How to Repurpose Old Content to Boost Marketing Results

How to repurpose old content

Sharing your content across multiple marketing channels helps you reach more of your target audience and increase the ROI on your content investment. Repurposing doesn’t take much time, but the rewards are considerable.

Here are four steps for repurposing your content to boost marketing results.

1. Identify your top-performing content. The first step is to review Google Analytics data and other metrics and insights to find your best-performing content. Adjust your analytics date range to pinpoint your most successful blog posts, social updates, website pages, newsletters and other content. Create a comprehensive inventory of your highest-performing content across different time periods — weekly, monthly and quarterly. Look at total page views, social media shares and comments to find the content that most resonates with your audience.
2. Tie the content to your audience. Most brands have various customers and prospects at different stages of the customer journey. They all have different needs, assumptions and pain points, which you can address with buyer personas. Match each top-performing piece to a specific customer persona. This focus helps you write less generic content and more relevant, specific content that urges someone to take action. The more specific your targeting, the more your repurposed content will resonate with your audience.
3. Choose a platform. Where are your customers when they decide to buy? Go where they are so they’ll see your content. For example, to target Gen Z and younger millennial customers, prioritize short-form video content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Choose three to five channels where your target audience will likely see the content.
4. Map out a plan. Refresh your existing content based on your desired audience and platform. If you have a blog post, consider repurposing it as an infographic, video, blog roundup, social media post, PPC ad, e-book, podcast or email marketing campaign. You’ll also need to beef up the original post’s content. For example, enhance it with current statistics, industry trends or AI-generated visualizations to add fresh value. Data and authoritative quotes will also boost your authority and the content’s value.

Always tailor content to the platform’s expectations and user behavior; even great content won’t perform if it doesn’t engage your audience.

Ways to repurpose old content

Here are some creative ways to recycle your existing content. Use these examples as inspiration to maximize the value of your posts across multiple platforms.

What to do with old YouTube content

If you have an old YouTube channel, don’t let that video content go to waste. Instead, give your old videos new life and repurpose them into the following content types:

• A micro-content series: Break down longer videos into bite-sized, 60-second clips optimized for social media platforms.
• Podcast episodes: Extract the audio from older videos and polish it for a podcast episode, or re-record it in a podcast-friendly format.
• Blog posts: Transcribe the audio and post it on your website or vlog (some editing may be necessary).
• Social media videos: To improve your social media presence, share highlights or short clips on social platforms. For instance, repurpose memorable moments as Instagram Reels or TikToks.
• Video courses and webinars: Repurpose instructional videos as video courses or webinars.
• Lead magnets: Repurpose existing content to create free e-books, whitepapers, user guides and product description sheets that can be downloaded as lead magnets.

What to do with old blog content

Your blog is a gold mine for repurposing, as old posts can easily find new life in multiple formats.

• Update old blog content and repost it on your blog. Refresh existing content with new data, emerging trends and AI insights to maintain relevance. Then, drive traffic to the new version from email campaigns or social media marketing
• Create infographics from old blog content. Take the important statistics or points highlighted in an old blog post and use them to create an infographic for your website, emails or presentations.
• Create YouTube videos from old blog content. Explainer-style and how-to blog posts easily translate into videos highlighting the same subjects.
• Transform old blog content into short-form videos. If your blog post contains really interesting or mind-blowing statistics or facts, consider isolating that information and creating a short-form video for TikTok or Instagram.
• Use old blog information in Facebook or Instagram ads. If a blog post contains commercial content, such as new product introductions or new client announcements, it may translate well to digital ads on social media.
• Write guest blog posts using older blog information. Take bits and pieces of old blog content to write a new guest post on someone else’s blog or publication to extend your reach.
• Create LinkedIn articles from older blog posts. Change up the format, add some images and graphics to your blog post, and share it on LinkedIn to establish thought leadership and generate B2B leads.
• Create freemium content from old blog posts. Use valuable content (especially if it’s behind a paywall) to create an e-book or video to entice visitors to your landing page and join your email marketing list.

