How to Repurpose Old Content to Boost Marketing Results

4 ways to repurpose existing content

If you spread information over various marketing channels, you can reach more members of your target audience and get a higher ROI from your content-creation investment. Repurposing doesn’t take much time, but the rewards are considerable. 

Here are four steps for repurposing your content to boost marketing results. 

1. Locate your best content. The first step is to review Google Analytics data and other metrics and insights to find your best-performing content. Adjust the date range to pinpoint your most successful blog posts, social media posts, website updates, newsletters and more. Compile a list of your best content at the one-month, six-month and one-year mark. Look at total page views, social media shares and comments to find the content that most resonates with your audience.
2. Tie the content to your audience. Most brands have various customers and prospects at different stages of the customer journey. They all have different needs, assumptions and pain points, which you can address with buyer personas. Tie each piece of successful content to one of your buyer personas. This focus helps you write less generic content and more relevant, specific content that urges someone to take action. The more specific your targeting, the better your repurposed content will resonate with your audience.
3. Choose a platform. Where are your customers when they decide to buy? Go where they are so they’ll see your content. For example, to target Gen Z customers, add repurposed content to Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat. Choose three to five channels where your target audience will likely see the content.
4. Map out a plan. Jazz up your old content based on your desired audience and platform. If you have a blog post, consider repurposing it as an infographic, video, blog roundup, social media post, PPC ad, e-book, podcast or email marketing campaign Of course, you’ll need to beef up the original post’s content as well. Update it to add value and insight. Include an infographic or reader testimonies. Data and authoritative quotes will also boost your authority and the content’s value.

It’s crucial to repurpose content so it’s engaging, relevant and convenient to your audience. If your audience isn’t interested, the content won’t succeed.

What to do with old YouTube content

If you have an old YouTube channel, don’t let that video content go to waste. Instead, give those old videos new life and repurpose them into any of the following types of content:

• A mini video series. Chop up a one-hour video into smaller, 15-minute videos for easier viewing.
• Podcast episodes. Update your old video and re-record it as a podcast.
• Blog posts. Transcribe the audio and post it on your website or vlog (some editing may be necessary). 
• Social media videos. Post your video on your social media accounts to boost your social media presence. For example, add it to your Instagram story. 
• Video courses and webinars. Repurpose instructional videos as video courses or webinars. 
• Lead magnets. Repurpose existing content to create free e-books, whitepapers, user guides and product description sheets as downloadable lead magnets. 

The benefits of repurposing content

You may be uneasy about repurposing content, fearing that Google will penalize you for duplicate content or that customers will notice similar content across multiple platforms.

However, when you repurpose content correctly, you have nothing to fear. Search engines love to see valuable, updated content that serves your audience. And it’s unlikely your YouTube followers will care that you posted similar content on Instagram.

Repurposing’s benefits far outweigh the risks. When you repurpose the right way, you’ll reap the following benefits:

• Give yourself an SEO boost. Search engines want to see that you’re updating old content. It shows that you care about improving the user experience. You can get more SEO juice to an old blog just by updating it.
• Save time. Everybody is strapped for resources. Repurposing requires less time and offers rewarding results. It also means you don’t have to crank out new content all the time and can focus on other things.
• Increase your views. Reach new audiences on various platforms by repurposing your content. Repurposing content helps drive website traffic and attract customers into the sales funnel. 
• Increase ROI from your content strategy. You already put in time and effort to create your original content. With just a little more, you can spread your content far and wide, building credibility in the market, generating qualified leads, and ultimately increasing sales.
• Accomplish new goals with the content. Sometimes, your original goal may change, but the content is still valuable. For example, your original blog post may have introduced your new business to prospects. However, now that you’re established, you may want to include that content when giving prospects a company history to increase their comfort level. Or, add that content to your website’s About page so people can learn about your business.
• Give the people what they want. You may discover that a few of your content pieces drive excessive web traffic. Capitalizing on that information’s popularity by spreading it to other platforms makes sense.
• Get the most from evergreen content. Some content ages better than others. Evergreen content is ripe for repurposing. You should update more time-dependent content before reusing it. 

Getting more out of your content investment

You invest a great deal of energy into content creation, so don’t let older efforts disappear into the ether. Get the most out of your content investment by repurposing it. 

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time you write content. Instead, get more views, engagements and sales with content that works for you again and again.

Karolina Hobson contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.