least a bit. Consider DFY health content to be 80 percent done, where you take a high-quality piece of content and just need to make it yours.

The bottom line is: buying niche-specific DFY health content is a GREAT way to outsource tasks you may not have time or desire for, and costs just a small fraction of hiring a ghostwriter to create this stuff exclusively for you. Look for high-quality products, especially when it was created by someone who’s superpower is exactly that.

These are my honest thoughts. I’d love to hear yours! If you have a few minutes to anonymously answer a few questions about what you would love to see in health content, there is a short survey at this link.

Signing off and toasting: To the truth about done-for-you health content!

Over to you

What do you think about done-for-you content? Would you prefer cookie-cutter content that potentially hundreds of colleagues use too? Have you invested in custom creations that are exclusive to you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below!

Originally published Aug 2017. Updated with even more awesomeness March 2019, March 2021, October 2021, and April 2026