Make More Money by Repurposing Your Content

It could go a long way in attracting new customers

By Cassie McBlane

tartups go through the ebbs and flow not unlike a toddler. One minute they’re flourishing, thriving happy and bouncing away. The next they’re a whirlwind of mayhem. Small businesses aren’t too dissimilar, either.

Navigating your success when you’re not a big fish in the ocean means you have to make smart decisions. Be it cutting down on excess, unnecessary spending or redesigning your offering — maximizing much-needed profits is a hard game to play.

I can almost guarantee you that every client I’ve had is not squeezing every single cent out of their content. Mostly this comes from a lack of understanding where or how, but it’s also significantly resource-heavy.

Whether you have a dedicated marketing department or not, there are ways you can ease the stress of tough financial periods by turning old content into money-makers. Put them on the stage and let them do their thing — you won’t regret it.

Why reuse your old content?

This will obviously be the most relevant for those that already have a live blog up and running. If you don’t, let that be the next thing you do after reading this.

But let’s assume you do.

When you repurpose content for marketing, social media, your SEO and blog, you’re creating the ultimate opportunity for return on investment.

You spent your valuable time creating these pieces in the first place, so it only makes sense that you should do as much as you can to leverage them.

Neil Patel — SEO legend and all-round digital marketing guru — once emphasized insights from fellow expert Matt Cutts that 25–30% of content on the web is either duplicate or repetitive. That means that a significant portion of the content you come across is likely produced over and over again from that one source.

Whether its creators copy it word-for-word (not ideal for SEO, by the way), or reformat as a different type (think video, social media post or infographic), they never hit the ‘publish’ button and leave it at that. They keep repurposing it.

Sometimes blog pieces aren’t always the most engaging type of content for your particular target audience. For example, video marketing may prove to be far more beneficial for your brand — but why not do both?

Take your idea and then think of as many possible ways that you can create infinite varations of it.

What kind of content format is best?

There’s no hard and fast answer to this. What works for one business or marketer may not work for the next. Treat your brand as an individual being. It has it’s own values and behaviors, so don’t copy the strategies of others. They won’t work.

Instead, sit down and assess the needs of your target audience. Profile them down to what they do at breakfast or if they’re likely to share information with their inner circles. Know exactly how they function and then use this to your advantage.

Once you know who you’re speaking to, creating content becomes a whole lot less of a challenge.

Source: Buzzsumo/OkDork

There are also many other reasons why regenerating your content in other formats is beneficial:

• Improve SEO: When you have multiple pieces covering a topic, you can target certain keywords and internally/externally link them all together. Think of the web as one big loop. When you create a healthy cycle that flows from one piece of (your own) content to the next, you’re telling search engines to listen up. Seriously — Google will love you.

• Expose your brand to new audiences: One type of target audiencemay be more than happy to read a lengthy blog article, but another may be less inclined. Cater to everyone and ensure you’re covering your bases. If you’re targeting millennials with typically shorter attention spans (I am one), you’ll feel the difference.

• Highlight your messaging: You’ve worked hard to give your brand a unique position in the market. Make it known and tell the world about it through channels that are more effective at relaying this. Reach audiences you couldn’t before and increase awareness overall. The more you get yourself out there, the more the word is spread — obviously.

• Increase authority: People don’t trust people easily these days. You need to fight for the faith of your target audiences and give them a reason to care about you. Publishing quality-driven content will do you a world of good in showing you’re the real deal.

Ways to repurpose your content for marketing

Expand on a subtopic from your existing blog piece: As an example, I could take my above points and turn them into an article about the most effective formats for different audiences.

Turn a post into a LinkedIn article: Publish to your B2B prospects and grow your community by showing you’ve got valuable, professional insights for their business.

Create a presentation: Platforms like SlideShare give you an easy way to recap any original content you created. Pro tip: Use Canva to make visually appealing graphics and slides without the hassle.

Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

Craft an infographic: Perfect for places like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Visually, these are all-round winners in my books. When I can’t be bothered reading an entire article, I’m always enticed by an accompanying infographic that gives me the low-down of the main points.

Update old blog posts: Content ages. Refresh your own blog posts by tweaking statistics and facts that may have changed over time. Add a note to the blog to let audiences know when it was originally published.

Pro tip: Rewrite headlines for maximum engagement.

Make a video: This one is a bit trickier but you can use existing blog articles as a script for a video. Eliminate fluff and speak directly to your audience with bits of footage that show who you are and still portray your main points. Link back to the original post and ask them to subscribe/follow your publication.

Short course: While I’m yet to dabble in making a short course, this is becoming a rising trend across businesses and marketers alike. It’s also super effective at generating new revenue streams that are solely passive (after the initial setup and creation, of course).

eBook: This is probably my favourite. Take all of your likeminded articles, edit them well and then put them all together in a high-quality eBook. In the U.S. alone, it’s expected the eBook industry will hit US$14,367 million in revenue. If you have good content, some of this money could be yours.

Pro tip: Use platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to easily publish your own eBook. It does all the hard work for you so you need zero prior knowledge on how to do this.

Final thoughts

Ultimately, repurposing your content should be an endless cycle.

One-piece can generate infinite opportunities to reach new audiences and channels. Create more awareness and exposure that you were never able to access previously. It takes hard work, don’t get me wrong. It will keep you busy, but it will also keep your lights on.

Put your head down, reuse, rewrite, recreate and redesign all of your most valuable pieces. The pay-off can be huge if you stick to it.