The Ultimate Guide to B2B Content Repurposing

Updated: November 19, 2024

Creating B2B marketing content from scratch can be time consuming and resource intensive. Fortunately, there is a way to make your investment go a lot further: content repurposing. Successful long-form content can work just as well – and sometimes even better – than short-form or micro content. Repurposing also works the other way. For example, you might collect related pieces of short-form content for use in a long-form asset. Not only can repurposing your content save you time, but it can also help you maximize its value, reach a wider audience and improve your overall marketing performance.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to create a powerful B2B content marketing repurposing strategy that reaches more people and drives better results.

Repurposing content is the process of transforming all or part of existing content into different formats. It can also involve updating older content to make it relevant.

The Benefits of Content Repurposing

Content repurposing is an essential element of any content marketing strategy, seamlessly integrating into your overall content plan. By recycling existing content, you can efficiently create the assets necessary to bolster your marketing efforts.

Moreover, doing so offers several advantages, enabling you to:

• Scale your content creation efforts by transforming a single piece of content into multiple formats.
• Reinforce key messages across different platforms and formats and give it a longer lifespan.
• Reach a broader audience by producing formats that cater to different content preferences and that can be shared across different channels.
• Enhance engagement and shareability with visual content, such as a video or infographic, making it more interactive and memorable.
• Save time and money by updating, adapting or repackaging existing assets to suit different purposes and platforms.

How to Repurpose Content

Set Guidelines for Content Repurposing

Before you begin, you’ll get more traction from your content repurposing efforts if you first institute a few guidelines:

• Establish your content repurposing goals. Consider how content repurposing will align with your overall content marketing strategy. For example, are you aiming to increase your content generation efforts while saving time? Do you need more versatile content formats to reach a broader audience? Do you mean to get more traction from your messaging? Defining your objectives ensures that you are focused and intentional with your efforts.
• Outline your distribution channels. Which channels will feature the repurposed content? What formats and topics perform best on those channels?
• Define your content repurposing standards. Decide which types of content you will and will not repurpose based on your goals. For example, if your goal is to get more traction from your messaging, you might want to use content that reinforces your key messages. If your goal is to scale content creation and lifetime value, you might want to stick to top-performing content relevant to evergreen topics. If your goal is to increase engagement, you might want to leverage top-performing content aligned to trending topics.

Select Content for Repurposing

Once you’ve established your content repurposing guidelines, you’re ready to begin selecting content:

• Assess your existing content to identify the pieces that perform the best in terms of engagement, lead generation and conversions. Consider metrics such as page views, bounce rate, time spent on page and social shares to identify topics and formats that resonate with your audience.
• Identify the most relevant content by narrowing down the top-performing topics to those that align with your current marketing objectives for better results.
• Consider your audience and their position in the buyer’s journey. How can your content address their needs and challenges?
• Make updates and improvements to ensure your repurposed content is up to date, relevant and valuable.

Choosing the Best Format for Repurposing

Once you have selected the content you want to reuse, the next step is to brainstorm different ways to repurpose your content. The best format will depend on the piece to be repurposed, your audience preferences and the channel where it will be distributed. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Create a podcast episode – Convert a blog post, white paper or eBook into a podcast episode to deliver top-performing, unique or trending information in a more conversational way. Plus, you can easily expand your reach by promoting a podcast across social media and email lists.
• Create a carousel post – You can easily transform a step-by-step guide, expert tips or data into a carousel post, which is one of the most successful social media formats. They’re a highly visual and compelling way to engage your audience. Bonus: when your audience interacts with your carousel by clicking, it signals to the algorithm that your content is valuable, extending your reach.
• Create a short video – Consider pulling key clips from a long-form video case study, tutorial or expert interview. Videos perform very well on social media, and those that are no longer than 30 seconds get better reach, engagement and completion rates.
• Create an eBook – You can easily gather a collection of blogs with similar topics or target audiences into an eBook. For example, if you have several blogs explaining different aspects of cybersecurity, or blogs aimed at your manufacturing audience, these could be compiled into a larger asset. An eBook makes an excellent lead generation asset.
• Create a cheat sheet – Consider condensing complex technical or tutorial content into easy-to-digest points. A cheat sheet demonstrates your expertise and customer-centricity, building credibility and loyalty. Plus, cheat sheets can be easily shared across social media or serve as a lead generation tool depending on how you choose to distribute them.
• Create blog posts – Likewise, you can easily break down an eBook or white paper into a collection of blogs, boosting your SEO and, with a good CTA, driving more traffic to the long-form content.
• Create micro content – Consider pulling key information into an easily digestible piece of content. Micro content is consumed in less than 30 seconds and encompasses a wide range of formats and possibilities. For example, you can promote a white paper by crafting multiple pieces of micro content, such as a compelling quote, infographic and meme, to be shared across email, social media and ads.
• Update existing content – Repurposed content doesn’t have to change formats. It also includes revising old blog posts to ensure they’re timely and relevant. Instead of writing a completely new post, updating statistics and information can breathe new life into your content while saving time and resources. Plus, updating old blog posts can help you recover lost SEO traffic.

