Content marketing is a cost effective strategy used to attract, engage and retain an audience by creating relevant articles, videos, podcasts etc. Not only does content marketing showcase your expertise, it also drives brand awareness.
And here comes the big BUT… Producing relevant and engaging content takes time, time that you may not have, as let's face it, running a business is a huge juggle. As a business owner we wear ALL of the hats, we are the CEO, the sales team, the accountant… we are even the tea maker! We are time poor right? I hear you. So my advice is to make life easier for yourself and adopt a much more achievable content marketing strategy for your business - RECYCLE.
I spent a large part of my career leading the marketing team for some of the biggest women’s weekly lifestyle magazines in the UK including GRAZIA, Heat and Closer. For magazines content is EVERYTHING and is what sold copies. However, with the rise of social media the magazine industry was faced with a HUGE challenge. There was no longer such a thing as “breaking news”. Celebrities were breaking their own news via their own social platforms. Our solution was to find different angles and create new content franchises to extend our breadth but to also utilise what we did have. It’s this that leads me on to my advice today…
Avoid spending hours trying to come up with new ideas, we’ve all been there - staring blankly at the wall waiting for that lightbulb moment! Instead look back at the content that you have already spent hours creating and use it again.
But how? I hear you cry. Well, there are TWO ways… Content can be recycled and used again - if it worked well once there is no need to reinvent the wheel. And, it can be repurposed.
Look back at previous marketing campaigns, social posts, blogs, newsletters that worked well, and roll them out again. It’s likely that you have grown your social media following/newsletter database/customer base since the first time you rolled it out, so recycling this content will not only give it a little makeover and a new lease of life, it can help you reach new audiences too.
Look at what content you can repurpose - that is changing its format. Think of that new floral dress you’ve bought, you wear it and get zero compliments, the chances are you’ve styled it all wrong. Wear it again and team it with the right chunky knit and military boot and the compliments flood in - you’ve totally rocked it!
It's the same with content. Content which may have sucked as an Instagram post with a soul destroying 3 likes and no engagement, may work well repurposed as a blog post for example, so take a look back through old posts, blogs etc to see what you could use again in a different way.
My top tip when repurposing your content, make sure that you choose your evergreen content - that’s your content that is always relevant, valuable and won’t date, such as top tips, how-to guides, Q&As or case studies for example.
So before you rack your brain to think of new content ideas, save yourself some time and take a look at what you have already done and think about how you can reuse it.
*Shameless plug alert* If you ever need help with ideas or to create and produce engaging content that will appeal to your target audience, get in touch to say hi and find out how I can help you.
Jade x
@motherofpearlmarketing