As a small business owner or nonprofit organization, resources can be tight and spreading your message can feel like an uphill battle. Yet you know that in today's competitive business landscape, maximizing your marketing efforts is critical to success. Many for-impact entrepreneurs with limited budgets and resources often struggle to reach their audience, let alone stand out among the crowd.
That's where content repurposing comes in.
Content repurposing is a proven method to multiply the impact of existing content without stretching your resources thin. By transforming existing content into various formats, you can increase your reach, engage your audience, and ultimately drive growth.
In this guide, we will explore innovative strategies for content repurposing that will allow you to amplify your marketing efforts and reach more people in your community. I aim to help you save time and resources while delivering an impactful message.
How does content repurposing work
Before getting into specific strategies, let’s walk through how the process of repurposing typically works.
Identify strong content
Start with the basics. If you're new to content repurposing, begin by identifying your strongest pieces of content. These can be blog posts, social media posts, or even email newsletters.
You don’t just need additional content for content's sake
Once you have identified your most substantial content, break it down into digestible pieces that can be easily repurposed into different mediums like infographics, videos, or podcasts. By repurposing your content, you can reach viewers in various media and channels.
Bundle your content.
It’s not just about breaking content into smaller pieces. You can also repackage individual content into a targeted bundle.
Your blog posts can be a great starting point for ebooks, PDFs and webinars. For instance, consider creating a series of blog posts on a related topic, then bundle them together into an ebook.
You want the content you repurpose to help your ideal customers move forward in the customer journey
Bundling makes the content more accessible, and the bundle can serve as a lead magnet that could capture potential leads. Bundling content not only allows your audience to read new material but also provides another resource from which to find value.
Repurpose popular content.
Take note of the content that gets your audience's most attention and engagement, and leverage it to maximize exposure.
Analyze which blog posts have been shared the most and turn them into videos, podcasts, or infographics. You can also turn it into a series and create downloadable versions of the blog series for those who would like to have the main points saved at their fingertips.
Re-purpose content to fit your social media channels.
Content can’t simply be posted on every platform without adapting to them first. Depending on your platform, people expect different content on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
You can extract key points and create summarized content that fits each platform.
Customize your content to meet the different needs of these platforms by changing the image or making slight adjustments to the message.
Focus on the target audience.
People love finding value that’s just for them.
Let’s say you’re a leadership coach, and you’ve created a guide for someone leading a new team. This leader could fall into several categories.
- They could be a first time leader of an already existing team
- They could be a leader of a newly formed team they were a part of selecting
- They could be the leader of two or more teams blended together after a restructure.
This isn’t even an exhaustive list. You could take your current content about leading new teams and write a more focused guide to one of these particular situations. The focus allows you to be very specific, which your ideal customer will find very helpful.
Create a content calendar.
While creating content is essential, creating a schedule for repurposing is just as crucial to your content marketing strategy. Creating a content calendar can help you plan for when to recycle old content and, in turn, saves time and effort while giving your audience the information they’re interested in. Be sure to research the best time and days to post on different channels.
Content Repurposing Examples
Now that you're getting the idea of how to repurpose your content, lets look at some specific examples.
Transform Blogs into Social Media Posts
One of the fastest and easiest ways to repurpose content is by transforming blog posts into social media content. You can extract key points and create summarized content that fits each platform.
For example, Instagram can post visually appealing quotes and graphics, while Twitter provides the perfect platform to share quick and concise snippets of information.
Repurposing content isn't about duplicating your efforts but finding innovative and effective ways to deliver value to your audience across different platforms.
A strategy I’ve personally found to be successful is tagging quotes, statistics and lists as I create a guide like this one because they each translate naturally to social media posts.
By repurposing your blog content into social media posts, you save time on creating new content and increase your visibility and engagement on social media.
Create Infographics and Visuals
Infographics and visuals are highly engaging, easy to share, and can communicate complex information in an easily digestible way.
Converting written content into visually appealing graphics and infographics can give your content a new lease of life and help you get more likes, shares and clicks across the internet. Tools like Canva and Piktochart offer easy-to-use templates where you can create eye-catching visuals even if you are not a designer.
Turn Webinars into a Video Series
If you've conducted a webinar in the past, you can recycle that content by breaking it into shorter video series related to your business or cause.
Videos are highly shareable and engaging and can deliver your message dynamically and compellingly. By repurposing your webinar into a video series, you can use it for various purposes, such as training, social media posts, lead nurturing campaigns, and more.
