I could say that I am about to let you in on a little-known secret but that would be a lie. Most successful marketers, certainly all successful digital marketers, understand the importance of recycling existing content.
This often comes as a surprise to those who are new to content marketing. They might say “you call yourself a marketer?! Don’t be so lazy!” or “your audience is going to think that you’re trying to cheat them, there will be a riot!”. Well maybe they don’t get quite so angry, but it certainly raises eyebrows.
These concerns would be valid if you were recycling the same content, in the same format, with a different title. For example, imagine you release a blog post today titled “the benefits of recycling content” and then next week you release another titled “why you should recycle content”. This isn’t what we’re suggesting you do.
Recycle content on different channels using new formats
For example, a brilliant blog post could serve as the basis of a script for a YouTube video.
Please remember that not everybody likes to read. Some people prefer video, others prefer images or even podcasts. Everyone consumes media differently. By recycling existing content into new formats, you’re expanding your reach to a wider audience. Yes, there will be some overlap, but this isn’t a reason to worry.
In our example of turning a blog post into a YouTube video, you just need to make sure that you’re not literally reading your article word for word. For maximum effectiveness, try to change the content to make it more relevant to the audience consuming it on the new channel.
Testing the waters
Another great way to recycle content is to use one channel as a testing ground. For example, imagine you have a great idea for an article topic. Before you invest the time researching and writing the article you can validate the idea by posting a preview on twitter to gauge a reaction. You might post a quote or a sentence summarising the main argument. If you get a good response, you have validated your idea and can justify the time needed to write the article.
Next, imagine that you wrote that article and it was a great success. You could then reuse the article as a topic for a podcast, YouTube video or extract the data and make an infographic. The possibilities are endless. Your latest round of content could go viral leading you to consider getting a book deal sorted!
The key takeaway is this, any content that has been successful on one format or channel is likely to be successful on others.
All you need to do is put the time in to adapt it. This is anything but lazy marketing. There is still a significant time investment but rest assured that you’re investing time in content that has already been validated. What’s more, it takes less time to recycle content into new formats then it does to create something brand new from scratch.
11 ideas for recycling content
- Republish evergreen content – remember to leave at least six months between posts
- Constantly post quotes from recent blog posts, articles, and eBooks on social media
- Refresh old articles and release them as ‘updated for the current year’
- Create infographics based on data in successful content
- Host a live webinar and post snippets as training material
- Combine multiple blog posts or articles into an eBook
- Combine multiple blog posts into a new article i.e. use them as research for the new idea
- Turn educational blog posts into formal video lectures or lessons
- Invite a special guest onto a podcast and use the discussion to brainstorm article ideas
- Use testimonials as case studies
- Create a monthly roundup newsletter out with snippets and links to the content you released that month