As content marketers, we often hear the word “repurposing” and think to ourselves, “Why can’t I just create original content for my audience? It’s because original content is valuable and necessary – but it isn’t the only thing you can create. The internet is a black hole of information and it’s our job to create engaging content that will inspire and motivate visitors to take action – whether that be to follow your social media accounts, subscribe to your newsletter or purchase your products. With so much information on the web, it can be easy to get lost and have your content get buried under everything else.
Great content gets read.
However, only a small percentage of people will read a post all the way to the end. If you are looking to boost views on your site and even get sales, it just makes sense to let your great content work for you again and again. You would think there is only one way to reuse your content for marketing. WRONG! Content marketing is about 40% Placemaking, 18% Promotion, 17% Storytelling and 11% Provisioning. The more you can tailor the message to someone’s needs, the better chances you have of increasing conversions. In fact, repurposing existing content with a little bit of effort and creativity can not only save you time and energy but also offer new opportunities for connecting with your audience.
Often times, business owners and marketers become easily overwhelmed when trying to keep up with the need to generate a high-volume output of quality content. Once you get through this article you’ll understand what repurposing content involves and why could be a beneficial tool to apply to your marketing strategies. To help we’ve also put together a list of the best practices in repurposing your tried and true pieces.
First and Foremost - What is Content Repurposing
Repurposing your content simply means taking an existing piece of content (video, blog post, eBook, etc.) and turning it into a new format for publishing. The whole idea behind content repurposing is to take something that already exists and make it accessible to a wider audience. There are many ways you can repurpose your content, but the first thing to ask yourself is: What is the goal? Is your goal to drive more traffic to your website? Is your goal to get more subscribers? Is your goal to convert more sales leads? Once you know what your goal is, it will be easier for you to pick the type of repurposing that will deliver results.
Repurposing Content is Beneficial to SEO
It allows you to be able to update your resources to reach wider audiences. For example, repurposing one blog with a good amount of traffic into other content forms such as infographics and a video can drastically boost your organic traffic with minimal investment of time and money. You also have a great opportunity to put your SEO knowledge to good use as content can be reworked to appeal to more up-to-date keyword data.
All these advantages team up to make your repurposing efforts well wroth your time.
Best Practices
Audit Your Existing Content
Before you start repurposing your content, run it through a content audit. Consider which parts are most relevant to your current goals and interesting to your target audience and start with those. Then start to be identifying where your audience are consuming content the most as well as platform opportunities to deliver your message in new ways.
Find Evergreen Content
Evergreen content means content that has longevity, something that will always be relevant in your specific Industry. Whether you run an e-commerce business, blog, consultancy or any sort of small business, having a consistent and high-quality content stream that you can recycle over and over again is incredibly important to save you valuable time and money that can be spent on other aspects of your business. For evergreen content in general: Quora is a great resource for finding topics to write about because other people have already asked the question. It’s a great place to find out what people in your niche are interested in and want to hear more about.
Repurpose High-Performing Content
Your platform analytics will give you valuable insights on which pieces of content are sharing well on social media and how people are finding your site through search. If you’re a start-up or new to content marketing, you may not have a lot of data to pull from in these reports right now. That’s ok! It’s important to track your data over time so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. In the meantime, take a look for piece that were popular and maybe didn’t get as much traffic as you had anticipated. It’s a great start to figure out why they didn’t perform as expected and how you can update them for more traffic.
Review Your Recent Feedback
Review your recent feedback, especially for content that were republished beyond your network. What’s your audience telling you? What do they want to see more of? What are they asking for? Aim to provide value through each blog post you write and share on social channels. Try exploring some of the reader responses on your recent content too. Is there a certain topic that keeps coming up in response to your content? Is there a question that’s being asked repeatedly? If so, you’re onto something. This is exactly what a gated content strategy is all about.
Research Your Competitors
Everyone has the same amount of resources and the only way to get ahead is to do something better than your competitors. By analyzing their strategy, you can determine what’s working for them and emulate it with a similar campaign. Use your research to delve further into what companies are employing and apply the ‘Skyscraper’ technique. The skyscraper technique is a way to improve online content. It is an opportunity to compare what your competitor has done and create a better, more comprehensive version. Another big part of competitor research comes down to being able to identify keyword gaps – keywords for which you have fewer posts that rank well compared to your competitors. With this, you’ll be able to find plenty of keywords that your content hasn’t sufficiently covered and which you should target and repurpose your material to.
Develop Your Content
At this point, you have all the insights you need to create a content strategy that will meet your original goal – whether you are looking to enter a new marketing channel, attract new audiences or improve your brand image. This is when it’s time to make decisions about what form your content will take. Repurposing your content also requires well thought-out tactics. Of course this will depend on the amount of time and resources you have available, as well as the types of content you need. Below are some great options to go about repurposing your content:
Redirecting and Republishing
Content Syndication (republishing your content onto various external sites/platforms)
Reposting on popular user destinations such as Quora and Product Hunt
Recording your existing content into webinars, podcasts or video content
Transform your content into visuals such as infographics and media snippets
Group your existing content into email newsletters, thematic campaigns and eBooks
With a baseline of success determined for your content you're ready to develop a detailed outline and turn out revitalised, and high-quality content.
To Conclude
With the explosive growth of digital media, marketers are constantly looking for new ways to engage prospective customers and to meet the needs of their audience. Content repurposing is an excellent strategy that can help you accomplish both goals at once. To position yourself as a thought leader in your field and retain your customers, it is important to develop your content and to take advantage of every opportunity you have to share it. Recycling already existing content and leveraging it across different marketing channels not only leads to a significant amount of time and effort saved, but it also allows for potentially new insights or information that either becomes available over time or because your brand has had more interaction with a topic.
While repurposing or sharing old content can sound uninspiring, it’s a proven tactic for getting in front of potential customers. Chances are, if people are visiting your website, they’re interested in what you have to say. This means that the content your repurposing isn’t going to waste; it’s just finding a new home. As a business owner, you know that time is your most valuable resource and with this as part of your long-term strategy, you can lead a healthy ROI for your business in terms of both increased traffic and conversions. In addition, it’s a great, reliable tool to help generate and maintain an ever-growing amount of fresh content.
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