Small Business Marketing | Willow & Oak Business Solutions

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Repurposing Long Form Content For Multiple Uses

nbound marketing, or content marketing, is the methodology of attracting people to your brand. Inbound marketing tactics include things like blogs, podcasts, whitepapers, eBooks, social media, webinars, video, and more. Here's a list 14 different types of inbound marketing tactics to help you determine which ones are right for your business. Outbound marketing on the other hand, involves disruption of some kind; ads, embedded videos, paid content, popups, are all considered outbound marketing techniques.

Depending on your business you may need a composition of both inbound and outbound marketing, but all businesses need a strong inbound marketing strategy. The differentiation is important for this post, and here we're going to talk about repurposing your inbound marketing content.

Inbound marketing earns more customers, grows an audience organically, and elevates the public perception of your brand. The first step in getting a new client is recognition: one must know of you before they can hire you.

Inbound marketing drives people to the mecca for your business: your website.

Only You Know What You Know

You may find that your field is saturated with thought leaders. You may feel like there is no room or need for you to show up in this space. Nearly every industry is saturated, my friend. You're not alone in thinking that it will be hard to get the attention of the people you seek to serve. Showing up anyway requires a mental fortitude and confidence which is the first step in coming out to play in the arena. I wrote about that here.

So if every industry is saturated with thought leaders, then why do we continue to see break out performers and up & comers? Because they've decided to generously share their wisdom & expertise. They've chosen the optimistic approach that what they have to say about the subject, content, and industry matters.

And you're likely hearing about them because they used inbound marketing methods.

Posting on social media and hoping people find it, resonate with it, and engage with it isn't a robust marketing strategy. Put more substance behind that one post, and you're getting warmer. I recommend creating a place to catalogue your wisdom, experience, expertise, education, case studies, and so forth. A place where people can go next after they've seen that great post of yours on social media.

If they find you on social media and they're interested in your subject matter, the next step for them is a digital space where they can go to literally "learn more" about you. The "learn more" button is effective for a reason.

A blog is a classic and very effective method for this. A podcast is another great way to showcase what you know. Blogs and podcasts are examples of long form content and they give people more information about who you are and where you stand on certain topics. Videos, eBooks, and whitepapers are also examples of long form content.

Your long form content is the invitation for a deeper dive; to experience your brand on a more intimate level, and determine if they want to continue to engage.

This is also the place from which everything else can flow.

Bite Sized Pieces

From this blog post, I will create many social media posts that will be posted to different platforms over time. I will use copy from this blog post in my email newsletters, and I'll give a speech about it later this year. The life of this blog post will take on many forms!

Looking at my blog metrics, I can tell which posts get the most attention, how long visitors spend on each post, and more. I'll use that data to determine what my readers enjoy and where I should focus my teaching efforts. I have the opportunity to understand how to serve them better.

Take snippets of your long form content and repurpose it as social media posts, speeches, webinars, email newsletters, videos, podcasts, and more!

You could create 5 short podcast episodes from one long form blog post, for example.

Save Time By Batching &Automating

One of my favorite tips is to batch all of your content. Set aside a large chunk of time each month to write a bunch of blog posts at once, record those podcasts, write that eBook, or create that whitepaper. This takes discipline and sometimes requires that you manufacture the discipline to do it even if you don't feel like it. And you're a professional after all! Professionals show up even when they don't feel like it.

Batching your long form content is a great way to leverage the creative flow and make a big impact on your marketing plans.

Next, batch your social media posts. Plan your content and strategically place content from your long form content into your social media schedule. You can use tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to automate your social media posts. This is one method that saves a ton of time and delivers a huge return.

Download our free 2021 content planner here

Before you will ever sit down to write a blog post, or create a podcast, or continuously post to social media, you have to believe that it's worth your time. I'd encourage you to review the statistics around content marketing and it's effectiveness. And if creating content still isn't your thing, contact us about doing it for you!

I hope you found this helpful and I hope that you practice it in your business.

Cheering you on and wishing you success!

Thanks for being here,

Kelly