If you run an online business and you’ve been at it for a long time, you must have content posted on your website for the benefit of your site visitors. If that content is valuable (as long as it isn’t time-sensitive), we don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t find ways to repurpose it so that other people can benefit from what you have to say too. In fact, if you’re not repurposing your content, you’re leaving lots of traffic and untold money on the table.
Before you get too ahead of yourself, you should know what repurposing really means. Repurposing content is a major factor in content marketing which basically means taking your website content/blog posts and completely re-doing it and making use of it in another way. One example would be using an audio program and making articles from the audio content.
If you’ve posted content on your website, it’s probably safe to assume that you found value in what was written. You put all of that time and effort into writing top-quality content, so why shouldn’t you get as much mileage out of it as possible? You may have a loyal following, but the chances are good that some of your readers are no longer reading your content and others are new to you and haven’t ever had the chance to read that particular content when you shared it with people the first time around. By repurposing your content, you can make use of the same tried-and-tested ideas (thus saving you time), but create something original and unique out of them. This means minimizing time and maximizing results. By using the new content in another form or way, you’re able to help your business branch out and reach newer audiences.
Remember that while you’re completely spinning something that you already have, it needs to be 100% original lest it be considered a duplicate. So, before you share your content the second or third time, you’ll want to tweak it to make sure that it has a fresh feel and is as up to date as you can make it. Even though it did get dusty, you don’t have to let your readers know about that. When your readers read your content, they should get the feeling that they’ve never read anything like that before. It’s okay if they have an inkling that the subject matter seems familiar but they probably won’t figure out why they feel that way.
As effective as repurposing content is, it’s amazing how many online marketers fail to use it. Some don’t know about it, and we guess they can be forgiven. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? But if you know about the power of repurposing and consistently fail to do it, you’re not working smart. So, it’s important that you learn and discover as much as you can about repurposing your content. You can then take action to leverage the power of repurposing in your content and marketing.
Many marketers who repurpose get stuck on using just a few ways to doing so. If you’re doing this, you’re not doing repurposing right. When there are hundreds of strategies for repurposing, why limit yourself to just a few? Sure, it’s fine to have your favorites, but you can certainly experiment with as many as you can. Make a list of all the available strategies conducive to the information that you’re repurposing, and run through them with different articles and content pieces. You can turn your popular posts into a podcast, work your customer feedback for case studies, republish your most viewed posts on different platforms or carve a long post into different, smaller write-ups. The possibilities are endless.
Because most people respond positively to visual content, we’d advise you to seriously consider using a graphic element in your content. Perhaps mould your posts into an infographic, a video or a slide presentation? It will really break up the dryness of the content and appeal to your readers in a way that just words may not be able to. Of course, that’s not to say that written content isn’t potent. It’s just that adding visual elements is a different way of presenting your content and if you choose to approach it like that, there’s no doubt that you’ll be making your content appealing to a wide(r) range of people.
OK, so you know about repurposing and are using it. And you’re using multiple strategies for repurposing. Good for you. You’ve gotten past the first two big mistakes. Now please don’t make the third one. The third biggest mistake is the failure to monetize (fancy word for “make money from”) your repurposing. Don’t get caught in the common trap of just repurposing for traffic and visibility. If you do that, then you’re really missing out on a lot. Make money with your repurposing. That’s the whole point – to sell your knowledge in as many forms as possible. Every repurposing strategy can and should be turned into a product.
Now that you’re armed with all the information you need to repurpose your content, you should go ahead and do it already. Repurposing content allows you to connect with a new audience, to uncover gems that may have been long forgotten, and to really make the most of what you have. It can also be a source of inspiration for future content. If you have great content in stock, you’re sitting on a gold mine. It would be a real shame not to take advantage of that, wouldn’t it?
