Repurposing content: How to create more by doing less

Are you spending ages creating content and feel as though you’re doing lots of work for little reward? Maybe you’re worried that you’re not getting the most out of your content? Repurposing your content could be your saviour!

You may have heard the term "repurposed content" thrown around and wondered exactly what it meant. Repurposed content refers to the idea of creating content that can be repurposed and redistributed to support different marketing campaigns.

This article will walk you through how to make the most of your content and upcycle it to distribute across your digital marketing channels.

The reasons why you might choose to repurpose content

Learning to make the most out of your content is an essential skill as a marketer. Instead of taking on the burden of having to create brand-new content every week, you should consider creating content that you can repurpose into smaller chunks to redistribute over time.

But how can this add value to your marketing? Repurposing your content adds longevity to your campaigns. A long video that was posted once can create weeks’ worth of content by splitting it into smaller clips.

It can also help create consistency across your marketing channels. Consistency is key when creating content for platforms such as social media and email marketing. It shows your followers and subscribers that you’re committed to providing them with value. Furthermore, it keeps your brand at the front of their mind as they see your message over and over.

Getting started with long-form content

Video is by far the most versatile medium when it comes to content marketing. The great thing about video is that it can be edited and transformed into different forms of content.

For instance, an interview could be broken down into shorter clips, and specific quotes could be pulled out and repurposed into static posts or articles. An interview could be extracted from the video and turned into a podcast or a sound clip.

If you’re thinking about creating new content for your marketing campaigns but are a little stuck for ideas, why not check out our guide on coming up with new content ideas?

How you can split out your content

Knowing how best to split out your content is an important skill, so this section of the article will walk you through the stages of breaking down your content.

Video to video

As we mentioned before, we would recommend a long-form video as your first piece of content. Whether it’s a webinar, patient testimonial, or an educational explanation video, they’re all great starting points.

This long video can then be edited and posted on platforms that are designed to maximise your audience’s attention span, such as YouTube or your website. These are the ideal homes for your long-form content.

Next, you should think about ways that you can break this video into shorter, more bite-sized clips. Maybe you want to break the patient testimonial down by question or pull strong quotes or conversation topics out of a webinar? These smaller clips are ideal for places like social media, email campaigns, and sales presentations.

Top tips for video content

It might seem obvious, but these smaller clips work best when they are 1–2 minutes long. Any longer than that, and you might lose your audience’s attention.

You may worry that the shorter version of the video doesn’t give all the information you wanted it to, but that’s fine. You can always link to the longer-form content, and your audience can choose to watch it if they want to.

It can also be useful to add subtitles to your videos. You don’t know where people are going to be when watching your videos, and they may not be able to play them aloud—so subtitles allow them to still watch and engage.

If you want to learn more about what you need to know when capturing your videos, check out our article on preparing for a professional videography day.

Video to audio

The next way to break down your long-form video is into audio. We’re living in the golden age of podcasts, so why not take advantage and turn your webinar or educational video into something that your audience can listen to on the go?

Platforms such as BuzzSprout and PodBean will host your audio and distribute it across the top listening sites like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Creating your own podcast is surprisingly easy.

Once you’ve created your podcast, you may want to consider breaking it down into smaller soundbites. These smaller audio clips work great across social media and email and may hook people into listening to the full podcast.

Video to text

The final way in which you can break down your long-form video is by turning it into words. Transcription tools like VEED and Otter make it easy to transcribe videos. It is then easy to use that text to create written content, such as website articles.

Not only is this great for those in your audience who prefer written content, but it’s also handy for boosting your SEO by keeping your website freshly updated with valuable content and relevant keywords.

You can also use the text to create social media posts, such as quote posts, which link back to the other forms of content you’ve created. They usually consist of a catchy quote that has been turned into an eye-catching visual.

Maximising the results of repurposed content

Now that we’ve covered the main steps to creating repurposed content, it’s important to look at what your content should be aiming to do. Your content, no matter how small, should almost always have a call-to-action (CTA).

Whether you’re asking them to watch the long-form video on YouTube or sending them to your website to convert, it’s good to encourage some kind of action that leads them on their buyer’s journey; otherwise, they may simply consume the content and move on.

The potential downfalls of repurposing content 

The main problem that we’ve encountered in creating repurposed content is making sure that every smaller piece can stand alone.

While it’s great to think that our audiences will automatically follow up, there’s no guarantee. For this reason, it’s good to ensure that the content makes sense as a stand-alone piece.

The steps to creating stand-alone, repurposed content

There are three steps to make sure that your content can work as a stand-alone piece:

1. Understand its purpose What’s the point of this repurposed content? What’s it trying to achieve? What are you trying to share? Be clear and give purpose to all your breakout content. Once you understand its purpose, make sure your audience does too.
2. Give some context Never assume that your audience knows what you’re talking about, so always give brief explanations.
3. Include a CTA This could be something like “sign-up to our mailing list” or “listen to the full podcast”.