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I’ve adapted the slogan above, borrowed from the original green movement, to apply to the new rules of content and information on and offline.
A lot of people are telling you that content is king, and to a certain degree it is, but your head is swimming and you’re thinking, “how do I create all this content and education based material when I’ve got a business to run? You say I need a blog, newsletter, white papers, podcast, training courses, instructional videos, I mean, how do I get it all done?”
Yes you do need all that stuff and, yes, it’s a lot of work, so the trick is to find ways to take content you absolutely need to create and find ways to repurpose it. And, take content you’ve already produced and give it new life, new audiences.
- If you are doing an online demo, record it and put it on your website.
- If you get the same questions over and over again, answer them all in an audio format.
- Take those same questions and turn them into blog posts
- Take several blog posts and stitch them together into an article to submit online and off
- Create a series of 7 related blog posts and you have a presentation
- Write a white paper by posting questions to your blog and letting readers add their comments, turn the entire project into the white paper.
- Record all of your slide presentations and upload them to sites like YouTube and Slideshare
- Schedule interviews with industry experts and even customers - record, transcribe and publish in several formats.
- Turn bits and bites of all of this into your monthly newsletter
- Take something you’ve already written and break it down into bite size chunks in multi-formats
The key to making this way of content production a success is to always view your writing, speaking, selling, and research efforts with an eye on multi-use. If you know you have to give a speech at a trade show next month, write it as blog content over the next 5 days and you’ve solved several needs at one time. Anything you produce should have several lives. An important note - the word repurpose to me implies more than simply taking your newsletter and calling it a blog post, you’ve got to give it a bit of new life, new function, new delivery, new format, new spin. It’s not that hard if you have that in mind as you create it.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at Feb 20, 08 | 12:13 pm and is filed under Branding, Marketing Materials, Small Business Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Exactly!
I think harnessing synergies is one of the secrets to success.
Have to read to stay on top of your industry? Keep your notes online in a blog (helps with your own searches too).
Need to go to the big city for business? Meet with blogger buddies (Hugh from GapingVoid.com has this down to an artform).
Need to walk the dog? Walk the neighbor’s dog at the same time and get paid for it.
Synergies.
Doing more with less is essential when you are trying to control costs and grow. I used to use short items from my blog and combine them or go a little deeper and use them for my newsletter. It made getting the newsletter out relatively painless and motivated me a bit more to make posts.
One of my clients took a white paper and turned it into a podcast. It made a great download and improved response to the offer since people that wanted to know more but were short on time could listen while commuting or exercising.
Repurpose, reuse, recycle. I like it!
This is great…I have alot of these folks on my marketing blogroll already, but WOW, what a treasure chest of resources. I agree with you that you can get some good practice from learning what headlines GRAB you and which ones don’t.
I wonder when my blog will be on that list
-RV
Great post, John. I’m a long-time reader of your blog and a big fan of your podcast.
As someone who is pioneering my company’s push into the social media world, I can relate with your readers who may feel overwhelmed by the need to generate reams of content.
One tip I’ve learned: forge business partnerships. Invite other bloggers to author guest posts on your blog. Interview a podcaster you admire, then convert the interview into a multi-platform feed that can be referenced by others in the social media space.
For small business people in particular, leveraging partnerships with others can ease the marketing burden. Come to think of it, wasn’t there an old adage about many hands making a light load?
Keep up the good stuff, John. I look forward to chatting with you in person one day.
[…] Reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose […]
John,
Great ideas.
Focus is key. Have a content management plan and work your plan.Think leverage of all your content.
Easier said than done with all the shiny new things floating around the social marketing arena right now.
Walt
I am so happy to hear this from a trusted source. With my growing list of online real estate and commitments (blog,profiles,groups,social network,newsletters, video channels) I keep wondering if it’s acceptable to share the same or similar information in more than 1 place before I lose my mind trying to keep up.
You’ve put my worries to rest. Thank you so much.
Sheree
That’s what I am doing all the time.
Right now, I am revising everything I’ve done in 2006 to reuse and repurpose for 2008…
Thanks John for your insight, these are great tips. In my world, it seems I never have enough time to do everything so tips for getting the most from each thing I do is very important.
[…] guru John Jantsch has written a post called “Reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose,” a slogan which he’s borrowing from the green movement and applying to the notion of […]