We live in a crazy world... We live in the world where everything has already been written and it's impossible to be the first to break any news or simply write about anything.
How do you make your content marketing meaningful without creating a copy of a copy?
Content Re-packaging…
There's another term for it: Content re-purposing but I prefer to stick to re-packaging because it means not only using the same content and re-purposing it to a new marketing channel but actually giving your old content new form, thus new package…
Content re-packaging is turning your existing content and research into a new format or, even better, many formats (media file, digital book, podcast, etc).
Is It The Same As Content Rewriting?
No… content re-packaging means giving a new form and a new life. It's about giving new value and creating a new asset.
Here's An Example…
At Internet Marketing Ninjas we have started working on a series of videos where our CEO Jim Boykin and I are discussing SEO issues, questions and news in a very informal way.
We are producing 1-3 videos a week and market them through Youtube, mainly.
But why stop there?
- Most of those videos can be edited to create short (maybe entertaining) clips to market on Vine (and maybe Instagram)
- Some parts of those videos (especially those with screencasts and instructions) can be turned into informational animated GIFs (and those can be marketed on Tumblr and Pinterest).
- If you extract sound, you'll have a podcast show which you can market on SoundCloud and iTunes
- And if you collect all the videos and organize them into lectures, you can easily create a free (or even paid) Udemy course and collect your leads there too!
- Finally of course, you want to transcribe your videos and turn them into blog posts (to market on your blog) ….
- and ultimately maybe even a Kindle book (To market on Amazon)
These are your digital assets you can rely on when it comes to additional traffic and lead sources, brand awareness, etc…
Brand assets:
- Drive traffic! Independent sources of traffic & awareness
- Attract natural backlinks (people love interactive media content)
- Build Followers (from each specific network)
- Become great Promotion material (people love using embed codes)
- Spread Brand awareness (Let people take your brand home)
Digital assets create more ways and channels to ENGAGE your audience to build your micro-community
Digital assets rank well giving you more control over the brand results… in Google and beyond:
Now Some Tools!
Re-packaging is neither hard nor expensive if you have great tools!
Repackage Content Into Videos….
- Turn how-tos into videos (using screenshots)
- Turn infographics into music clips
- Turn team photos into video slideshows
- Curate several videos into a summary…
My favorite tools to do that is Animoto. It has both a free and a paid versions: You can select a theme, drop in your quotes, screenshots and graphics, edit titles and subtitles and choose a background music (or create voiceover). And you have a great professionally looking video version of your text or graphic content.
Other tools that can do the same or almost the same:
Turn Text Or Image Content Into Presentations!
- Turn how-to content into step-by-step presentations
- Curate quotes, tips, tools, etc. into presentations
- Get an opportunity to market your brand on Slideshare!
My favorite online tool to create beautiful presentations is HaikuDeck (it's an online tool: No need to install anything, Plus it's also available as an iPad app, so you can put together presentations while on the go.)
It comes with beautiful themes, layouts and even images. And you can export your presentations in ppt files to further edit in PowerPoint (I add clickable links and watermarks in PowerPoint before uploading to Slideshare)
Easily create infographics and instructographics…
While it's best to invest into professional infographic creation and marketing services, you can create simple infographics using Canva
or similar tools (I have found Canva the easiest)
- Draw.io
- Create.ly
- Piktochart.com
- Venngage.com
Create Animated GIFs!
I know people who are not huge fans of animated GIFs… I for one think they increase your reach and diversify your social media feeds (Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr love animated GIFs!)
My two favorite tool is GIFdeck that lets me turn my Slideshare uploads into animated GIFs…
Curate Your Own Creations...
Now, the interesting part: Since you are going to create many versions of your content series, why not curate those assets to create more channels and assets?
Curate your own assets using interactive presentations (You can embed videos, images, presentations, text, etc.)
Example: MyBlogU Online Marketing - Presentation made with Bunkr
Curate your own assets using Paper.li paper (That auto-tweets each new edition!)
Example: #VCBuzz media magazine
Curate your own assets using List.ly lists (Supports ALL formats!)
Example: MyBlogU to Help with Every Aspect of Online Marketing
Bonus Tip
Each content re-packaging campaign includes lots of promotion (every piece you create requires a separate promotion!), so getting organized is really essential here.
I am using the promotional routine we described here as well as the social media dashboard to monitor the progress called Cyfe: I have a separate dashboard for each campaign!
Cyfe also archives all the stats they are collecting, so you can compare the campaigns and create nice reports too.
There's also a very concise guide on promoting your content here in case you are looking to start with a more fundamental tutorial.
It's The Matter Of A Habit...
Whenever you are planning any content marketing campaign, think about how you are going to re-package parts of the research, ideas or articles into more formats to reach more audience.
Content re-packaging creates alternative traffic sources, lets your brand be everywhere your customer is, lets you manage your reputation easier and fosters loyalty (by giving your customer more ways to subscribe and take your brand home: Via iTunes, Amazon Kindle, etc)
Re-packaging is about reaching out to more networks while NOT creating copies of copies…