Q: What is the least expensive original content for you to deliver?
A: The content that you have already created.
Many organizations that are delivering content daily – enewsletters, blogs, articles, enewsletters, Facebook posts, instagrams, tweets, etc. – yet they do not have a formalized plan for repurposing their content.
Repurposing takes a plan that starts, well, at the start. At the editorial planning stage in some cases. Then it may get revisited once the data is in; a piece that was not as well consumed as you had hoped may be a likely candidate for another try or that may be what you needed to know to not invest in it any further. But if a plan for repurposing isn’t in place then you won’t have the parts you need at the ready and it will be easier to consider abandoning a piece that didn’t perform at first.
And that won’t always be the best decision.
What is Repurposing?
It simply means that your blog can also become a tweet or a Facebook post. A report can also be a great infographic. Your content can have multiple forms. Create once and recreate to get more out of one effort.
Content Marketing Planning Calendar
You know your audience well and you know what they need – even if they can’t easily articulate it. That means that as you develop content ideas, you can plan for all variations of that content.
Since you produce content, you are using an editorial calendar – a tool with a lot of potential; it’s power, however, is what you put into it. The start of any content asset sets its trajectory to a certain degree, and that’s an optimal time for identifying and developing a repurposing plan. When done at the creation stage it is efficient, and more importantly, the advance planning gives you more room for reinvention.
Fully leveraging your content to get the biggest bang for you buck (more buyers, attendees, subscribers) is the holy grail of content marketing. So, you can’t afford to not squeeze every bit of oomph out of every bit of content.
Content Marketing Process and Habits
Your process needs to make room for the attention of repurposing. Where in your process are you looking to recreate, reuse, reinvent, repurpose your content?
Another way to think of it is that someone needs to be curating you. Is it the same team that refines your editorial calendar? Is it one person? There is a solution that is right for you but I don’t believe there is a one-size fits all solution.
Steps to a Repurposing Plan
Where in your process will repurposing happen? My advice is to do it at the outset, but flexibility is important. If you get an unexpected home run, adjust in real-time to milk that baby for all it’s got!
If your process is inefficient and your team is maxed out, then there is not much room for stretching your content. Ironic, isn’t it? Because under those conditions, you really need your content to work harder for you.
To get started repurposing your content, review your:
• Editorial calendar – how can it help you identify and implement reuse/reinvention?
• Processes – is there room for repurposing?
• Team – who is responsible to ensure that content gets fully leveraged?
I hope what you’re thinking right now is: I think I just discovered a ton of great content that we can put to work for us, quickly and with little investment of our precious resources, like people power, time and money. Go! Go forth and repurpose!
By Monica Bussolati
@bussolati
