Time and time again, we come across business owners who are struggling to stay on top of their content marketing strategy. And it’s no wonder, really.

A lot of effort goes into creating effective landing pages, insightful blog posts, useful whitepapers and other kinds of engaging media. It’s easy to spend hours upon hours every week fleshing out your initial ideas into meaningful content that really resonates with your audience.

Many of you will have chosen to keep our content creation in-house for a variety of reasons. But while coming up with great content can be enjoyable – and is nearly always worthwhile – the content creation process can begin to eat into your resources, leaving you with less time to service your clients.

It is possible to speed up the development of your content without compromising on the quality of the work you’re creating. You can do this by making the most of what you’ve already got; by repurposing your existing business content.

One thing we must clarify right from the start is this: repurposing your content is not the same as duplicating it. Re-engineering your original piece is OK, as long as it still offers value to the person that’s consuming it. Duplicating your content is a big no-no. Google doesn’t like seeing the same content or media pasted across multiple web pages, and neither do your customers.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, here are 5 easy ways to make the most of your existing bank of content (without getting into trouble with the search engines).

1. Freshen up a classic piece

We’ve all got that one ‘wonder’ post lurking in our blog archive. The one piece that everyone seemed to love; the one that generated far more views, shares and comments than we’re used to. If only we could repost that blog again and repeat the experience, right?

Well, what’s stopping you? Your ‘wonder’ post clearly struck a chord with your audience when it was first released, so why not give it a second wind by reworking it and resharing it amongst your followers?

Spend a little time revisiting the content. Bring it up to date by adding in some recent developments or expanding on the topic in a way that’s more relevant to the here and now. Then, repost it via your social media accounts. There’s no reason why it won’t be a success the second time around, as long as you’ve made it clear that some changes have been made to the original content. If your original readers think they’ll gain something more from re-skimming your post, they’ll click through to have another look (and that’ll be another site visit logged. Bonus.).

2. Turn a blog post into something entirely different

People process information in different ways. Some can soak up information quite easily from the written word; others are more visual learners; others prefer to pop on their headphones and listen to a recording while they’re going about their daily tasks. It makes sense, then, to cater for everyone by turning your blog post or whitepaper into an infographic, a video or a podcast. Doing so will bring your content to life (and add more variety and intrigue to your content marketing strategy, too).

The key is to work out which format will be most suitable for the content you have to hand. For example, it’s quite tricky to convey heavy data in a video without losing the attention of the audience, so perhaps the content could be worked into an eye-catching infographic instead.

3. Create a blog post from longer content

It’s not just a case of reusing existing blogs to create new material. Sometimes, you can reuse existing material to create new blogs!

Say, for example, you have issued an industry report and it’s already received great feedback from your customers. You could split this content into smaller pieces of 500 words or so and create a series of blog posts that talk the reader through the information in bite-sized chunks. (And if you want to take this concept one step further, you could apply the principle explored in tip #2 and add videos or infographics into the mix, too).

4. Write and distribute guest blogs

Have you thought about approaching other website owners and arranging to publish your own unique content on their platforms? It’s a tried-and-tested way to gain exposure to a new audience – and in many cases, the host will offer to include a link back to your website within the piece, which can be great for SEO.

You’ll need to reword the original blog, and perhaps come at the topic from a slightly different angle to ensure the content won’t be flagged up as duplicated. You’ll also need to pick a host website that’s relevant to your niche and has enough of a following to make the exercise worthwhile. But, when done right, guest blogging benefits everyone; it places your content in front of a pool of potential customers, and it gives the other blogger something they can use to bolster their own content marketing strategy.

5. Send out content snippets via newsletters

Newsletters are incredibly useful tools for companies that want to communicate quickly and easily with people who are already interested in what they have to offer. And there’s often no need to start writing mailshots from scratch, because your existing content could make ideal newsletter material.

You could work your content to your advantage by cutting out the highlights from a recent blog post, inserting them into your newsletter template, and using them to entice readers back to the main article. Or, you could paraphrase a lengthier piece into a series of short, snappy tips that provide added value to your subscribers right there and then.

So you see, there are plenty of legitimate ways to reuse, repurpose and recycle your existing business content without appearing lazy or unimaginative (and without negatively affecting your search presence).

If you’re stuck for inspiration, or you need a little help repurposing your content, contact Indy. We love finding new and creative ways to breathe fresh life into your content plan.

You can learn more about our content strategy development services here.