There are two truths to premium content: there is nothing harder for marketers than crafting it, and it’s also the key that unlocks the greatest rewards. The flow of content should be three things: consistent, inventive, and high-quality. How hard could it be?

The hard truth is…it’s not easy, but also consider how enriching good content is. Think of your favorite magazine, speakers, video channels, social media influencers. What makes you return to them again and again? What do they produce that others don’t? How do they creatively promote engagement?

It can be overwhelming at times to keep up with a company website, emails, blogs, social media, and more, which is why it is vital for marketers to create content that can be reused elsewhere. To make content generation a tad easier, here’s a how-to guide for marketers on leveraging premium content.

First, Why is it So Important to Leverage Premium Content Across Channels?

Premium content is great for SEO, and through that you can reach different customers via different channels, saving you time and energy in creating content. The other benefit is that by using multiple channels, you increase the likelihood that your content will be viewed by your perfect prospect. 

Next, Take Stock of What You Have

To begin leveraging your content, take a look at your existing content — everything on your website, your direct marketing emails, your blog posts, social media posts, and more can be reused in some fashion. Sometimes we assume that everyone online has already read our content. False: people may have seen your content on your site, but not in your email. Or they may have read it in a blog, but not on social media. Take an inventory of this content with an eye towards recycling it and reusing it again somewhere else.  Very few people are truly consistently on all of their channels all the time, so don’t assume everything you put out is being seen, or read.

Break Apart Long-form Pieces

Is there long-form content on your website that could be broken up and republished as blog posts? Do you have data sets that could be presented visually with infographics? How about the presentation you recently did for that industry group — could your slides serve as the basis of a blog post or eBook? Or maybe you have a lengthy video that can similarly be split into chunks and divvied up throughout your other channels. You want to upcycle: reuse content so you are working smarter, not harder

Keep COPE in Mind

Going forward, keep the COPE maxim in mind — Create Once, Publish Everywhere — as you develop your editorial calendar. This will help you think strategically about how to create content that can be leveraged across platforms. When you create new content, start with one core idea — this could be a service you want more clients for or a specific problem you can solve for customers.

Next, identify 5 to 10 topic areas around this issue that you can write on knowledgeably. Think about these topics in detail and try to anticipate questions that customers would have about the topics.

Hone Your Niche to More Accurately Reach a Target Audience

Take these 5 to 10 topic areas and write a blog post or two about each, making sure to preemptively answer your customers’ likely questions and find unique takes on their themes. Once you have all these blog posts ready, string them together with a table of contents and write an introduction and, voila, you have an instant eBook!

Upcycling Content Works Both Ways

Do you have to give any presentations soon? Take one of your blog posts, make a few adjustments, throw in some more graphics, spread it all out over a dozen slides, and boom: presentation is done! Upload your presentation to Slideshare, and you have more content to post on social media for a later point.

Creating content for only one use on one platform is a waste of time and effort. Instead, maximize your resources by leveraging your content across as many platforms as possible — get in touch to see how ondemandCMO can strengthen your editorial calendar and refine your content using SEO, data, and other marketing tools so your content reaches the right demographic and leads to more conversions.