Week after week, the struggle continues. Fresh drops of blood sprout from your forehead as you stare at a blank monitor, desperately trying to conjure up new and unique material for your marketing efforts. Of course, there's no getting around the fact that you do need to keep injecting relevant, compelling content into your blog, website, and various social media channels. But what if I told you that you already had a great deal of this content lying around, just waiting for you to put it to use in a recycled, upgraded form?
You can make your marketing work so much easier -- and get so much more mileage out of all the hard work you've already performed -- simply by repurposing pre-existing content, it's not even funny. Take a look at four smart ways you can reduce your time and effort curve while still producing a steady stream of marketing content that sells what you do, builds your brand, and keeps you front and center in the public eye.
1. Update Old Blog Articles
You might naturally assume that a blog article has a limited shelf life, with the possible exception of that evergreen anchor post that remains timelessly valid year after year. However, even if the details go rancid after a while, the underlying topic may not. Why not reopen that file and update the information to account for changes in your business, your target audience, or the world in general? Remember, your current blog audience might have missed the original post when it first came out, which should give you reason enough to revisit the subject. You can even opt to rewrite the whole thing from top to bottom, using all the core information that still applies instead of reinventing the wheel. Before you know it, what's old is new again.
2. Post Non-Blog Content to Your Blog
Don't fall into the trap of regarding your blog as some isolated chamber that can only accept content you devised specifically for it. Any point worth devoting time and effort to elsewhere in your marketing efforts can also prove its merits as a blog post. Think about that case study, white paper, press release, or other writeup you recently slaved over. Couldn't that content work equally well in blog form with a nip here and a tuck there? Blogs can offer considerable flexibility in their formats and subject matter, so you'd just be adding more diversity to your target readers' experience.
3. Create Ebooks Out of Pre-Written Content
If you've been writing various kinds of marketing content for months or years, you may have already created the guts of an ebook without even realizing it. Ebooks hold special appeal for prospective clients who want comprehensive, long-form answers to their questions and challenges. That's why they do such a good job as a conversion tool, enticing site visitors to provide their contact information in exchange for a copy of this valuable help. go back and look at your previous blog articles and other written marketing content. Chances are that many of those pieces will fit together (or can be made to fit together) into a larger, cohesive volume. It's certainly a lot easier than composing an ebook from scratch!
4. Transcribe Your Videos Into Articles (and Vice Versa)
If your social media content creation strategy includes YouTube and other video channels, you may have amassed a whole online library of videos relating to your products, services, brand, and industry. But some people naturally gravitate toward text instead of pictures and sound, which means that they may miss your mountain of videos entirely. That's why you should think about transcribing the narrative text of those videos and reworking it into blog articles. By the same token, consider recording your blog articles as voice-over narration for fresh videos. You'll get two pieces of marketing content for the price of one, even as you reach a wider audience and increase your search engine visibility.
Of course, even repurposing your marketing content requires some skill, time, and energy. If you're not sure how to proceed or would just rather leave it the pros, put a professional freelance marketing copywriter to work on the job. While you're at it, request all the fresh content you need as well!
