Even though it’s not talked about as much as the other marketing strategies, content repurposing should play an integral role in every company’s marketing playbook. No matter how great your blog is or how large your following, eventually, you’re going to have some content that goes without notice or doesn’t quite draw the attention you were hoping for.
Enter content repurposing. In this article, we’re going to clear up some of the misconceptions, go over the numerous benefits, and give you some repurposing ideas that you can start implementing today.
What is Content Repurposing?
Simply put, it’s refreshing and refurbishing your existing content in a new way so you can reshare it with your target market in hopes of a better response.
Don’t mistake this for the ineffective act of “republishing” which is pretty much recycling old content with (minor) tweaks and throwing it back at your readers. Republishing is the same as trying to regift a used cooking pot for Christmas and hoping that your aunt doesn’t notice.
Repurposing, on the other hand, is taking existing content and putting it into a new context. This could be in the form of a podcast, infographic, eBook, video, or even a nifty slideshow presentation. Now that we’ve cleared up what it is and what it isn’t, let’s take a look at the benefits.
The Many Benefits of Content Repurposing
1. Save Time and Effort
While coming up with an awesome idea and crafting new content around it is great, it’s a very time-consuming process. Why would you take the longer route when you have a wealth of great ideas sitting in your library of older (but not completely forgotten) content?
With repurposing, you can take your best (and worst) works and turn them into new, exciting content across different contexts and formats. This is going to save you loads of time since you already have the topics, and more than likely have most of the research done for them.
2. Expand Your Target Market
Not everyone digests information the same way. Some of us can simply read a blog post and learn the information, while others will need to see or hear it in order to gain the same effect. If your content marketing strategy focuses solely on presenting all of the information in the same format (like a blog post), you’re going to lose the portion of potential readers that prefer watching or listening.
By diversifying the way you share your content, you’re going to be appealing to more readers. This will naturally result in more traffic for your website, and ultimately, more customers.
3. Improve Your SEO Game
The more high-quality content that you pump out, the better your SEO rankings are going to be. As you gain more readers and social media shares (thanks to the multiple formats you use to create content), you’re going to become more of an authority in your field.
This will also result in more backlinks. As both of these factors increase, your SEO rankings will continue to climb and you’ll generate higher amounts of organic search traffic.
Ideas For Repurposing Existing Content
When you’re exploring your existing content library, the key is to look for content that is going to stay relevant for long periods of time. If you start to pursue a topic that’s going to be outdated in a month’s time, your efforts are going to be wasted.
This holds true for your less popular articles as well. Just because something didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it doesn’t mean it’s bad information, maybe it was just presented in the wrong context.
1. Make an eBook
In the online world, eBooks have been experiencing a meteoric rise with little signs of slowing. As such, they happen to present a great opportunity for content repurposing. If you have a stack of articles revolving around a broad topic that are loaded with high-value information, you can take and condense them into an eBook.
This is a great way to take all of your best information and combine it into one concise file for readers to enjoy. You can either share it as a free download in exchange for email addresses, or choose to sell it and create another revenue stream.
2. Create a Slideshow or Infographic
Nowadays more than ever, people like to learn new things in small, digestible tidbits of information. If you have a series of high-level blog posts that thoroughly explore a more complex topic, you can easily scan through and extract the best information points to create a slideshow.
If you have loads of accurate statistics, you should consider compiling it all into a visually appealing infographic. Being even easier to go through than a slideshow, infographics comprised of valuable information usually experience high levels of social media sharing.
3. Interview and Update Podcasts
Interviews with existing clients and other professionals in your field are easy targets for podcasts. The reason that podcasts thrive so much is because they’re easy to listen to. They don’t require you to sit down and focus on reading them. You can listen on the go.
If your field is constantly changing, producing weekly or monthly update podcasts are another great way to grow your follower base. Rather than turning interviews into dialogue posts or sending out a monthly update email, give your followers the opportunity to listen instead.
4. Don’t be Camera Shy
There’s no denying it, videos are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to digest information. If you have some popular “How-To” or “Why” posts, you can turn them into short videos to reach potential customers that don’t particularly like reading.
Not only are they extremely shareable, but studies find that videos drive a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines. Go through your existing content, pick out your most popular articles, and find a way to turn them into videos.
Conclusion
Content repurposing is a great strategy that you can use to grow your business in multiple new ways. With the continuously evolving consumer market, it’s one of the best tactics for staying relevant without having to scrap all of your old content.
At first, getting the hang of content repurposing may be a bit of a struggle, but if you consistently use these tips and keep at it, your marketing results will no doubt reap the rewards.