The Executive Suite: How To Repurpose Your Blog for Traffic, Building Lists and Entertainment

Repurposing content has become a popular strategy for stretching your content marketing efforts as far as possible. It is a cost-effective solution that allows marketers to reach audiences on platforms they would not have otherwise targeted.

Let me give you an insider secret. It’s easy enough to suggest turning your blog post into a slideshow, but it is helpful to consider context when you are repurposing your content. Context can play a big role in the presentation of your repurposed content, and there are certain ways to repurpose that will help you meet specific goals. As you’re preparing to mix your media, here are some helpful tips to get the most mileage out of your blog content to boost traffic, build e-mail lists and provide entertainment.

Bare Bones of a Blog Post
Blog posts serve as a skeleton for content. When you start with an idea, writing down your thoughts is a first logical step. However, the way that you actually format that blog post can make your life a lot easier when you are ready to repurpose. As you’re writing your blog, try to stick with the following guidelines if at all possible:

Make it Simple with Sub Headers: Sub headers are helpful for repurposing because it breaks up your paragraphs, and gives you a new layer to build on as you repurpose. Make sure your sub headers are punchy, because they’ll transition with you over to the new content.
Attention Grabbing Graphics: A lot of times, repurposed content will transition into a form of content that is highly visual. For example, slideshows and videos are two media outlets that demand plenty of visual add-ons. If you include graphics in your blog post, you’re a step ahead of the game. This also saves the hassle of hunting down additional graphics down the road.
Takeaway Points: Even if you don’t insert your takeaway points into list format on your blog post, be sure that you keep them in mind as you fire up your slideshow or video program. Takeaway points are key for making your repurposed content easily digestible.

Finding Your Purpose of Repurposing
Now that you have your blog post and you are ready to go, you have some decisions to make. First, you need to decide why you are repurposing your content. What is the overall goal? If you’re repurposing content without a goal, you are defeating the purpose of repurposing entirely. Ask yourself these questions before deciding which route of repurposing is right for you:

Do I want to collect e-mail addresses and build a list?
Do I want to provide an entertainment factor?
Do I want to push traffic to my website?

When you establish your purpose, you can move forward and determine which format of repurposing is appropriate for meeting your goals.

I Want to Collect E-mail Addresses and Build a List
If you want to collect e-mail addresses, your repurposed content will need to include some incentive. Your best plan of action is to repurpose your blog into some kind of downloadable content, such as an eBook. For example, if you composed a popular blog series that lists tips for writing awesome blog headlines, collect each post in the series and download it into an eBook. This eBook can be used as a magnet to collect e-mail addresses for marketing purposes down the road.

I Want to Provide a Source of Entertainment
If you’re shooting for entertainment, aim to repurpose with lots of visuals. Take that awesome blog topic, list content and create a slideshow with creative images on each slide. If you’re interested in making a slideshow, all you need is a Slideshare account and access to a Gmail account.
Google Drive has a Google Slides option with which you can create slideshows just like you can in PowerPoint. The options are a little more limited in Google Slides, but it will work perfect if you are using it just to create Web slide shows.

Remember those simple sub headers we talked about? Those sub headers now become a new convenient title for each slide —no rewriting involved.

Video Entertainment For Repurposed Content
Creating videos for repurposed content isn’t as tricky as you think. My secret weapon for video creation is a program called VideoMakerFX. The price is a one-time fee of $70, and it’s well worth the cost.

VideoMakerFX includes dozens of free templates with which you can customize color, pictures and your message. They also include a list of audio tracks for background music. There are around 30 of them, but you also have the option to upload your own mp3 tracks to use as background music or sound effects. The program offers a $20/month plan for more templates and music, but the base package is enough to stock you with tons of options for quite a long time.

Putting your blog post into video format gives you a competitive edge, because a lot of companies are under the impression that it takes tons of time and talent to develop an entertaining video. With VideoMakerFX, this is definitely not the case.

I Want to Push Traffic to My Website
Guest posts are a perfect opportunity to funnel new traffic to your website. Use your original blog post as your base, and add follow-ups or summarizations on as your repurposed version. Make sure your original blog contains in-depth data over the guest post, so visitors will click through to learn more.

Guest posts also increase traffic by enhancing SEO. The backlinks you build to your main website within the guest post give your own website juice. In fact, backlinks are one of the strongest ranking factors that search engines use to determine your website’s credibility. But this is only if they’re naturally placed and high quality: Google’s recent updates are cracking down on spammy backlinks of any type. If a guest post or back linking opportunity arises, jump on it.

Of course, there are other goals that your repurposed content can help you reach, such as social sharing. However, these ideas will get your repurposed content increasing website traffic, generating subscription lists and providing thoughtful entertainment.