Each piece of content you create is an investment of both time and money. Why then, do some companies have a "set it and forget it" policy when it comes to their content? The moment you hit "Publish" on a blog post, infographic, video, etc., should represent the start of that piece's journey, not the end.
Marketing teams across the globe are becoming more strategic with their content, actively finding new ways to re-use the information they spend so much time researching. In fact, a marketing report by LookBookHQ and Oracle Eloqua stated that almost 60% of marketing teams re-use and repurpose each piece of their content up to 2-5 times. By taking everything you create and finding opportunities for re-use, you lengthen its life and maximize its potential ROI.
It sounds great in theory, but how are companies actually repurposing their content?
We've gathered insights from 14 marketing leaders across various industries, who explain how their team is transforming their content and maximizing its reach across different channels.
Turn Your Key Points Into an Infographic
"Repurposing old content, especially if it’s data-rich, can provide numerous opportunities for a brand. For example, and something that I’ve put into practice with a B2B client is to extract key information from an old, jargon-filled article on their website and repurpose it for an infographic that could be shared on social media and forums. The thinking behind this? My team and I sought to make information more “snackable” for website visitors, as well as provide something tangible that could be hung up in an office.Refresh Your Old Content Into New Media
"Content is king when it comes to ensuring users have a great experience on your website and ensuring your site has visibility in search engines. However, when it comes to old, outdated, and off-topic content, figuring out what to do with it can be a daunting task.
One of the most successful ways to repurpose marketing content is to create different media. For example, we have a blog on our logo design website about the importance color has on consumer behavior. We took this color psychology blog and turned to a freelancer who was able to create a beautiful and congruent infographic. We then submitted this infographic to dozens of third-party websites that collect media such as this. A few days later, we realized the information was a huge hit. Since then, we've taken dozens of old blog posts and converted them into presentable charts and infographics that are easy to read and sharable."
- Audrey Strasenburgh, SEO Strategist at LogoMix
Repurpose Your Written Content Into "How-to" Videos
"Repurposing existing content into "How-To" and "Tips and Tricks" videos. Not only can we enhance the content we have, but we can also provide updates to it. A video is also more easily shared on sites and in emails, messenger - pretty much anywhere.
Next on the list, we're thinking of repurposing our content yet again with podcasting. We develop and contribute a lot of content and even if people don't have the time to watch it - maybe they can listen to it and still get some value from it."
Start With Making a Video
"Here at Codal, a UX design agency in Chicago, we started creating a video after attending a conference or tradeshow and visually showing where we went instead of just writing about it. We then post this content to all of our social platforms and create a blog about the conference with the video.
Another way to reuse content is to create white papers/case studies for projects we’ve completed. We post these case studies to social media, send them to prospective clients that are coming to us with a similar project, and add them to our website.
Use PR Newswire to distribute your press release. As long as your press release is in the right format, you can write it yourself and submit it to PR Newswire. This website then will distribute the piece of content, increasing your chances of it getting picked up by larger news sources."
Leverage Your Content in as Many Ways as Possible
"At Three Girls Media we strongly believe in the value of working smarter, not harder, and a big part of that is taking advantage of the content we already have. When we write new, longer blog posts (1500+ words), we look back to see if there are any previous posts we’ve written that we can either link back to or repurpose into the new article.
We also republish older articles that are performing well, so we can refresh any older information and give the post more visibility on our blog. In addition, all our blog content is shared across our social platforms, included in our email newsletters and used as source material for other content we create micro-podcasts, images, infographics, etc. We really try to fully leverage our content in as many ways as possible to get the most out of our content creation efforts!"
Take Advantage of Various Holidays
"One way we repurpose existing content is to highlight it on social media. Two examples of how we use this:
We have a campaign going “The United States of Squeeze” where we are trying to get photos of people in each one of the 50 states representing Squeeze. This can be with a t-shirt, sunglasses, sticker, koozie, etc. When people submit a photo, we incorporate it into our social media calendar within one week (usually whichever day we don’t have any content scheduled). That will be the initial post. We also post for “National *insert state here* Day”. For example, National South Carolina Day is August 31. When someone submits a photo in South Carolina, we will post it upon submission, but then we will also re-post it on August 31 to celebrate National SC day. There is a day like this for every state, so we are able to re-use the photos in a tactful way.
A great way to repurpose content is taking information from the website and putting it on social media. One way we do that is through our portfolio pieces. On our website, we have a section that showcases a lot of projects we have worked on and a brief description of the services we offered to that client. We have incorporated that into our social schedule by featuring one portfolio piece 2-4 times per month. This is a fun way to showcase what we’ve done and what we’re proud of, without overwhelming our social followers. It’s nice to segment once piece at a time, because there might be a business owner that can relate to a specific company or project, instead of looking at a long list of them on our website. We also always include a link to the website, so that if they are intrigued by what we post, they can check out our website for more."
