Creating content is not easy.  It takes time and energy and ultimately costs your company money.  As a marketing director you want to make the most of the content you create.  Repurposing is the best way to do that. Repurposing allows you to use one idea across many platforms. 

Why Repurpose Content

1. Reach a Wider Audience - Consider your audience.  When you are creating content, chances are you are not creating content for just one person.  While a mom might want your product, there is also a chance that a dad might also be interested in using your product.  However, these two people lead different lives in a lot of ways. Maybe Mom spends a lot of time in her car, commuting back and forth to and from work.  The best way to reach her may be by podcast. Meanwhile, Dad is a work from home parent and finds himself on the computer most of the day. He may be more interested in a blog post or a social media post or even a YouTube video about the product or service.

2. Reach Your Customer Where They Are On The Buyer’s Journey - When a customer is just starting their buyers journey, they may need more information.  They may be interested in reading a 10,000 word piece about your product or service. A person in the middle may just need a gentle reminder of your product or service and a person who is ready to purchase may be more interested in a simple listing of the benefits of your product or service.

3. Improve Search Engine Optimization - Long before people started talking about fake news, Google and other search engines showed a preference for websites and content they can trust.  For most of these search engines this means having more content. If your company has not just a website but is also active on social media, YouTube, Pinterest and podcasts, it will rank higher.

4. Repurposing Shows You To Be The Expert - Like the search engines, the consumer is looking for a credible company.  A single page website doesn’t lend itself to being the expert. Whereas a company who produces content across multiple mediums does.  Consider your audience. They begin a search for a solution to a problem they are having. Will they find your company as the solution?  Where will this happen? How many places will they find answers that lead back to you? Repurposing your content increases the possibility that their search for a solution leads back to you.

How To Repurpose Content

Many companies find it easier to start small and build out for their repurposing.  Start with a social media post with your main idea, create a graphic that captures that idea and then look at repurposing by building on that main idea.  The alternative is to start with a longer piece of content such as a blog post and working your way to smaller content. For our purposes today, let’s start with the first scenario.

Starting with a simple idea and building out is a great way for new marketers to begin.  It allows you to build your idea as you go, creating more and more content and maybe even circling back to additional social media posts.

In our example, we will use a martial arts studio.  While a martial arts studio may offer lessons to students of all ages, we will start small and consider a Facebook post about teaching preschool aged children to wait patiently.  Waiting patiently is not a skill that most preschoolers can grasp and a skill many parents worry about as they prepare their child for school. A simple post may show your students lining up to give the instructor a high five at the end of the class.  Repurposing might include any of the following:

1. Video - In a Live or YouTube video you can show this amazing feat and maybe talk to some parents about how learning to stand in line and patiently waiting has developed into other area of patience in their preschooler’s life.  Their child is now learning how to take turns with their siblings. They are patient when they want something to drink or eat and Mom asks them to wait. They can quietly wait beside you at the post office. Do you see how suddenly, you are not just talking about standing in line anymore? Now you are talking about life lessons.  Now you can go back and create more social media posts on Facebook or expanding it to Pinterest with a comprehensive list with photos of different life lessons the preschooler is learning during their martial arts training.

2. Powerpoint Presentations - While creating posts for the public at large, you can often take a step back and take this same content and use it for your sales team.  In the example above we suggested creating a pin for Pinterest with a list of the different life lessons the preschooler is learning. Consider taking this list and the photos and creating a Powerpoint presentation you can take out to parenting groups within your local churches or preschools.  Suddenly your sales team is armed with something concrete that gives value while still selling your services.

3. Blog Posts - Anytime you have a list, you can have a blog post. The longer the list the longer the blog post and the more likely it is to be seen by the search engines.  In this case, each new life skill learned through martial arts becomes a new paragraph. Each paragraph lends itself to a new social media post and each new social media post lends itself to a new video.  

4. Podcasts - Going back to our very first example of why you should repurpose, consider creating a podcast for every blog post your do.  Cover the same points you covered in your blog post but in a new format for a different audience. Don’t be tempted to read just  what you wrote verbatim. Having notes to follow and a format is helpful but recreating the blog post as a podcast should feel natural to your audience.  Keep in mind, you are having a conversation with them as opposed to lecturing.

When creating content there is a circle of life.  One piece of content lends itself to the next and often circles back around to begin again in a new way.In the case of  the martial arts studio, we can expand on this idea of life lessons and consider their older students. What life lessons is a middle schooler learning that is different from a preschooler or elementary school.  What life lessons are their adult students gaining from the program?

Creating content can be time consuming, but done write, it can be expanded on to create entire campaigns across multiple platforms.