Coming up with a steady stream of compelling copy, especially if your marketing outlets include social media, blogs, and newsletters, can feel like a nonstop battle. But you can make life a little easier for yourself and maintain a continuous flow of useful, practical, and fresh information for your clients and members with just a little ingenuity and time.
How? Repurposing your copy.
But we’re not talking about simply changing a title or a few words on an old piece and calling it new. Repurposing copy is certainly a time saver, but it’s not a “no thought” exercise. Repurposing requires revising existing copy in some way to make it new. But before you simply copy and paste a previously published or marketed marketing piece, consider the following:
Make sure the content is still relevant. Update product information. Add details. Address industry changes or update acceptable best practices. Do whatever you need to do to make the content current. If that means acknowledging the information is based on a previously published piece, do it. Your readers will appreciate the honesty and any conclusions or insights you draw as a result.
Break it down. You may not need—or want—to include previously used copy in its entirety. Look at the parts and see where you can use them. Does a case study include an exceptional testimonial? Incorporate it onto your website and other “new customer” collateral. Have a slew of great statistics? Use one or two from a white paper or product description as the base for a blog post.
Build it up. Create new testimonial pages, year-end reports, brochures, etc., by combining bits of previously published information.
Finding multiple ways to use the same information helps you to get more use out of the content you’ve already spent time and resources on. And, it helps you to maintain a flow of marketing materials without having to completely reinvent the wheel each time.