How to Repurpose Content to Increase Brand Awareness and Generate More Leads

The value of content creation goes a long way. But, few companies have the resources to produce the volume of content that they need to meet their long list of business goals. One thing marketers do not recognize is the multitude of content they already have. This content can be recycled into fresh material or republished in a different format to extend its shelf life. The ability to repurpose content saves marketers time and resources that new content from scratch often takes up. Plus, repurposing content gives you more assets to support lead generation efforts. Here are a few steps for how to repurpose content and how it can help generate more leads for your organization.

Create a Tracking Document to Get Organized

Getting organized is the first thing you should do before repurposing content. Conduct a content audit. This will outline the current content inventory. This includes blogs, webinars, white papers, articles, presentations, eBooks and infographics. You might have more asset types, so ensure all get included. This gives you a comprehensive view of what you have. Note this type of information on your tracking document:

• Asset type
• Asset topic
• Asset title and link on the website (if published)
• Year created or published

Think of Ideas to Reformat or Refresh Content

Once there is a clear view of what content you have, it is time to brainstorm. The strategy to repurpose content is as it sounds, taking already written content and repurposing it to something else. But what does that mean? The two common approaches are to reformat and refresh.

• Reformatting Content: This is taking your content and spinning it into a new asset type. For example, a blog could become an infographic, a white paper could become an article series and so on. Do not limit yourself to only the content marketing medium. Consider how you can repurpose content for other marketing channels. You can take an infographic and use snippets on social media or take an eBook and add certain callout elements to email newsletters. Be sure to not force reformatting if it does not make sense. A short blog becoming an eBook might not be the best option as it requires a lot more to develop an eBook from a blog with little information. It might make more sense for an eBook to become a few blogs because eBooks contain more information. Consider the length of the content and how it can get divided up or combined into a new asset format. Plus, with new gated content like eBooks and white papers, it gives you lead generation opportunities.
• Refreshing Content: This approach allows you to take old content and refresh it. Sometimes, information, statistics or even strategies have changed over time. The information in a blog written ten years ago has changed since then. Content becomes irrelevant over time and traffic will decline as visitors recognize the outdated information. Take this as an opportunity to refresh it. Add new stats, update to more current information and even add new tactics or best practices that are effective. You can also refresh content and pose it as something new, optimizing for new keywords to improve rankings and generate traffic and leads.

Create a Content Calendar

Now that your team has brainstormed content ideas, it is time to create a content calendar. Developing a content calendar keeps you organized by outlining all-things content marketing. Not sure what a content calendar should look like or include? Every company’s calendar will look different, but this one from HubSpot is a great place to start. Here are some things to consider including:

• Publishing date
• The person responsible for drafting, editing and reviewing
• Content topic (e.g. emerging industry trends)
• Asset type (e.g. eBook, article, blog, guide)
• Title
• Notes or details on the content
• Keywords
• URL once published

Think Outside of the Box to Support Lead Generation

Creativity is essential to repurpose content. You need to think outside of the box. Lead generation is top of mind for all organizations and content marketing needs to drive and support these efforts. One way lead generation happens is via gated content. Ungated content is what brings them to the website, but gated content is what converts them to known leads. Here are a few detailed examples of repurposing content that supports generating traffic and leads:

• Webinar into a Blog Series: You completed a webinar on emerging tech industry trends and recorded it on-demand as well. First, you can gate the on-demand webinar for lead generation. The webinar could then be transcribed and repurposed into a blog series. You can take each trend discussed in the webinar and write a separate blog about each to give the audience a more comprehensive view. Plus, within each blog, you can have a call to action (CTA) that drives to the on-demand webinar landing page.
• Articles Combined into an eBook: After organizing your content, you notice five articles highlight what tech executives look for in reporting. This collection of articles can get spun into an eBook. Articles are longer-form content that contains a multitude of information, which is ideal for an eBook. Focus on the reporting techniques and metrics discussed in each article and create a page of the eBook for each. You can then call the eBook “Reporting Protocol and Metrics Tech Industry Executives Want to See.”
• Presentation Slides into a Video: Presentations are very versatile. Whether an internal presentation or a presentation to a customer, these can be transformed into videos. All you need is a voiceover, and you have a video that can get gated on your website to drive leads or ungated to drive traffic.

Need support with your content marketing or overall marketing strategy? Contact Launch today or request a free marketing consultation. We have over 22 years of helping B2B organizations create and execute effective marketing strategies and produce impactful content.