Repackaging Content

When considering how to write and produce enough valuable content for your marketing program, remember that you don’t have to start from scratch. There is a great deal of good information that has already been produced. Your job is to find it, then rewrite, rework, or repackage it to fit the needs of your audience.

Here are three ways to use existing information and content to help fill your content pipeline.

Analyze
Study the economy, industry, market sector, or product, by looking at analyst reports, reviewing the literature and blog posts, and drawing your own conclusions. Conduct a basic SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to generate material addressing different aspects of the topic and how it relates to your product or service.

Content types
Consider content like articles, blog posts, and newsletters, so you can easily link to your sources and to others resources that provide value. However, information generated from a detailed analysis can form the basis of almost any type of content.

Pros

  • Provides a lot of content to work with in various ways and in many formats
  • Develops a deeper understanding of market forces
  • Demonstrates thought leadership through original analysis and conclusions

Cons

  • Uses significant time and dedicated resources to conduct properly
  • Can result in information overload
  • Requires regular research and review to ensure currency

Chronicle
Document a process critical to your industry or to the use of your product or service. Breaking a process down into component steps illustrates the details that can sometimes be overlooked. This doesn’t have to be something brand new. Not everyone knows how a particular product works or details about how the industry functions. This type of content is a great chance to educate your customers and prospects.

Content types
Consider content such as articles, white papers, and videos, so you can explain each step in detail and include additional or explanatory information in a sidebar or ticker. Documenting a process may also provide the basis of a series of blog posts or, when it involves a customer success story, a case study.

Pros

  • Illustrates in-depth knowledge of process and positions your company as industry leader
  • Answers prospects’ and customers’ questions before they ask them
  • Provides a lot of content that can be broken into discrete units and repurposed

Cons

  • Uses significant time and dedicated resources to produce regularly
  • Can be a challenge to fully document a process, especially for the first time
  • Risks being inward focused on product or service features, so may not be appropriate for all types of content

Curate
Select and organize the best ideas about your market or industry and present them to your target audience. By summarizing valuable content created by someone else and adding your own commentary, you present the best of the best to your customers and prospects and help them weed through the vast amount of information available.

Content types
Consider content such as articles, blog posts, and online communities so you can easily link to the original source along with your thoughts and interpretation. Additionally, content produced by others may add depth to other types of content such as case studies, ebooks, webcasts, and white papers.

Pros

  • Demonstrates industry and thought leadership by providing value through your brand
  • Saves time and resources to repackage content produced by someone else
  •  Builds credibility by linking your brand with other reputable sources

Cons

  • Can be a challenge to find reliable resources to mine for content
  • Risks diluting your message if the content is not selected to fit your audience or your brand
  • Use of sources, attributions, and linking must be rigorously taken into account to ensure compliance with copyright regulations

-December 2010