Repackage Blog Posts into eBooks
Blog posts are an excellent source of information that can be repackaged into an eBook. EBooks can be used to build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or promote your products and services.
Content repurposing is a proven method to multiply the impact of existing content without stretching your resources thin
Expanding on blog posts and adding images, graphics, and other media can quickly turn your blog posts into an eBook. Tools like Designer, Pages, and Canva make it easy to create eBooks even if you don't have a professional designer on your team.
Use Podcasts for Leveraging your Brand Voice
Podcasts are another form of content that can be repurposed into other formats.
By repackaging podcast episodes into shorter segments and syndicating them on platforms such as iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube, you can amplify your brand voice to an even broader audience. Transcribing your podcasts can create content for blog posts, social media posts, and presentations.
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Content repurposing is a powerful strategy for resource-constrained small business owners and non-profit organizations.
By using the power of content repurposing, small businesses and non-profit organizations can maximize their marketing efforts without going over budget. Whether bundling blog posts into ebooks, turning popular blog posts into social media or video content, or adapting content to fit different social media channels, the possibilities for content repurposing are endless.
By getting creative with existing content, you can realize significant results by reaching a wider audience, boosting engagement and driving more leads to your website. Start small with these strategies, and gradually ramp up your approach as you learn more and incorporate new ideas.
Repurposing content isn't about duplicating your efforts but finding innovative and effective ways to deliver value to your audience across different platforms. Happy content repurposing!
Action Plan
Repurposing is not just about reusing certain materials. It's about reaching potential clients, creating a solid image, and streamlining your processes. With these innovative strategies, you can continue to deliver fresh and exciting content while still engaging your audience with material they are interested in.
Now that you have some repurposing strategies to consider, the question emerges, “What content should I start with?”
You don’t just need additional content for content's sake. You want the content you repurpose to help your ideal customers move forward in the customer journey. If you have an established customer journey map, look for points along the journey that could be enhanced by some repurposed content.
You’ll want to look for content that can help your ideal customers understand the challenges they are facing or discover the solutions you offer. As you apply these tips, get creative and increase your exposure without creating more work or spending more money.
If you want help mapping your customer journey or identifying content you can repurpose, schedule a free story session, and we can explore together what might be possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Repurposing Content
What is repurposing content?
Repurposing content is the process of taking an existing piece of content and modifying it to serve a different purpose or format. This could involve transforming the content into a different medium, updating it with new information, or targeting it to a different audience.
For example, you might take a popular blog post and turn it into a video script, convert a webinar into a series of blog posts, or use the data from a research report to create an infographic. The goal of repurposing content is to extend its value by reaching different segments of your audience who prefer different types of content, and to maximize the return on your investment in content creation
Learn more about how to repurpose content.
Why should I repurpose content?
There are several reasons why repurposing content can be beneficial for your marketing strategy:
- Reach a Wider Audience: Different people prefer different types of content. By repurposing a blog post into a video, podcast, or infographic, for example, you can reach different segments of your audience who may not have engaged with the original content.
- Reinforce Key Messages: Repurposing allows you to reinforce your key messages across multiple pieces of content, which can help to increase brand awareness and understanding.
- Improve SEO: Creating multiple pieces of content around the same topic can help improve your search engine ranking for that topic. Just be sure to avoid duplicate content and to properly optimize each piece of content for SEO.
- Save Time and Resources: Creating good content takes time and effort. By repurposing your best content, you can get more mileage out of your existing content creation efforts.
- Extend the Lifespan of Your Content: Some content can quickly become outdated. Repurposing allows you to update and refresh your content, extending its lifespan and keeping it relevant for your audience.
- Increase Engagement: By presenting your content in new and varied formats, you can potentially boost engagement, as different formats tend to resonate differently with your audience.
Remember, the goal of repurposing content is not just to produce more content, but to create high-quality content that adds value for your audience. Always consider the needs and preferences of your audience when deciding how to repurpose your content.
Learn more about how to repurpose content.
What are some ways to repurpose content?
There are numerous ways to repurpose content, allowing you to reach a wider audience and maximize your content marketing efforts. Here are some ideas:
- Turn Blog Posts into Infographics: Infographics are a visually appealing way to present information and they can be highly shareable on social media.
- Create a Podcast from Blog Content: If you have a series of blog posts on a similar topic, consider turning them into podcast episodes.
