Are You Being Re-purposeful with Your Content?
The best of your organization’s content should be like a cat — it should have nine lives.
Okay, maybe nine lives is stretching it. But when you work hard to write something remarkably clever/insightful/useful/etc., there’s no reason why it should be doomed for a one-and-done existence. Reincarnation should be in the cards.
I’ve heard this message preached many times before. Lately, I’ve been trying harder to live up to it.
Case in point: Last year, I wrote a blog post on how to choose a copywriter. It’s a topic that all our clients have dealt with — and one that I know something about. Better yet, it’s the kind of advice that many visitors to our site will find helpful.
The post got some decent traffic, but I forgot about it for a while. Then, a couple months ago, I was brainstorming ideas for an e-book and it came to mind.
It was pretty quick work for Anna and I to refine and expand upon the original content. After that, I laid it out in PowerPoint and converted it into a PDF. Within a few hours, we had our e-book: The Five P’s of Picking the Perfect Freelance Copywriter. Now we’re using it as a gated asset to collect contact info from prospective clients.
Remodeling Firm Drinks the Kool-Aid
A long-time client of The Hired Pens, a residential remodeling firm, has made a similar commitment. I’ve helped them create a quarterly newsletter for the past nine years. That adds up to around 35 newsletters and about 175 substantive articles — a lot of great content.
The firm has been posting its PDF newsletters on its website for a long time. A few years ago, it started cherry-picking newsletter articles and converting them into blog posts. Now we’re talking about creating e-books based on old articles for the first time. I can’t wait to see how it goes.
I realize I’m far from the first to recommend repurposing your blog posts and other content. Nonetheless, I highly encourage you to do it. With a little effort, that old blog post could become the next e-book, white paper, case study, etc., that you use to market your business.
Ah, the joys of recycling …