Will your content earn its keep in 2023?

Getting the most out of what we have has become a principle for our times, and things are no different in the marketing world. Budgets that aren’t already being squeezed are coming under heavy scrutiny, and we’re all under pressure to cut spend and produce less new content.

In its latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report, the Content Marketing Institute reveals that 71% of B2B content marketers globally say content marketing has become more important to their organisation over the last year – but 50% expect their budgets to decrease or remain flat in 2023.

Here’s where taking a good look at the content we’ve already produced, and seeing what we can reuse, repurpose, reimagine and reinvigorate, can help us to maximise ROI and keep up momentum through a challenging year.

To illustrate the true potential of this ‘4Rs’ strategy, here’s an example that demonstrates how much value you can get from a single piece of collateral.

Breathing new life into old assets

Somewhere in your organisation, you probably have a research-based white paper that isn’t delivering results. This is usually a high value asset – after all, you’ve invested a significant amount in the research itself, so you want to make sure you get a good return in marketing terms. However, it has never quite fulfilled its objectives, so has fallen out of favour, and may even have been ‘retired’.

This might be because the format it’s been presented in – one large document – makes it unappealing to readers, and tough to wade through. Maybe it attracted a good number of downloads, but didn’t help your prospects commit to a purchase. Perhaps it contains references to the pandemic, or contains out of date information or obsolete data; this is the kind of collateral that can quickly go stale.

If the whitepaper’s core content, and the messages and insights within its pages, are still powerful and relevant, there is still value to be gleaned.

So, what else could you do with it?

Make the content work harder

The first step is reviewing the asset to identify which parts still offer value to the reader, which need to be updated, and what could be done to make the content more useful and digestible. This might include transforming it into a new format, or massaging the copy and design.

One idea could be to reformat the paper into a more user-friendly eBook format – breaking it down into clear sections, tweaking the copy to build a cohesive story and presenting it in an attractive and engaging format.

There’s also the potential to turn the one large asset into a number of smaller assets that can be used to extend your reach and drive more traffic. You could turn the chapters into individual articles or a series of blog posts, and in turn use those as fuel for lead gen emails and social media updates. Perhaps a piece of best practice guidance could become an infographic or diagnostic tool.  

Take a look at our visual to find out how many ways you can repurpose a single piece of collateral and create an entire suite of materials. Think multi-touch, multi-channel marketing, and suddenly you’re getting a lot more value from that 50-page document.

Whereas a single ebook would have limited reach, this ‘squeeze every drop’ approach gives you much more than just one bite of the cherry. You get more reasons to follow up with and cross-promote to your target audience, and encourage those who didn’t already engage to take a second look.

Many companies will be struggling to think how they can create enough content to feed the lead generation machine in 2023. But not everything has to be brand new. Go back to your existing library of whitepapers, webinar recordings and research reports to see what is still relevant, and challenge the way it’s presented. Can you turn it into a video, an eBook or a compelling blog post? Don’t let that content languish in the archives if it still has life in it.

And if you want any help to identify which of those content assets you’re currently sitting on can be put to good use, why not give us a call? We’d be happy to help.

In our next blog, we’ll explain how to extend the ‘4Rs’ strategy to reuse, repurpose, reimagine and reinvigorate content across the entire organisation, and the entire buyer journey.