- Use Statistics or Data for Social Media Posts: If your content includes interesting data or statistics, highlight these in separate social media posts.
- Develop a Webinar from a How-To Guide: If you have a detailed how-to guide or tutorial, it could be turned into a webinar or a live workshop.
- Create an eBook from a Series of Related Blog Posts: If you've written a series of blog posts on a related topic, consider compiling them into an eBook.
- Turn Customer Testimonials into Case Studies: You can repurpose positive customer testimonials or reviews into more detailed case studies to showcase on your website.
- Transform Internal Reports into External Blog Posts: With some tweaking and generalization, internal reports or analysis can be turned into blog posts to share your insights with a wider audience.
- Convert a Webinar into a YouTube Video: If you've hosted a webinar, consider editing the recording and posting it as a video on YouTube.
- Create a SlideShare Presentation from a Blog Post: If you have a particularly informative blog post, it might work well as a SlideShare presentation.
- Repurpose Content into a Newsletter: Regular newsletters are a great way to keep your audience updated. You can include snippets from recent blog posts or other content.
The key to successful content repurposing is to always consider the needs and preferences of your audience. Make sure the repurposed content provides value and is presented in a format that your audience will appreciate and engage with.
Learn more about how to repurpose content.
Can repurposing content hurt my SEO?
Repurposing content, when done correctly, does not hurt SEO. In fact, it can actually boost your SEO. When you repurpose content, you're not using the exact same content in multiple places, which could be seen as duplicate content by search engines. Instead, you're adapting it to fit different formats or audiences, which can help you rank for different keywords and reach a wider audience.
However, it's important to note that while repurposing content can benefit your SEO, simply duplicating content can harm it. Search engines like Google aim to provide users with a variety of content, and they may penalize sites that have a lot of duplicate content, potentially resulting in lower rankings.
Therefore, when repurposing content, make sure to adapt it sufficiently so that it's not seen as duplicate content. This might involve updating the information, changing the format, targeting a different audience, or adding new insights or perspectives.
Another point to consider is that repurposed content should still link back to the original content. This helps search engines understand that the content is a different version of the original piece, not an attempt to duplicate it.
In summary, repurposing content can be a great way to maximize your content creation efforts and improve your SEO, as long as it's done properly.
Learn more about how to repurpose content.
How do I choose which content to repurpose?
Choosing which content to repurpose involves evaluating your existing content to identify what has been most successful or valuable. Here are some steps to guide you:
- Analyze Your Content: Look at your analytics to see which pieces of content have performed best. This could be in terms of traffic, engagement (like shares or comments), lead generation, or any other metric that's important to your business.
- Consider Evergreen Content: Evergreen content, or content that remains relevant over time, is a good candidate for repurposing because it continues to provide value to your audience.
- Look for Comprehensive Pieces: Detailed, long-form content like guides or whitepapers can often be broken down into smaller pieces, making them great candidates for repurposing.
- Identify Audience Favorites: Pay attention to the content that resonates most with your audience. This could be content that receives a lot of comments, shares, or positive feedback.
- Consider Current Trends or Events: If an older piece of content becomes relevant again due to current events or trends, it may be a good candidate for repurposing.
- Revisit Old Content: Older content that performed well in the past can often be updated and repurposed. This can be a beneficial way to bring new life to successful content.
The goal of repurposing content is to create new, valuable content for your audience. Always keep their needs and interests in mind when deciding which content to repurpose.
Learn more about how to repurpose content.
Ideal Customer Personas
What is a Customer Persona?
A customer persona, also known as a buyer persona or marketing persona, is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. It's based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
A well-crafted customer persona will include details such as:
- Demographics: Age, gender, location, income level, education level, and occupation.
- Psychographics: Interests, hobbies, values, attitudes, and lifestyle.
- Behavioral Traits: Shopping habits, brand preferences, product usage, and online behavior.
- Needs and Challenges: The problems or issues the persona is facing that your product or service can solve.
- Goals and Motivations: What they hope to achieve, both professionally and personally.
Creating customer personas can help businesses better understand and reach their target audiences. They are used in marketing to determine where to focus efforts and guide product development by aligning with the needs of the ideal customer. They can also help in tailoring content, messaging, and offers to specific audience segments.
Remember, most businesses have more than one type of customer, so they create multiple personas to represent different segments of their audience.
Lean more about how to identify your ideal customer persona.