What to do with old photos

Photos are valuable content elements you can reuse in several ways to humanize your company. Consider these ideas:

• Reuse photos on social media posts. If you have really old photos of your company’s founding and initial operations, post them on social media, especially Instagram, to help humanize your company.
• Reuse photos in carousel videos. Create a carousel video on Facebook or Instagram for a photo-based post or ad. Include captions or a voiceover to explain the background of these images.
• Reuse photos in YouTube videos. Use brand, product or personnel photos to illustrate your points or provide context for your videos.
• Reuse photos in blog posts. Every blog post should include at least one still image; original images (not stock photography) are ideal.

What to do with old testimonials

Testimonials are potent forms of user-generated content that help demonstrate your brand’s trustworthiness. Consider the following repurposing strategies:

• Add testimonials to your website and brochures. Add testimonials to your website in blurbs or a ticker at the bottom of your page. You can also use them throughout print brochures.
• Use testimonials in social media ads. Testimonials are a great addition to ads because they give social proof that your company and products are top-notch and well-respected.
• Highlight testimonials in webinars. Your webinars should have a call to action at the end, and testimonials can help viewers feel more comfortable making the leap to becoming clients.
• Repurpose testimonials in brick-and-mortar signage. Nothing is more compelling when a potential buyer comes to your business than seeing the words of happy customers.
• Repurpose testimonials in email campaigns. Include a testimonial in each email newsletter or promotional email to strengthen your relationship with subscribers.
• Display testimonials on your checkout page. A testimonial builds trust with e-commerce customers and can mean the difference between a sale and an abandoned shopping cart.

The benefits of repurposing content

You may hesitate to repurpose content, worrying that Google could penalize duplicate material or that customers might notice repeated messages across different platforms.

However, when done strategically, repurposing content won’t hurt your SEO or credibility. Search engines love to see valuable, updated content that serves your audience. Additionally, cross-platform audiences rarely overlap completely — your LinkedIn followers likely differ from your TikTok audience.

Repurposing’s benefits far outweigh the concerns. When you repurpose the right way, you’ll reap the following benefits:

• Repurposing content can provide an SEO boost. Repurposing can be part of your SEO strategy. Google rewards fresh, valuable content that demonstrates expertise and authority. You can get more SEO juice out of an old blog just by updating it.
• Repurposing content saves time. Repurposing lets you make the most of your existing content, deliver rewarding results with less effort, and spend more time focusing on other high-impact marketing tasks. In fact, according to an Adobe survey of small business owners, 54 percent cited time savings as the primary benefit of repurposing content.
• Repurposing content can increase your views. Repurposed content helps you reach new audiences across multiple platforms, driving website traffic and attracting new leads into your sales funnel.
• Repurposing content boosts your content strategy ROI. According to the same Adobe survey, nearly half of respondents reported an 11 to 25 percent increase in engagement from repurposing existing content. With a little extra work to adapt content for new channels, you can extend the life of your assets, increase reach, generate sales leads and spend less time creating entirely new materials.
• Repurposing content helps you accomplish new goals. Your goals may evolve, but your content’s value remains. For example, an early blog post introducing your company can later be repurposed into an About page, brand story or company history to build credibility with prospects.
• Repurposing content helps you share valuable information. When content pieces consistently generate above-average engagement metrics, capitalizing on that information’s popularity by spreading it to other platforms makes sense.
• Repurposing content helps you get the most from evergreen content. Evergreen content is especially ripe for repurposing. Before redistributing time-sensitive pieces, refresh them with current data and examples.

Getting more out of your content investment

You put significant time and effort into creating quality content, so don’t let your best work disappear into the background. Strategic repurposing helps extend the life and reach of your content without starting from scratch, allowing you to get more visibility, engagement and sales from what you’ve already built.

And while you’re saving time and maximizing resources, you can use AI to make the process even more efficient. According to the Adobe survey of small business owners (cited above), 56 percent of those who use AI to repurpose content save one to five hours a week, and over half say it helps move buyers through the sales funnel faster and increases sales.

Repurposing content isn’t about doing more: It’s about making what you already have work smarter for your business.