Sanina Kaur, director of

SK Copy Co

, helps make sure you don’t get caught out by any nasty surprises involving your content this Halloween

Demand for content marketing is continuing to snowball by epic proportions, with content marketing spend in the UK

predicted to more than double by 2020

. But it’s not the only thing to have mushroomed in recent years, so too have the different types of communications channels. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube…the list is endless.

However, the increased appetite for content coupled with the continued rise in communications channels, has brought about a new challenge – finding ways to produce even more copy within the same timescales.

That’s where repurposing your content comes in. It can help you avoid any nasty surprises; such as gaps in your content schedule or having to scramble around at the last minute to produce an extra piece of content.

Repurposing or ‘recycling’ your existing content helps you get the maximum value out of your copy, increase its overall lifespan and increase your outputs quickly and easily.

Want to give your content a new lease of life, but aren’t sure where to start? These pointers will help:

1. Dig out your evergreen content

It’s important that what you repurpose is still relevant. For instance, there’s little point in turning the blog that you wrote about something that happened three years ago into an infographic because it’s outdated and therefore no longer useful. You should only look to repurpose your evergreen content (i.e. your content that’s not dateable and will be valued by your target audience today, as much as it was when you first published it).

2. Identify your best-performing pieces

You want your repurposed content to perform just as well, if not better, than your existing content, right? In that case, you need to check your stats before you even start typing. Which pieces attracted the most engagement? Chances are they’ll perform just as well second time around if you’re targeting the same personas.

3. Get searching for new stats

As you’re sifting through your content, you might find some pieces, be it a blog, guide or infographic, that still make you think ‘wow, that’s a really compelling read!’ One way in which you can instantly (and easily) breathe new life into these useful nuggets is by replacing old stats with new stats. You may even want to add up-to-the-minute quotes or figures to copy that may not have necessarily contained this type of information in the first place. I always find that starting a piece of copy with a standout quote from a credible source is a really good way to immediately grab people’s attention when writing blogs. (Don’t forget to periodically revisit these pieces though to ensure your stats remain updated!)

4. Experiment with your formats

Just as there are countless communications channels available to us now, there are also numerous ways in which you can present your content. Get maximum mileage out of your copy by using as many of the formats available to you as possible. For example, you might want to turn one of your:

• Blogs into an infographic
• Infographics into a white paper
• White papers into a webinar
• Webinar into a SlideShare

See what I mean? The possibilities are endless – don’t be afraid to experiment with the different formats that are out there and always try to tap into the latest platforms and techniques if you can. Obviously repurposing certain types of content will involve more resource than others (i.e. turning a blog into an infographic will require both writing and design time), but that’s no reason why you should shy away from going down this route.

5. Think about the buyer journey

You might find after going through your content that you tend to have a lot of top of the funnel blog posts, several middle of the funnel guides and infographics and a smattering of bottom of the funnel case studies. Ideally, you want your content to engage, educate and convert readers.

Producing a mix of content that covers all of the stages within the buyer journey will help ensure that the right message is getting to your readers at the right time. Ask yourself, does my content span the top, middle and bottom of the funnel? Or could that top of the funnel mythbuster blog become a middle of the funnel cheat sheet? And could that middle of the funnel best practice guide be turned into a behind-the-scenes video? 

Repurposing your existing content can be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding – not only does it give you peace of mind that you’re using it to its full potential, if you’ve done your background work (points 1 and 2) you’ll also have peace of mind that your readers are going to appreciate it too.