It should be no surprise that content marketing is one of the most important ways to attract prospect to engage with your brand. This is especially true in B2B marketing. Sadly, one of the places cut when marketing budgets get tight is content creation. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but when trying to make decisions around marketing activation (media, tele, etc.) and build (content dev, website creation, etc.), new content build often gets the ax.
Why? Well, it’s expensive and time-consuming to build new creative. So the odds are that at some point you’ll find yourself trying to figure out how to create marketing content on a budget. However, don’t fret; there are a few simple strategies you can employ to make your existing content go further.
The 3 Rs of Creating Marketing Content on a Budget
Any marketing department that’s got a content engine running is typically in a mode that feels something like this:
- Build a piece of content (white paper, video, infographic, etc.)
- Add the content piece to your website
- Push the content piece out via your social channels
- Send the content piece out via email to your distribution list
Then you’re quickly moving on to the next piece of content or campaign for the rinse and repeat cycle.
It cost a whole lot to create new content. When marketing budgets get tight, it’s far more economical to pull historic content off the shelf to give it a new lease on life. An easy way to think about how to accomplish this is with the “3 R’s” of content creation – Repurpose, Reposition and Re-Use.
Repurpose: Let us use the four-step example above. To add some color, let’s say the content piece is from last year. It’s a topic that’s worked and still has legs. However, your audience has seen this particular piece. It might be time to re-purpose the content. With this strategy, you take one piece of content and turn it into a bunch of other pieces using the same core content. By example, you turn a single white paper into a blog post, a Slideshare deck, and a podcast. You’ve got the core content written, so these low-cost build options are easy to do. The expanded variety of mediums will engage with a new set of prospects, who may not have been interested in reading long-form content. If you have a little budget, you could also repurpose a white paper into an infographic or a video. If you’re concerned with capturing leads, your best bet is to direct visitors to the original white paper as a call to action after the introduction of the repurposed stuff.
Reposition: Ever heard the expression “putting lipstick on a pig?” Well, in this case, the old white paper is the pig, and a new title on the white paper is the lipstick. Sometimes just changing up how the white paper is positioned with a few small edits to the body copy will get you something that looks and feels new. It’s probably the simplest of ways to breath some life into an older piece.
Reuse: Yes, reuse your old content. Seems crazy right? You’ve already shared this content. The whole world has already seen it, so why do they want it again? While I’d love to think that everybody reads each email, dives into every blog post, and absorbed all the points of the infographics my team has created, it just doesn’t work that way. Your customers and prospects only care about your content when they need it, and their needs don’t always align with your marketing calendar. So, what wasn’t of interest six months ago, could be the answer to their current problem. Now I’m not saying spam everybody that already downloaded your piece. However, I am saying, hit re-send to the people that didn’t open the email or click on the original link. In addition, think of all the contacts you’ve added to your database since you first published the piece. They are ripe for the (seemingly new) piece.
Remember, there is ALOT of content out there. Your visitors are pummeled with messages every day. Use the strategies above with your best stuff. Send it to people that have shown some level of interest and that will find it useful and relevant. Moreover, make your leadership happy by making the most of your content marketing budget.