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Creative Reuse is Marketing Made Easy

Sept. 28, 2020
Repeat after me: Developing rich content is not as challenging as you suppose, and purposeful repurposing is an effective way to reach customers and prospects.

Many businesses prevent themselves from marketing effectively because they believe they do not have the right resources, or the right content. But it’s very likely, even guaranteed, that these organizations are overlooking resources that are already available for marketing efforts.

Part of your marketing plan should be “purposefully repurposing” marketing content that your business has already created because it is another way to extend your marketing budget. You can start today. If you are currently planning to create new materials for 2021 — a blog, for example, or a testimonial video — those are resources that can be re-purposed almost endlessly, with the benefit of reaching different segments of your audience when they are used in different marketing channels.

A monthly blog can be repurposed into content for your newsletter. With just a little more effort, the same content can be enhanced with pictures or infographics to create a series of social media posts.

A testimonial video can be used in full on YouTube, as well as posted to your website. Then, the video can be run in full on LinkedIn, and cut into smaller segments and posted to Twitter. Depending on the particular content, those shorter segments may work for additional YouTube posts or posted to other areas of your website. Excerpts of the video also may be used as written testimonial call-outs on the website, or as visual social media posts. Depending on the video’s content, with just a little extra effort a transcript might serve as the outline of a case study.

“Resources” can mean several things, and other available marketing materials you’ve created, or even simply information from clients, can be repurposed too. Possibilities abound! It’s just a matter of viewing with new eyes the information and marketing collateral that you already, and recognizing fresh options for using them. This strategy is especially effective when you have a small budget and/or limited staff resources.

Here are some common resources you may have in your marketing arsenal, and should consider reusing in new ways:

  The nice comment your client emailed you. Is it on your website as a testimonial? Have you made a social media post with it? (Bonus: Have you asked the customer to do a review on Facebook or Google?)

  The great explanation one of your staff wrote to a client. Did you repurpose it into a FAQ for your website? Have you spun it into an article for your blog or industry press? Did you chop the info into short bites to post to social media?

  The online press release announcing new staff. Did you showcase the employee on social media? Did you push the press release to local media? Did you put the information in your internal and external newsletter? (Did you do a year-end summary on social media or in your newsletter including this info?)

  The photos from your last event, pre-COVID. Did you send them individually to attendees and thank them for coming (and perhaps promote your next event)? Did you Ripl the images into a quick Facebook video? Did you post the photos to your website? Have you used them to create a promotion of your next event?

  Historical photos of your business. Have you used them on social media for “throwbacks” on those dates?

  The electronic newsletter you wrote that people emailed in to say how helpful the information is — make that a blog or Medium post and reference the post to social media. 

Content is never the challenge, but being creative with the content may be. At least a dozen content and repurposing options are probably buried in your email or digital files!  Fire up your creativity and be willing to think about what you have and how it could be refreshed or repurposed to reach your customers and prospects in new ways.   

Alexandria Trusov is the Global Marketing Manager at Alpha Resources and a B2B marketing consultant to manufacturers and other B2B companies. Contact her at [email protected] or visit www.truinsightsconsulting.com.