Content Repurposing Tips

Repurposing B2B marketing content is a great way to get the most out of your investment in content creation. Here are five tips to get you started:

1. Repurpose for different channels – Once you have identified your best-performing content, think about how you can repurpose it for different channels. If your goal is to increase visibility and reach, consider more than one format. For example, you can transform a white paper into an infographic for social media as well as a series of blog posts to drive web traffic.
2. Customize for different audiences – It’s important to recognize that simply lifting content from one asset and placing it into another is rarely sufficient. You’ll need to adjust the tone, style and format to reach, connect and engage different audiences across different channels.
3. Optimize for search – When appropriate, use relevant keywords and hashtags to optimize repurposed content for search engines or social media algorithms.
4. Keep it fresh – While reusing content is a great way to maximize your content marketing investment, it’s also important to captivate your audience with vibrant content. Don’t recycle the same content over and over again. Instead, update it with new information and insights to keep it relevant and engaging.
5. Promote across channels – Once you have repurposed your content, promote it across different channels, such as social media, email newsletters and paid advertising, to ensure you reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website.

Tools to Support Your Content Repurposing Efforts

Not only is repurposing content less time-consuming than creating content from scratch, but there are many professional marketing tools available to streamline the process even more. Many of these tools use AI-powered summarization to condense long-form content into concise summaries for different formats and platforms.

• BuzzSumo can analyze content to identify your most engaging types of content and come up with new content ideas. They also offer a content repurposing worksheet to help you create a content repurposing strategy and guidelines.
• Semrush’s instant video creator can generate a voice-over from your content and share it across your social media accounts.
• Jasper offers several different ways automate content repurposing, from generating ad or email campaigns from long-form content to summarizing a document for specific formats. It will also remix or rewrite content based on your instructions.
• Piktochart can repurpose a piece of content into different visual formats, including presentations, infographics and social media posts.

How to Distribute Repurposed Content

Repurposing B2B marketing content into new assets alone isn’t enough for effective content marketing. For your high-quality content to make an impact with your audience, they must see it. That involves circulating your content through various channels.

The channels you choose to distribute your repurposed content will depend on the platforms your target audiences frequent the most and what content works best for them. Here are some distribution channels you might use:

• Social media (paid and organic)
• Podcasts (your own and others)
• Email newsletters and drip campaigns
• Digital advertising
• Guest blogs on industry pages
• Webinars

The aim is to spread your repurposed content across multiple formats. If you want to reach a wider audience with your content, don’t limit it to just one channel. Spread it across multiple channels to make sure you’re reaching people wherever they might be.

For example, a blog post can be repurposed into a podcast, which might be used to create a 30-second video clip that you can share on social media to generate interest. You can also share image quotes or audio sneak peeks on various platforms. The key is to showcase and share your content in different ways. You can even ask your podcast guests to help promote your content, and link to it on your website.

Take Your Content Repurposing to the Next Level

Repackaging existing content into various formats is a time- and cost-effective strategy for expanding your content library and enhancing your reach. This approach not only reinforces your brand messaging but also boosts your SEO efforts. By repurposing content, you can create valuable assets that drive your digital marketing initiatives and keep your material fresh, timely and relevant.

If you’re unsure how content repurposing fits into your content marketing strategy, how to effectively integrate it into your plan or which formats and distribution channels to leverage, we’re here to help. At Elevation, we bring over 25 years of experience in crafting high-quality content that engages and resonates with your target audience. Reach out to us to discover how we can transform your content development into a highly efficient marketing powerhouse.