Expand Your Audience Reach with YouTube
"If you have a popular blog post that really resonates with your audience, use the article as an outline for a YouTube video on the topic. Our team has seen much success from this strategy and from embedding the video into the relevant article once it's live.
The video gets a nice boost in YouTube search from the embed, and because the article already gets a lot of traffic, the video gets a good amount of organic views."
Tailor Your Content for Each Channel
"Whenever we create a new blog article, we always start with distributing it on all of our social media sites. The key here is to make sure the text in each post is tailored to the social outlet since hashtags or mentions don't always look right on some of the platforms. Having that personal (and yes, manual) touch to each piece of communication is critical in showing those engaging with your content that it is not just a scheduled robot behind the article, but instead is a real human.
After making the rounds on social media, we look for syndication opportunities and submit or post the article to different directories like Medium. The more eyes on the content, the better. Finally, we re-use some of the information within our articles to answer questions on Quora. While this site has strict rules against blatant backlinking and promotion, using the knowledge and information in your content can help better establish an expert reputation for your company and people within your organization."
Anchor Long-Form Content to Your Site
"After we create any long-form content, we then break that up into several different short-forms, like graphics, short videos, infographics, social posts and so many other avenues. It truly becomes a turnkey process when you take your long-form content like blogs, white papers or interviews and look at different ways to have people engage with it in shorter snippets that are more manageable for different platforms. The long-form content should always be located on your website, while the short-form can be spread across social platforms.
One of our best practices when utilizing the short-form content is to have a call-to-action that is linked back to the long-form content on your website. Having a content management system will help you see what content you currently have and what you need to develop. A great way to repurpose content is to update and add to a previously created blog or website content. This way you don’t have to start from scratch, but you're keeping your audience in the loop on anything trending about that content. "
Include Repurposing In Your Content Calendar
"Users are on so many different channels now that it's mandatory for content developers to repurpose content. I like to create my content calendar with repurposing in mind.
For example, if I write a blog, I also plan an infographic, video, and podcast to complement that content. This way, I catch users no matter where they are. When repurposing is part of your content strategy from the beginning, it's way easier to implement and remember, too."
Use Analytics to Prioritize Which Content to Repurpose
"CaterTrax is a SaaS company with solutions built to streamline operations in non-commercial foodservice. The marketing team here at CaterTrax is working on repurposing content by creating supplemental content pieces from big content. For example, taking an existing article and condensing it down into a graphic to share across our social platforms and embed into blogs.
We use analytics to discover our most popular blogs and then strategize on how to best repurpose those pieces into either other types of content (video, infographic, etc.) or update the content with added value. We have also repurposed content by taking a general piece and making it specific to the different industries we serve for a more targeting approach in our lead-generation campaigns."
Repurpose Poor Performers Into Guest Posts
"Most people are rightly concerned about creating evergreen content. However, even that needs a refresh every once in a while - especially in an industry suspect to technological changes, like communications. To repurpose our content, we typically take one or more of these approaches:
- Provide an Update: It's okay to acknowledge that time has passed, and information which was previously "current events" is now worth preserving for posterity. Move outdated or "historical" sections down, or combine into a new background section, and then proceed to write your "new evergreen" content around or above it.
- Hack into Social Shares: You can use these as "Remember When?" social media shares. If the content is still relevant today, re-purpose the content as a LinkedIn article, and make sure to place a link to the original right at the top of the article.
- Low Performers Go Offsite: If a piece is still relevant, or only needs minor tweaking, but just didn't generate the organic traffic or conversions you had hoped, re-purpose it into a guest post to give it some new life (and value)."
Turn eBook Chapters into Blog Posts
"One of the types of content we repurpose at MediaValet is eBooks! As writing an eBook does take quite a lot of time to produce, we want to make sure we make the most of it. One of the ways we’ve done this is by splitting chapters of our eBooks into separate blog posts.
To do this, we simplify the text and group particular subjects into bite-sized chunks that are easy for readers to skim but still provide high-value. We’ll also add captivating imagery, which will help when posting content on social media. We’ve found this to be very successful, as blog posts tend to be less intimidating and require less time to read.
It's also a great tactic to help promote an eBook release, or when you want to drive more traffic after the initial release date. Simply add a call-to-action within the blog post, allowing people to download the full eBook if they’d like to learn more!"
Group Content with Similar Themes
"At Workshop Digital, we’re always thinking about ideas to make our content go the extra mile. Why wouldn’t we? We’ve already created the content; why not invest minimal effort to make the most of it?
This means creating holistic lead generation campaigns that incorporate similar themes across ebooks and emails. It means revising and repurposing our own Workshop Digital blog articles (and including appropriate links), so our internal blogging efforts are constantly communicating with each other. And it means pushing out thought leadership pieces to platforms like LinkedIn and Medium, in an attempt to reach an entirely new audience."