How Do I Use Customer Personas?
Customer personas are a powerful tool that can guide many aspects of your business, from marketing and sales to product development and customer service. Here's how you can use them:
- Marketing and Advertising: Use personas to tailor your messaging and content to resonate with each segment of your audience. They can also guide your decisions about where to advertise based on where your personas spend their time online.
- Product Development: Understanding the needs, challenges, and goals of your personas can help you identify new features or products that could meet these needs.
- Sales Strategy: Your sales team can use personas to understand the motivations of potential customers and tailor their sales pitches accordingly.
- Customer Service: Personas can help your customer service team anticipate the needs and questions of different types of customers, leading to more effective support.
- Content Creation: When creating blogs, social media posts, or other content, consider the interests and challenges of your personas. This can help you create content that is relevant and engaging for your audience.
- User Experience (UX) Design: If you're designing a website or app, personas can inform the design process to ensure it aligns with the needs and preferences of your users.
- Email Marketing: You can segment your email list based on your personas and send tailored emails to each segment.
The key to using personas effectively is to keep them in mind in all areas of your business. They should be a guiding force behind your decision-making, helping you stay customer-focused.
Lean more about how to identify your ideal customer persona.
Why are Customer Personas Important for my Business or Nonprofit?
Customer personas are important for businesses and nonprofits alike for several reasons:
- Better Understanding of the Audience: Personas help you understand your audience's needs, behaviors, challenges, and motivations on a deeper level. This understanding can guide your product development, marketing strategies, and customer service initiatives.
- More Effective and Targeted Marketing: Knowing your personas can help you create content and messages that resonate with your target audience. It also allows for more efficient use of marketing resources as you're able to target those who are most likely to be interested in your product or service.
- Improved Product Development: By understanding the needs and challenges of your personas, you can align your product development to provide solutions to these issues. This increases the likelihood of product success and customer satisfaction.
- Personalized Customer Experience: Personas can guide the personalization of the customer journey, leading to increased engagement, loyalty, and conversion rates.
- Informed Decision-Making: They provide a clear direction for decision-making in various areas such as sales strategies, marketing tactics, and customer service approaches.
For nonprofits specifically, personas can help in:
- Fundraising Efforts: Understanding who your donors are can help you create effective fundraising campaigns that resonate with them and encourage more giving.
- Volunteer Recruitment: Knowing the motivations and characteristics of your ideal volunteers can guide recruitment efforts and help you attract dedicated volunteers.
- Advocacy Campaigns: Personas can inform advocacy campaigns, helping you to craft messages that mobilize supporters and drive action.
By creating and using customer personas, businesses and nonprofits can ensure they are truly meeting the needs of their audience, leading to better results in all areas of their work.
Lean more about how to identify your ideal customer persona.
What Information Should be Included in a Customer Persona?
Creating a comprehensive customer persona requires a mix of demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information. Here are the key elements you should include:
- Persona Name: Giving your persona a name makes it easier to refer to and helps to humanize the data you've collected.
- Demographics: Include basic demographic information such as age, gender, location, income level, education, and occupation.
- Psychographics: This includes interests, hobbies, values, attitudes, and lifestyle. It helps to understand what motivates your persona and how they spend their time.
- Behavioral Traits: Detail your persona's shopping habits, brand preferences, product usage, and online behavior. This can help you understand where to reach them and what messages might resonate.
- Goals and Motivations: What are they trying to achieve? What drives them? These could be personal or professional goals.
- Challenges and Pain Points: What problems or issues is your persona facing that your product or service can solve? Understanding these can help you position your offering effectively.
- Preferred Communication Channels: How does your persona prefer to interact with brands? Are they active on social media? Do they prefer email communication?
- Brand Interactions: How do they currently interact with your brand? Are they a loyal customer or a potential target?
- Quotes: Including a few direct quotes from your interviews or surveys can bring the persona to life and make their needs and wants more relatable.
- Image: Some businesses choose to include a stock photo in their persona profile to give it a face. This isn't necessary but can make the persona feel more real.
Remember, the aim of a persona is to represent a significant portion of people in the real world and should therefore be as realistic as possible. Also, personas are fluid and may change over time as you get more information about your customers.
Lean more about how to identify your ideal customer persona.
How Many Personas Should I Create?
The number of personas you should create depends on the diversity of your customer base and the complexity of your product or service offerings.
