We live in a digitized era.
And that is precisely why content and it’s rightful communication/distribution hold a place of paramount importance in the success of any business. A sound content marketing strategy is integral to any marketing and revenue generation plan.
Since all you need is great and original content, you should devoutly focus on creating new, useful content and communicating it to your audiences via myriad channels, including emails. Right?
Wrong, because all of this is easier said than done! It’s not feasible to continually churn out fresh content for your email marketing.
So, how do we ensure higher ROI on every content piece through our business emails?
The answer lies in ‘making the most of what we have’ – or simply put, in actively repurposing, remodeling, and recycling content and sharing it via your marketing emails. It helps save and maximize valuable resources – and it’s a sure shot way to beat an imminent content dead-end!
How to get it RIGHT
Look Everywhere
Identifying what we have is the key to maximizing the value of any content property. The content archive itself is often endless – and even if we manage to re-cycle it periodically and optimally – our jobs are more than half done.
Think of all the blogs, ebooks, infographics, webinars, videos, white papers, case studies, organizational information, social media posts, messages, advertisements, and business/ promotional materials and email campaigns!
Break Barriers
Including everything – even the indirect sources – helps massively. Look beyond what’s formally content or communications.
From employee manuals to packaging materials, year-books, quantitative ratings, business insights to photographs and experiences from events, conferences, and celebrations to user-generated/ based data like chats, social interactions, and testimonials – good content inspiration and source could be anywhere.
Cross Functional Usage
The creative content creators can always look for stories that would sell – in mundane training manuals or team details. An email marketing campaign can happily borrow from market analytics and data presented in sales meets and work presentations.
Adapt
Let’s be open to actively adapting. With the right dose of re-fashioning, it’s feasible. Video content and scripts may seem right only for A/V medium initially, but think of the creativity and emotional wealth they have. Why not repurpose it and create an infographic, website banner, or an email campaign from it?
Plan
We do not want to end, where we started in the first place. So, planning, like everywhere else, is the key here too. Else, getting lost in the sea of existing content and data is more than likely.
A clear action plan works – the format, purpose, length, styling, TG, relay times and situations, possible outcomes/ expectations all need to be aligned, beforehand.
Repurposing For Email Marketing
Making remodeling of content work specifically for Email Marketing requires some tweaks in style and strategy.
For example, if we need to tailor organizational content into the promotional variety, which would directly go to the customers, the resultant piece has to be simple, clear, and hard-hitting.
Equal emphasis should be on snipping, pruning, and trimming out irrelevant and loquacious bits. Emails have to be concise, directed yet be capable of adding value. There isn’t much room for building up – so the actual theme ought to be out there from the word go.
If we keep these nuances in mind, there’s no way we can’t create and send great emails at a relative lightning speed – with just the right dose of repurposing.
Here’s how –
- Relook at what may have been overlooked or forgotten, in the first place. Sometimes, a little imagination and right strategy is all it takes – be it in a different format or the same one. For example, a previously sent marketing email on best reads/ trends in a year – well, what worked in June, could still be workable in November, with a couple of additions.
- Blogs – another content marketing tool – are a great repurposing resource. Transposing information is relatively easier and effortless here as emails belong to the same genre. Look for trend blogs, editorials, and ones with a sound knowledge basis.
Take a look at this email from Wistia. They have a Featured Posts section that allows the subscriber to check out the links to various blogs.
Source: Really Good Emails
- Other direct content pieces, including external submissions like magazine articles, advertorials or ones written initially for research goals also make a great case for a later day email campaign.
- Recurrent themes and events- universal emotions – form a great opportunity for content repurposing. Festivals, celebrations, seasons all come under this set. What worked for the Independence Day may again work in an e-mailer sent out during an event of national distress. Videos made to boost festive sales can be remodeled into email campaigns.
- Spotlight is not loyal; it keeps changing its subjects. Keep an eye open for subjects and contexts that may suddenly come back to life, due to an ongoing situation.
- Needless to say, our best and most-loved pieces deserve to be heard and seen. Newly acquired users may not have experienced those – or the audiences limited to following our work via only a specific channel may have simply missed them. Also – Great pieces are often multi-dimensional, so going from one format to another successfully isn’t much of a challenge. Viral content tends to have a universal appeal.
- Failed Labors of Love that did not receive the expected response, upon their initial release, maybe a wrong format or they were just ill-timed. That doesn’t make a magnum opus less worthy. Reformat and re-present. Emails can be the best and least risky vehicles for this re-channeling.
- Great Content Storiesalways work, and thus deserve to be re-told a hundred times. For example, a beautiful advertisement commercial with a fierce storytelling narrative can be re-fashioned into other forms of content presentation, especially marketing emails, as both have a similar end-goal.
- Market Intelligence – user insights, data, and analytics – plain numbers or testimonials/ queries – all make a strong case for repurposing into marketing endeavors. Case in point – the ‘Bestselling Products’ emails (insight-driven), customer feedback emails, emails directly addressing customer concerns, campaigns actively working on successful product portfolios (data-driven)
Wrapping Up
Content repurposing is a hugely rewarding tactic for email marketing. Contexts and situations give us opportunities to spin our own content in endless ways and present it differently in front of our email subscribers. And, as far as the content is our own – there’s no harm. Just a word of caution – don’t overdo it by duplicating mindlessly or by being lazy.
Repurpose with a clear Purpose!