If you’re a fan of the shows Mad Men and New Girl you may be surprised to learn that Jessica Day and Don Draper drank at the same bar. Both of these iconic shows, despite having very different tones, were filmed using the same set.
This isn’t exactly unheard of. Television and Film are just different forms of content creation, and like all things in life…there are limits to what can be made and produced. In our experience, the three most limiting factors in content creation are time, money, and energy.
Time and money are obvious, and very often equivalent when it comes to content creation. We’ve all been forced to work against the clock to get something made. And if your team is paid hourly, that time budget is very much in sync with your actual budget.
Similarly, if you’re organizing an event or creating digital content that requires physical resources. If you’re making a YouTube video and you want it to be of a certain quality and length, you’ll need access to sound, videography, and lighting instruments. Those are all things that cost money.
But what about that last little nugget? Energy. Energy is much harder to measure. If you’ve got a small marketing team, or if you’re personally handling all your marketing needs, chances are you’re acutely aware of the finite amount of energy you have in your pool. We are only human; even the most prolific creators can hit a wall after working on a project for 5 hours straight.
So as content marketers, how the heck do we combat this? What tool do we have at our exposal to ensure that we don’t fall behind?
It’s time, my friends, to address how to repurpose content.
Why Repurposed Content is So Great
So if you’re working within the constraints of a budget; saving time, money and energy alone may be enough of a reason for you to recycle content. However, there are other reasons that this method of content creation is so effective.
Repurposing content allows you to reinforce your message and scale that content. It also makes it much easier to reach a new audience. Someone who might not have had time to sit down and read a blog may have time to throw on a Podcast to listen to while on their morning commute.
So yeah, we love recycling content. But, how exactly should you go about doing it?
How to Repurpose Content
With the number of franchises out there, we’d be shocked if you hadn’t run into this concept before. Spider-Man, for example, has told the story of the same character over, and over and over again in varying mediums, ranging from comic books to video games, to movies – even stretching as far as the infamous Broadway Musical (we’ll never forget you, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark).
If Spider-Man can be adapted as a blockbuster film, there’s absolutely no reason your email campaign couldn’t be adapted as a podcast. Some other examples of this include:
- Turning blog content into a video essay or podcast
- Creating an Infographic using info from blog content and posts
- Creating an ebook
- Creating a SlideShare
- Posting snippets of existing video content to social media
- Extracting quotes to use in new high-quality content
It’s important to remember with this method that repurposing content is not just reading your blog in front of a camera and posting it to YouTube. That would just put your audience to sleep. It is going to require some work to switch to a new medium. However, if you take the time to pull the information and repurpose it correctly, you may find that the new medium works even better than the original!
Updating Old Content
If you’ve been creating content for long enough, you definitely have some content out there that could use some refreshing. Here’s a cringy thought: there may be information that you’ve put out there about your company or your industry that’s just wrong now. But we’ve got some good news; while you may feel as though that content is destined to be incorrect forever…it’s totally fixable!
There is absolutely no reason you can’t go in, update the blog with more relevant information and republish it with more relevant information. Even better: if your previous blog was reading a little dated due to references or examples that were time-specific, this is an excellent opportunity to make the content evergreen!
Channel Your Inner Frankenstein
Imagine for a second that you are a catering company with a blog, and you have three different blogs you’ve posted. One blog is about the history of Neopolitan-style pizza, another is on Vesuvio pasta with Muscles and the last is about different flavors of gelato. There’s enough content to pull from there to build an entirely new blog on the subject of “The Best Foods to try in Naples, Italy.”
Like Dr. Frankenstein, you’ve created new life out of pieces of the old. This is a great way to save time and energy when trying to come up with new ideas because so much of the information is already there and waiting to be used!
Data Made Deliverable
This little tip is a two-way street. Imagine you have a webpage that is filled with great stats as well as great copy. Pulling this data into an infographic is an engaging way to repurpose it, visually. On the other hand, you can always do the opposite. Take a series of infographics and statistics and turn it into a case study!
You Have Resources
Now that you’ve learned how to repurpose content, it’s your time to shine! But we know it can be overwhelming.
If you’re personally handling all your company’s marketing needs, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content that needs to be generated in order to grow your business. The good news is that you’re not alone. SizzleForce Marketing is here to help you with all your content marketing needs. Just schedule a call today for your free 30-minute consultation.
