10.12.2023 Keith Errington
To succeed at inbound marketing you need a constant stream of fresh content. And those who write content as part of their job will tell you the challenges they face continually coming up with new ideas, or angles to take.
But what if the answers are already in your content library, you're just not looking in the right places?
Repurposing content means reusing your existing content in a different way.
Here are some ideas.
Blogs into Vlogs
Turning your old posts into video blogs, or as they’re more commonly known, ‘vlogs’ are an informal, conversational way to get your message across to potential customers.
It makes sense to repurpose content. The idea is already there, your research is complete and the optimisation has been refined - all that's left to do is alter the platform.
Repurposed content opens up your content to a whole new audience and research suggests that marketers who use video see 41% more traffic from search.
However, just reading out a blog verbatim to the camera is unlikely to win you an Oscar, or generate much traction. Reduce the blog down into a shorter script covering the main points of the blog. You could use a mix of talking to camera and graphics or images to get the key points across. And remember to include a clear call to action at the end.
You do not need sophisticated equipment or a professional cameraman. You can download free stock music, host your videos on a platform such as YouTube and Wistia, and make use of online video editing software to achieve the desired results.
Cornerstone Content into Pillar Pages
The terms 'Pillar Page' shot to the forefront in inbound marketing towards the end of 2017 when HubSpot adopted the approach.
A pillar page is an architectural page of your website. They serve to act as a comprehensive guide to a particular topic you are trying to rank for. All related blogs or content on your site should link to your pillar page and vice versa.
However, to create a pillar page you do not need to reinvent the wheel. If you have been doing inbound marketing a while you are likely to already have a bank of content offers such as eBooks and white papers. Currently, these are gated behind forms on landing pages and effectively invisible to Google.
By pulling out the content of your most successful eBooks and using it as a base for a pillar page you can boost your search ranking, reach a wider audience and generate a higher volume of traffic and boost conversions on your website.
Content into social posts
Visual content makes up to 93% of the content.
Maybe you have infographics designed within your eBooks, or for certain pages on your website, but have you considered how else these can be used?
When you have CTAs created for your content offers, do you also create versions sized correctly for your social channels?
Repurposing older content via social is a good way to give flagging content a boost. You do not need a designer, or to invest in publishing software to achieve great results. There are some tools out there, some of which are free. Here are a few to get you started:
Repurpose your blogs into a podcast
Maybe you have a series of blogs that could lend themselves to podcasts? Do you have an employee who has a voice for radio? If so, then podcasts could be a good option.
Podcasts tend to have a relaxed, conversational style, so you may need to do a small amount of reworking to make the blogs suitable for the spoken word. As this infographic shows, podcasts are a powerful marketing medium, and with buyers becoming more time-starved, podcasts could be a real differentiator.
Update facts and stats
Go back to your archives and identify blog posts that were popular and generated significant traffic, but have perhaps dwindled more recently.
- Are there stats that are now out of date?
- Has the landscape changed? Maybe factors such as environment, industry, or revised best practice mean your post if out of touch.
- Are the links used still active? Check over the blogs and replace any broken links with appropriate alternatives or remove them.
- Is the CTA up to date? Maybe you have since produced a more relevant content offer.
- Is there any new research? Maybe you can add more to the article using up to date research, data and statistics
If you radically change the article then you may want to consider creating a new post with a different URL but include a link between the two. If you have just edited facts and stats then just update the existing post. This way you will not lose any of the established SEO benefits.
It is a good idea to include a revised date on your post to indicate how old the information is in an article is has a bearing on the perceived value to your visitors.
Once your revised post is published be sure to re-share on social and in your e-newsletters.
Repurposing old content is an excellent, cost-effective way of maximising your return on the hard work of producing good, original content.
Taking the time to analyse the results of your content marketing, identifying what works and what doesn't can help you to fine-tune your content marketing strategy and produce more evergreen content in the future.
