Reuse, Reduce and Recycle; rings a bell? Yes, we've studied these in our Environmental Education classes, but did you know that they can also be implemented in content marketing? While their backgrounds are different, they serve similar purposes, to revive your archived content.
Storing up for the future is a great idea, but what happens to the stock, post its expiry? Similar is the case of content which needs repurposing to avoid becoming a forgotten marketing fossil. Following are the answers to What, Why, When and How of repackaging your existing content.
What
As mentioned above, repurposing of content gives it a new face and increases its lifespan. This includes reducing irrelevant information and reworking on the existing content to give it a fresh look, reusing the old write up and merging it with new information and recycling the overall piece. The question that arises here is, if we can create new content as and when required, why should we recycle?
Why
What do you do when you have some food leftover from the previous night? You neither throw it away, nor leave it in the fridge to rot, instead you cook it up into a new dish. Why? Because there was a lot of effort put into cooking that dish, just like creating content. However, it is not necessary that every piece of content has to be recycled. The chosen content could either be one that performed exceptionally well in its time or one that suits a current scenario. Repackaging content helps you gain more organic reach given its existing viewers and new ones that it shall attract. One of the biggest examples of the same is the re-telecast of Ramayana and Mahabharata on DD National during the lockdown period. Not only did the existing followers watch it, but the shows also reaped the attention of new generation audiences. So how do we determine when and which content to reuse?
When
While you make a new dish out of the leftovers, what do you do if the food has expired? Throw it away, of course. In the case of content, you must know the art of picking evergreen and durable content. This refers to topics that are etched in the book of marketing for years, like 'tips on writing', 'how to excel in the art of marketing' etc. These topics, however old, can be refurbished with new learnings and reused. For example, Amul brought back its archived advertisements from the era of Ramayana (1990s) when the mega-serial made a comeback on DD National in 2020 and looped in more followers. This brings us to our next question, in how many ways can evergreen content be refurbished?
How
The most important aim of repurposing content is to gain visibility of the new generation's readers. The best way to do that is repackaging your content as per their interest. When it comes to content marketing today, podcasts, infographics, video tutorials, Pinterest boards, case studies and conversational blogs are winning the race. If you want to catch the spectators' attention, you've got to participate in the race, and to win, give them what others can't, the best package of knowledge. This refers not only to adding new verified information to your existing content, but also to present it in an innovative manner to catch eyeballs. One of the participants in the race is the Netflix series, Midnight Gospel, that is an animated version of comedian Duncan Trussell's podcast 'Duncan Trussell Family Hour'. To help you emerge as the winner, you can take help from Google analytics and search engine optimisation for assured better results from your renewed blog.
Another advantage of repackaging your content is the engagement received on it. When you present an old content with a touch of current market norms, it becomes a lot more interactive. Moreover, the repurposed content pieces also often lead the information hungry audience to your archive of content. This gives your old content an unintentional boost, and who would say no to that?