What was old is new again. That’s the premise behind taking content posted weeks, months or years earlier and reviving it for today’s audience. To repurpose from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, “Never let a good blog go to waste.”
Repurposing gives you the chance to have a different take on the same content — like getting a second opinion from the same doctor.
Content marketing consultant Brittany Berger “remixes, re-optimizes and re-energizes your best content so it starts working smart, just like you do.” She and digital marketing strategist Madalyn Sklar talked about why once is not enough to get the most out of evergreen material.
“Repurposing content is economical,” Berger said. “It costs a brand less to modify content already there rather than start from scratch.
“I define content repurposing as any business activity that gets new results from content that you’ve already created, whether it was originally published two days, two months or two years ago,” she said. “That could be using the content in new marketing or sending it over for the sales or support team to use. It can involve creating new content, or just improving what’s already there.”
Entrepreneurs need to be aware of their own stories and that of their people. Storytelling creates great content, and the people mix draws more eyes to the product.
“I would focus on increasing your results over increasing the mere amount of quality published,” Berger said. “We need to lose the idea that creating new content is needed to get results from content marketing.
“It’s not that content marketing doesn’t require creating content, but sometimes you already have content and just need more results,” she said. “That’s where repurposing comes in.”
Berger continued with an explanation from YouTube.
“Get off the constant content treadmill and see the content marketing forest for the trees,” she said.
No rush to redo
If you put your imagination in play, creation and repurposing can have similar results, especially if your tweaking makes the original posts particularly current.
“Lead time is a big factor in reusing content, one of my favorite ways to repurpose,” Berger said. “If you reuse something too soon, it’s too fresh in your audience’s memory to see the same results.
“However, if you reuse a piece of content a year after you first published it, you may see even better results than you did originally,” she said. “That’s because your audience has a shorter memory than that and has grown over time.”
When repurposing, review your original content and pick out what could be worded differently or updated. Then make the fixes to emphasize key points. Any platform is suitable for repurposing as long as you abide by the posting norms for that venue.
“You always, always, always want to start with a content audit before injecting content repurposing into your content strategy,” Berger said. “There’s a big difference between repurposing a lot and repurposing well — strategically.
“A content audit will tell you the important info you need for a repurposing strategy, such as which existing content to repurpose and which platforms to repurpose it on,” she said.
As for which venue works best for repurposing, again, it depends.
“The main platforms I recommend using in repurposing are those your target audience uses,” Berger said. “An audit helps you find that. Then use repurposing to fill gaps in your content calendar.
“My first question to clients is, ‘What problem are we solving?’” she said. “Then we think about how we can repurpose content to accomplish that tangible business goal.”
Slam Bang Quotes
To break up content in a blog post, it first has to be long enough to break. Tasty little nuggets aren’t that nourishing if by themselves they don’t say anything. Berger described her process for turning blog content into social content.
“Look for any standout quotes and sentences that really pack a punch on their own as a quotable,” she said. “Turn those into tweets, quote graphics and so on.
“Then take a few tries at summarizing the post in a few sentences,” Berger said. “You can approach it from multiple angles, resulting in several summaries and pieces of content.”
Using that method, Berger contends that marketers “can easily create more than 10 social posts per blog post.” She explains that more in another YouTube video.
Email sequencing also helps repurpose content.
“The sequencing creates an email marketing autoresponder or automated sequence,” Berger said. “It is so magical for repurposing content.
“New subscribers — and email subs in general — are some of your most engaged and warmest audience members,” she said. “Repurposing-based email sequences let you show them all your best content in one series.”
Berger has more videos that explain different aspects of repurposing:
- Your welcome sequence.
- Creating a greatest hits sequence.
“Using videos I’ve already created to help explain my answers is a form of repurposing,” Berger said. “Email might be my favorite content platform. It’s definitely where I’m most consistently creating content for my own audience.
“I get asked the same questions a lot,” she said. “Everyone wants to know the same things about repurposing. Using videos is a great opportunity to practice what I preach.”
Social listening will help brands gauge how well repurposed or any other content takes hold. Metrics will show how much effect their content has on the market.
“Look at the original goals and key performance indicators you used to measure the success of a piece of content, and how it has changed over time,” Berger said. “Repurposing should always serve a bigger business goal or indicator.”
Sklar continued further on repurposing in a Facebook Live video
I would definitely agree with the points made in this article.
Repurposing old content can be a great way to bank on additional traffic, subscribers and leads without the time investment on finding new content to target, as well as time/money investment to actually create the content.
The only thing to remember is to analyze well on which content needs repurposing, not only by looking at the updated information, rather taking a look whether it’s something an audience desires to see more of.
Thanks, David. There is also the timeliness factor. A story with no specific date reference about the benefits of long-term investments should play well if re-publicizing on days when the market tanks.