How to Repurpose Content Effectively for Higher Returns

Do you think content is just for the marketing team? Think again.

As a marketing specialist at Brandience, overseeing our multi-channel content strategy is a significant part of my role. I collaborate with our team to determine content topics, distribution channels, and the relevance duration of each piece. To truly maximize the impact of content, it's also important to consider how it can be utilized across multiple departments.

Instead of viewing each piece as a one-time effort, the goal is to repurpose it across various channels and teams, tailoring it for different audiences and extending its lifespan. This holistic approach not only enhances marketing efforts but also supports sales and client relations initiatives, building credibility, trust, and authority. Plus, it saves your entire team from having to start from scratch for each goal.

Let's dive into how repurposing content can be applied to different departments and what types of content to consider.

Why Do Marketers Repurpose Content?

Repurposing content is a key strategy in many marketer’s playbook. Here are the benefits of repurposing content:

• Maximizes Value: By repurposing existing content, the effort and resources invested in creating the piece of content are fully utilized.
• Expands Reach: Different formats appeal to different audience segments. For example, a blog post can be turned into a video, infographic, or social media post to reach people who prefer those formats and are active on those channels.
• Improves SEO: Repurposing content helps improve search engine rankings by creating multiple pieces around the same topic, increasing visibility and benefits both off-page and on-page SEO.

Referral Rock asked marketers to compare the results from various content creation tactics including new content, updating content, or repurposing existing content. 46% of them reported that repurposing existing content generates the best results.

Repurposing content is not only effective but also the most cost-efficient way to maintain a consistent and engaging presence across various platforms. If a piece of content has already proven valuable to your audience, consider other ways it can reach new audiences or present it differently to add value.

How Different Departments Can Leverage Repurposed Content  

Most think about repurposed content on traditional marketing channels, which still rings true. But by repurposing content strategically, different teams within the organization can use it to advance their specific goals and initiatives.

Let’s explore how each team can maximize the value of repurposed content.

Marketing Teams  

• Content Makes More Content: Repurpose existing content into various formats, such as transforming a blog post into social media snippets or infographics.
• SEO & Engagement: Refresh and reshare content to keep it relevant and engaging, extending its lifespan.
• Industry Thought Leadership: Convert high-performing blog posts into LinkedIn articles or media pitches.
• Speaking Engagements: Use existing content for presentations, webinars, or podcasts.

Client Relations  

• Client Conversations: Share relevant articles or case studies to reinforce key messages during client interactions.
• Credibility Building: Reference blog posts or articles to showcase expertise in client communications.
• Networking Leverage: Use thought leadership content as conversation starters in networking.

Sales Team  

• Lead Nurturing: Share industry-specific thought leadership content with prospects to address pain points and build trust.
• Personalized Outreach: Use repurposed content in outreach to provide value and demonstrate expertise tailored to prospects’ needs.
• Sales Collateral: Incorporate repurposed content into presentations, one-pagers, and case studies to highlight results and reinforce value.

Repurposing Content for B2B

The Long Game of B2B Marketing  

Unlike B2C, B2B marketing is all about the long game. Due to longer sales cycles, building lasting relationships is what it’s all about. B2B audiences also engage differently than B2C, allowing B2B marketers to reshare the same content multiple times with fresh angles without overwhelming the audience. We marketers get tired of our own content way before our audience does, which our Executive Creative Director explores in this blog, Is Campaign Wear-Out a Myth?

Reaching Your Audience at Every Stage

A multi-channel strategy increases the likelihood of reaching the audience at any stage of the sales funnel. In each stage, content needs to go beyond simply promoting offerings to provide valuable information that addresses your audience’s biggest questions and business challenges.

Your different departments can help with this by leveraging their unique touchpoints with your audience. For example, the sales team can use tailored content to nurture leads, while the client relations team can share relevant articles to reinforce key messages during client interactions.

Preferred Content Formats for B2B Audiences

B2B audiences favor thought leadership and multiformat content. LinkedIn is often the top channel for targeting a B2B audience. Long-form posts, videos, and carousels perform well, making it a strong channel for repurposing insights in different engaging formats.

Demand Gen’s Content Preferences report found that the top three content formats B2B buyers find most appealing include:

- Short-form content, such as infographics and blog posts (65%)

- Webinars and digital events (52%)

- Long-form content, such as whitepapers and e-books (50%)

Consider also the value of one-pagers, case studies, and other collateral for your sales team or educational content for your current clients that your client relations teams can pass along.

For example, if you were Microsoft, a detailed whitepaper on "Maximizing Business Efficiency with Microsoft Azure" could be repurposed into a webinar for potential clients and a training video for internal teams.

Pro tip for where to start: Ask your sales team and client leadership team what sort of things their prospects and clients want to see. You may already have a version of this content in a different format.

Quality Content Above All  

Quality content is king. While repurposing is beneficial, it’s important to balance it with maintaining high quality and usefulness. When considering how to repurpose a piece of content, think about the goal or objective – reaching a wider audience or gaining more traction on a message. This will help determine how long repurposed content remains effective and what channels they are effective for.

Maximize Impact and Efficiency of Your Content

By thinking strategically about content repurposing, you can ensure that every piece of content serves multiple purposes: driving awareness, building trust, and supporting business goals across teams. For help optimizing your content strategy, contact Brandience today.