Rob Lons
Content marketing is here to stay. If you haven’t jumped aboard, you are going to be left behind. It’s hard to argue with the numbers: 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared everyday. Not to mention 90% of consumers find custom content useful, and 67% of B2B companies with blogs generate more leads per month than their non-blogging counterparts.
If you haven’t heard, SEO is dead. While that may indeed be the case, the reality is that great content should be the cornerstone of your online marketing efforts.
But how do you keep up?
The Realities Of Content Marketing
Content marketing can be looked at as a necessary evil for a lot of companies. It’s time consuming, hard to get right, and without knowledge or professional help, you’re not likely to see rapid results. Done correctly however, content marketing can be a valuable asset to your business.
But it comes down to two main pain points for many businesses:
- Time
- Money
Evergreen content is what will help build quality search traffic and increase shares on social media; ultimately gaining you more exposure.
But it will also cost you money. Or time. You will either have to do it yourself or hire someone.
Whichever direction you take, there are a few tricks you can use for gaining more mileage with your existing content.
So, with that out of the way, I need to tell you…
Why You Should Repurpose Content
Leveraging your existing content is the best thing you can do to expand your current marketing efforts. You’ll build more links, diversify your content, and have more things to share on social media. Plus, you cut down on the time it takes to produce more stuff for your audience (and the search engines).
Ever had trouble with coming up with ideas for blog posts?
What if you could just take one good idea and rework 5 different ways?
5 Types Of Content You Can Make Right Now With What You Already Have
First, find a piece of content on your site that has done really well in the past. There are two things you should look at to find your best content:
- Search traffic
- Social shares
To see which blog post on your site brings in the most traffic login to your Google Analytics account and go to Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages. You will see what blog posts perform the best.
To see how many social shares your post has received just enter the url at Buzzsumo. You’ll see the total number of shares broken down by social network.
You now have a piece of content that has proven value to your audience. Now it’s time to leverage it even more.
Fuel your content marketing efforts with these 5 ‘repurpose’ hacks
- Create a presentation. Got a post that would work equally well as a presentation? Power up PowerPoint and get to work. Then upload your presentation to Slideshare and a few more doc sharing sites for extra links and traffic.
- Make an infographic. This might not be feasible for the design challenged, but if you have a fact-filled post, creating an infographic to accompany it will boost its shareability. You may pick up some extra links in the process — just make sure to add an embed code. You can use tools like Piktochart or infogr.am to get the job done, or try your hand at Photoshop. Outsourcing is another avenue.
- Shoot some video. Any content on your site can be translated into video. Have tutorials and guides? Make a video. Want to spice up your about page? Add a video.
- Record an audio version. Of course, you could start a podcast, but that is a little more work than what I pitched in this post. Our focus is using what you already have to leverage more content. That doesn’t mean you can’t add a bit of audio to the mix. Record yourself explaining the concept behind a case study you have done in the past, or an opinion piece you have written on your site. Afterwards, upload the mp3 file to SoundCloud, Sutros, YourListen, and any other ones you can find.
- Write an ebook. This is probably one of the most important ones out of the bunch. An ebook, once written, can add tremendous value to your overall marketing goals. It can help drive sign-ups to your newsletter, and help establish you as an expert. Here’s a little trick: embed social shares in your ebook and make sure your contact information is on every page.
That about sums it up.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive breakdown of how to leverage your existing content. It’s an excellent start, though. Keep in mind that you can employ other strategies as well. The important thing is thinking outside of the box, and keeping fresh content coming off the production line.
What are you doing to leverage your existing content marketing strategy?
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