Creating fresh content takes time. Here’s a smarter strategy: repurpose, refresh and repackage your existing content to reach new audiences and boost results!
Published on August 28, 2018
Content marketing—the creation and sharing of online content—is the lifeblood of any successful digital marketing strategy.
Not only does content marketing build trust and nurture customer loyalty, but today’s customers expect and appreciate relevant, helpful content like how-to videos and knowledge archives.
For business owners, content marketing is not just a tool, but a booster for your overall marketing performance.
As the stats show, generating customer-focused content optimised for search can boost your web traffic, generate three times as many leads as traditional marketing, and drive higher conversion rates, all of which contribute to the bottom line.
Content creation does, however, require an enormous investment of time, and that’s where savvy content marketers understand that ‘writing less and promoting content more’ is the key to online marketing success.
Maximising your content and your time involves a smarter approach-repurposing, refreshing, and repackaging your existing content.
The 3Rs of Repurposing, Refreshing and Repackaging
- Repurpose: Put a new spin on your content and distribute it on different platforms and channels.
- Refresh: Take old content, update and breathe new life into it – and then republish.
- Repackage: Format your content differently to reach new audiences.
Content Repurposing: A Smarter Marketing Strategy
Save Time and Effort
Content marketing offers a whole host of benefits for your business, but creating relevant and appealing content can be incredibly time-consuming. Researching, interviewing subjects, and writing and proofing content takes a lot of effort. Why reinvent the wheel by constantly creating new content when your existing content could work harder for you?
Reach New Audiences
Repurposing content across other channels and platforms in different formats extends its reach. Your content may reach audiences who wouldn’t have discovered or consumed it in its original form.
Most of us have a preferred media channel, so for example, if all your content sits on your blog, you’re missing out on potential audiences who may only visit YouTube.
Likewise, audiences generally have a preferred way of consuming content; some prefer to read articles, others watch videos, and others listen to podcasts. Repackaging your content to suit these preferences leverages your original content exponentially.
Choosing content to repurpose, refresh and repackage
Review your existing content and look for content that is…
- Popular: Which content received the most views? The most engagement?
- Evergreen: Which content is timeless? Or does it just need a few references updated?
8 Ways to Repurpose, Refresh and Repackage Content
Think strategically and creatively, and you’ll discover ways to give your content a new life. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
1. Repurpose Blog Posts to Podcasts
A blog post usually makes a perfect script for a podcast. Think of potential audiences who don’t have time to read but will listen to audio while they’re driving or exercising.
If you’re shy about voicing your podcast, a quick Google search for voice-over artists will uncover people willing to narrate your script. Add intro and exit music, and you’ve got a podcast ready to load to Soundcloud and add to the iTunes podcast directory, ready to be discovered by a whole new audio-loving audience.
AND VICE VERSA: Have you transcribed your podcasts and added the script to a relevant section of your website?
2. Repackage Blog Posts for Social Media
Finding time to write fresh, innovative content for your site – as well as suitable content for various social media channels, is a daunting task.
Repackaging content into a more social media-friendly – and shareable – format is likely to get it in front of a much bigger audience.
Extract a quote or a statistic from a blog post and add it to an image to create a visually appealing, shareable quote that is ideal for Facebook or Instagram. (Tip: Tools like the Word Swag app make this process easy). If you have a few statistics, a tool like Canva can help you make them into a stunning infographic.
AND VICE VERSA: If you use Instagram to link to interesting third-party content, consider collating these posts into a blog post.
3. Repurpose Video to Social Media
Think like a filmmaker and make a trailer for your videos. If your videos are long, they won’t cut it with today’s short attention spans. Edit an interesting snippet and create a GIF to upload to social media.
PLUS: Use presentation slides. Turn them into videos, add a soundtrack, and upload them to your video channel for more visibility.
4. Repurpose Blog and Social Media Content into a Newsletter
Creating a client newsletter can be overwhelming, but it can be as easy as collating your blog and social media content for the past month.
Even your most loyal fans wouldn’t have read all your blog and social media posts – so your newsletter is the ideal vehicle to group all that content you’ve created. Include short excerpts of your blog posts and a link to your site for the full article. Include your best social media posts from Instagram (and other suitable platforms) to encourage your database to follow your social media channels. Brighten up the newsletter with the quote graphics you’ve created.
PLUS: If you’re using an email marketing system like Mailchimp, you can determine which articles and links were most popular from the newsletter analytics – so you can create more of those types of articles.
5. Republish and Reinvent Content to Other Sites
Syndicating or republishing your blog content on other sites is an easy option to reach a wider audience. LinkedIn and Medium are two popular sites for self-syndication (where you have an account and load your own content). Fear of getting hit by a duplicate content penalty by search engines puts some marketers off, so another option is to reinvent your blog content and offer it to sites that welcome guest posts.
If your content idea is current and newsworthy, reinvent it as a press release and upload it to sites like Scoop and Voxy. Mainstream media may pick up on the story, and these popular sites help SEO.
6. Refresh Old Content
In addition to bringing old posts up to date, consider combining several posts for a ‘roundup’ or ‘list’ post. Or the opposite; take a ‘list’ post and use each point as an idea generator for a new post. Or break a long post into a series of posts.
7. Repackage Old Blog Posts
If your blog archives are bulging with content, combine posts and publish them as an e-book, a downloadable guide, or even a course. Not only does this repackaging of content grow your database, but it also gives your customers and leads real value – and you don’t have to start from scratch.
8. Repurpose with a Purpose
It can be tempting to rush in and create blog posts, social media posts, videos, and podcasts ad hoc. The more innovative, efficient alternative is to create a content creation and repurposing plan before creating your content.
Start with your content idea and then map out ways you can…
- Republish that content to other sites
- Repackage the content into a different medium for other platforms
Stop Wasting Great Content
Don’t let your incredible content gather dust! Found can help you repurpose, refresh, and repackage your existing content to reach a wider audience and elevate your SEO.