Three to five personas are often enough to cover your main customer segments. These should represent the majority of your customers or the customers you are specifically targeting.
Less is better.
Remember, the goal is not to create a persona for every individual customer, but rather to capture the key types of customers that represent your larger audience. Each persona should be distinct enough to guide different marketing strategies or product developments.
It's also important to review and update your personas regularly to ensure they continue to accurately reflect your customer base.
Lean more about how to identify your ideal customer persona.
Customer Journey Maps
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey refers to the complete sequence of experiences that customers go through when interacting with a company or brand. This journey captures all stages, starting from the initial awareness or discovery phase, moving through engagement and consideration, leading to purchasing, and finally towards post-purchase interactions which may include support or advocacy.
The aim of mapping the customer journey is to get a comprehensive insight into different customer interactions across various touchpoints. It helps businesses understand how customers are experiencing their brand, where there might be pain points or areas for improvement, and how they can streamline the process to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Understanding the customer journey is vital for delivering exceptional customer experiences, improving customer retention, and driving business growth.
Learn more about creating a customer journey map for your small business or non-profit.
What are the stages in the customer journey?
The customer journey map should include the following stages.
- Awareness. How does the customer become aware of your activities? What questions are they asking as they become aware of or try to understand the problem they’re facing? What channels do they use, and are they physical or digital?
- Consideration. What triggers the customer to consider your product or service, are they comparing it with other alternatives in the market? What questions do they now have? What understanding will they need to be comfortable making a decision?
- Decision. What concrete choices does the customer make at this point? How are they comparing the options? What factors are most important in their decision? How do they buy the product or service?
- Delivery + Use. How does the customer finally receive the product or service?
- Loyalty + Referral. Does the customer engage with your service again and become a repeat customer? How will an ongoing connection be cultivated? Do they introduce others? What channels do referrals typically come through?
Learn more about creating a customer journey map for your small business or non-profit.
Why is mapping the customer journey important?
Mapping the customer journey allows you to understand your customers' experiences, needs, and pain points at each stage of their interaction with your business. This understanding can help you improve your products, services, and marketing strategies to better meet your customers' needs.
Learn more about creating a customer journey map for your small business or non-profit.
How do I start creating a customer journey map?
Creating a customer journey map involves several key steps. Let's walk through them:
- Define Objectives: Understand why you're creating the map. Are you trying to improve the overall customer experience, solve a particular problem, or identify gaps in your service?
- Create Buyer Personas: These are fictional characters that represent your ideal customers. They should include demographic information, interests, behaviors, goals, and pain points.
- Identify Touchpoints: These are the points of interaction between your customers and your business. They could be anything from visiting your website, speaking to a salesperson, or using your product/service.
- Map the Customer Journey: Outline the steps your customers take from their initial interaction with your business to the final purchase or end goal. This could include stages like awareness, consideration, decision, and retention.
- Identify Opportunities and Pain Points: Look for areas where the customer experience can be improved. These could be places where customers are getting frustrated, or where there's an opportunity to exceed their expectations.
- Implement Changes: Use your findings to make improvements to your customer journey. This could involve changing your website layout, improving your customer service, or altering your product offering.
- Review and Update Regularly: Customer needs and behaviors change over time, so it's important to regularly review and update your customer journey map to ensure it's still accurate and useful.
Remember, a customer journey map is a tool to help you better understand and serve your customers. It should be used as a guide to improve your customer experience, not as a strict rulebook.
Learn more about creating a customer journey map for your small business or non-profit.
How often should I update my customer journey map?
It's a good practice to review and update your customer journey map periodically to ensure it remains accurate and relevant. Changes in your business, market trends, or customer behavior may require adjustments to your map.
The frequency at which you should update your customer journey map largely depends on various factors such as changes in your business model, introduction of new products or services, shifts in customer behavior, or significant changes in market conditions.
However, a good rule of thumb is to review your customer journey map at least once every six months to a year. This helps ensure that it continues to accurately reflect your customers' experiences and expectations.
If there are major changes happening more frequently in your industry, you might want to review and update your map quarterly.
Remember, the customer journey map is a dynamic tool that should evolve with your business and your understanding of your customers. Regular reviews and updates will help you keep it relevant and effective.
At Better Story Marketing, we review our map quarterly as a team to ensure it is effectively engaging our ideal customers and helping them reach their goals.
Learn more about creating a customer journey map for your small business or non-profit.
