Communications professionals usually talk about content material in binary phrases, as both evergreen or tied to a selected second in time. However on the earth of selling, the lifecycle of nice content material can prolong past this dichotomy.
A bit of thought management a few current regulatory motion, designed to tell business leaders on find out how to alter their planning, may really feel carefully tied to at least one time limit. Nonetheless, it could embrace a consumer anecdote that may be leveraged for years to come back. A information explaining an essential medical health insurance course of may really feel extra evergreen, however perhaps its takeaway will be leveraged in a subsequent piece responding to a well timed hook.
Repurposing content material can permit it to have many makes use of past its preliminary publication, being woven and rewoven to reply to the wants of your content material advertising and marketing technique. It might imply tweaking prose for a brand new viewers or atomizing a single element, like a statistic, from inside a bigger article. Consider redeploying a chart as a standalone graphic on social media or transforming a chunk of thought management for publication as a byline.
Repurposing will be an efficient strategy to save time and finances, whereas carrying ahead an present message, thesis, or piece of data to new contexts or audiences. It might probably additionally pace up evaluation processes and unencumber time in your workforce (or company) to place to work elsewhere.
However repurposing content material is usually simpler stated than executed. Particular person alternatives might come up, offering a window to republish or recirculate an article in response to a brand new growth – however an opportunistic method to recycling content material will restrict your agility, rising the effort and time required to reinforce a chunk or inflicting you to overlook a window totally. Realizing the complete advantages of repurposed content material requires designing content material to be reusable from the get-go by incorporating this mindset into your strategic planning.
The way to Design Repurposable Content material for Efficient Content material Advertising: 4 Key Suggestions
Assess your content material objectives and outline how repurposing may help obtain them.
A chief benefit of recycling content material is the flexibility to repeatedly reengage round a selected subject. For those who haven’t but experimented with repurposing content material at scale, take inventory of your present content material program and ask the place it may benefit from doing so. If, for instance, you might be planning a content material marketing campaign with multimedia components, it is best to determine reusable supplies — similar to charts, graphics, or statistics — early on.
Prioritize clear takeaways or theses that may simply be extracted.
Generally it doesn’t make sense to reuse a whole piece, however that doesn’t imply you need to begin from scratch. Repurposing a thesis or key takeaway from already-published content material could be a stable center floor. Possibly some particular particulars have modified, or your viewers’s wants have developed, but when your present takeaways or worth propositions nonetheless maintain, recycling and constructing from them can speed up content material growth and spur creativity.
Preserve a list of information, proof, anecdotes, and different supporting info.
Content material may also be recycled throughout mediums. Digestible bites can usually be seamlessly spliced into different tasks. Callout packing containers or charts from longer-form items would make nice additions to a shorter infographic, a slide deck, or a video. Equally, graphics initially created for movies can be utilized to interrupt up the topography in what would in any other case be a wall of prose.
Assume past the present venture.
Holistic considering is vital to any profitable content material advertising and marketing marketing campaign. No matter you’re engaged on, it received’t exist in a vacuum. It’ll be in dialogue with media protection, coverage adjustments, market shifts, and your personal model messaging. Retaining this in thoughts will assist you to create content material that resonates now and in future iterations.
When It’s Time to Repurpose Content material
Designing content material that may be repurposed is simply step one. The subsequent choice you’ll make is how and when to leverage it.
This choice will likely be knowledgeable, partially, by the kind of content material you might be reusing. A single graphic, for instance, will be simply plugged into a brand new weblog or social put up. However repurposing thought management — similar to tweaking an article to talk to a unique viewers — requires extra planning.
Timing is all the pieces on the subject of repurposing content material. Transferring too shortly dangers cannibalizing the unique asset’s readership. Transferring too slowly might threat the general message shedding urgency or relevance.
Generally, exterior elements may help resolve the query of timing. Is there a vacation or day of consciousness tied to the subject, or a breaking information merchandise that you should use as an on-ramp for extra content material? In different circumstances, a format change could also be so as. Possibly it’s too quickly to republish an up to date model of an article, however what a few short-form video that highlights its key insights?
Absent any of those forcing features, take into account establishing a evaluation cadence to evaluate whether or not printed content material is due for, or may benefit from, a refresh. Your evaluation tempo will fluctuate primarily based in your particular material and viewers, however ought to account for variables like how the content material is performing and whether or not any laborious knowledge or info included remains to be correct.
The way to Strategy Content material Repurposing for Most Impression
When you’ve recognized the correct time to reuse your content material, all that’s left is the act of repurposing.
When creating one thing new primarily based on an present piece, step one is figuring out what to maintain from the unique. Refamiliarize your self with the piece and the way it carried out. What initially resonated along with your shoppers and your viewers? For those who shared it on social media, did readers name out any particular language or themes?
You’ll additionally have to assess which facets are nonetheless related and helpful. Insights and terminology might change into outdated attributable to authorized, organizational, or market adjustments. Take into account what nonetheless rings true and feels insightful. Take into account what you want about it, too. Bear in mind: This received’t all the time be a purely goal course of. Possibly there’s a singular phrase that you just need to maintain.
For those who’ve hit a block, attempt to reverse this technique by figuring out what to chop. If any components are outdated, didn’t resonate, or carried out poorly, it’s price asking why and probably eradicating them in the event that they can’t be modified to raised meet your wants.
For those who’re porting content material into a unique format, decide what is going to and received’t translate. For those who’re repurposing prose for a designed infographic, you don’t need to maintain lengthy passages of textual content. Knowledge factors or pithy insights work higher on this context.
The Finish is Simply the Starting
The conclusion of a content material piece doesn’t should be “the tip.”
Simply as recycling saves assets by turning an outdated merchandise into one thing new and very important, content material repurposing is a brilliant and savvy strategy to take advantage of out of your time and investments.
The subsequent time you design content material, suppose past its preliminary utility. For those who maintain the issues above in thoughts, you’ll be able to design a chunk that retains on giving.
