Marketing teams create a lot of content.
A writer crafts articles for the blog. A visual creator produces videos for YouTube. A designer develops infographics and reports. A social media specialist puts together posts for multiple platforms. An audio expert hosts the podcast. A data analyst measures the value of each tactic and channel to the business. With that assessment, each content creator works to improve what they produce.
That type of siloed content strategy abounds in many businesses. Yet, that approach diminishes the company’s investment and limits the power of all that content.
Successful marketing teams break down those tactical silos with a repurposing strategy. It helps them do more with less and maximize the value of everything they create.
To help develop your content repurposing strategy, we asked the experts presenting at Content Marketing World for their advice and unexpected ideas. Read on for their takes and/or watch a few who shared their replies by video.
Plan strategically and intentionally
Repurposing content shouldn’t start once the original gets published. It should begin in the planning stage.
Start with the audience
Content needs to be repurposed before it’s even created. Think information, format, delivery. Which audience needs which information? What format works best for that audience, and which channels are they most likely to engage with? When a piece of content pings, you may want to consider building a bigger piece of content around it, but when you're starting with a larger piece of content, build it like a Lego sculpture, so you can take it apart without breaking the bricks. — Ahava Leibtag, CEO, Aha Media Group
Think (ever)green
Plan to repurpose from the start: When doing audience research, dig deep to find the evergreen topic(s) that your audience could almost continually talk about. — Jason Small, senior manager, content and digital strategy, Verizon
Expand the conversation
The biggest challenge in repurposing content is often the age-old problem: lack of communication. Another challenge is the not-invented-here syndrome. Both of these can be overcome by continuous, proactive outreach and inclusion.
Build a calendar that is available to everyone with unrestricted access and make sure the broadest team knows about the content pipeline. Involve downstream colleagues at the upstream end of content planning — when research is being conducted or storylines are being written. Stop being precious about your exact words — if your content works better for a colleague's campaign after an edit, so be it. Write to be consumed, not to be preserved. — Cindy Anderson, CMO, global lead for eminence and engagement, IBM Institute for Business Value
Find the central thread
At the heart of every piece of content should be an insight supported by expertise or an emotional story that stands out. The right marketing technology helps marketers find content by topic, insight, and story so that it can be repurposed again and again after it’s created. But it’s also important to build a plan from the beginning to ensure that a piece of content is maximized.
For example, a testimonial can be created in video, translated (often with the help of AI) into a blog post and a direct mail postcard, clipped into a series of social posts, embedded in an email campaign, linked on several webpages, and used to support a sales visit. — Tiffany Grinstead, vice president, Nationwide
Stick to the message, change the packaging
We’ve all pinned the same Pinterest post three times because the image changed, the format shifted, or the headline hooked us differently. That’s repurposing at work. Same link, new angle, new engagement. To do this well across your content:
Build reuse into your workflow. Don’t wait until something’s published to think about how else it can show up. Plan from the start how a blog post becomes a reel, a carousel, an email blurb, or a conversation starter on LinkedIn.
Change the packaging, not the message. One strong idea can become five to 10 pieces of content if you’re intentional about format. Swap the graphic. Reframe the hook. Zoom in on one stat or takeaway and make it the star.
Track what performs and repurpose that the most. Don’t repurpose just to fill the calendar. Repurpose what already resonated. Let performance guide the priority. — Ashley Baker, owner, Coastline Marketing LLC
Customize the evolution
Content repurposing can go beyond repackaging. Transformation is truly possible when you consider all the elements.
Target audiences’ preferred channels
A practical approach to maximizing content impact involves consistently repurposing it into various formats like video, short clips, infographics, newsletters, and podcasts. This strategy effectively reaches different audience segments based on their preferred content consumption habits and simultaneously broadens visibility across multiple platforms. By thoughtfully adapting content to suit each channel, marketing teams can enhance engagement and extend the overall value of their content investments. — Zack Kadish, SEO analytics lead, Faire
Tailor the hooks
Long-form content is a great place to start. One solid piece — like a webinar, white paper, or podcast — can easily be turned into multiple blog posts, short-form videos, carousels, or infographics.
But here's what often gets overlooked: Each format needs its own hook. Don’t just copy and paste. What works as an intro for a blog won’t work for a 30-second video. Spend time crafting the right opening for each channel. That’s what makes repurposed content feel fresh, not recycled. — Pam Didner, founder, Relentless Pursuit, LLC
Think differently
Most repurposing is lazy! True repurposing means reimagining your insights for each unique platform. What works on LinkedIn will fail on TikTok! Stop asking, “Where else can we publish this?” Start asking, “How does this idea transform on different platforms?” Different mediums demand different thinking, not just different formats! — Andrew Davis, author, The Loyalty Loop
Look ahead and back
Recycling content is a must in today’s high-output content economy. Content marketers are lucky to have a team and even luckier if that team isn’t overextended already. Content marketing strategies must involve repurposing content for multiple contexts. For example, a great content operational flow is to start with a webinar or interview, turn the audio into a podcast, the video into social snippets, gate the full video on your website, and use the transcript to influence multiple blog topics. Then, cross-promote those blogs on your socials, socials on your podcast, and podcast in your webinar.
But if this is too much chopping and cutting, another overlooked repurposing opportunity is your existing video library. If you’ve been filming a consistent series for social media or have a series of interviews by leaders in a specific industry, go back to your video or audio archives and cut those together into a new mega-episode. — Jack Meeker, content marketing team manager, Healthee
Hit record
Start with the biggest, richest, media form possible — video. Every other type of content is downstream from there — long and short-form written, social, and audio.
An overlooked opportunity is using AI to make your content available on platforms and places that are not your primary social outlet. Now, not only can your content be everywhere, it can be customized on the fly to show up there in the best way for that platform as if it were natively designed for it. — A. Lee Judge, co-founder and chief marketing officer, Content Monsta
Drill down details
Webinars or videos can be repurposed to white papers, blog posts, social posts, thought leadership quotes for PR outreach, and more. — Chad Gilbert, vice president, content marketing, NP Digital
Get creative and build a framework
You might be overwhelmed by so many repurposing possibilities. To alleviate that, narrow the options to what truly will work for your brand and build a process to make them happen.
Favor purpose-built and hand over the mic
I see a lot of discourse on repurposing content. It’s touted as a way to do more with less and extract a high volume of content. But in my work as a content marketer, both in-house and on the agency side, I’ve learned that content should be purpose-built, not just repurposed.
In the hands of a talented content strategist, upcycled content can still be purpose-built. But usually, I see the most success in content created specifically for a given purpose vs. trying to create the most bite-sized clips or excerpts from longer pieces.
That said, I do think repurposing has its place, especially when you reimagine content for specific voices and channels. Give people in your company the mic. Let individuals riff on the boldest points of view in your content, raising awareness of the original piece. If your original piece of content doesn’t have enough substance for multiple people to have an opinion about, maybe it wasn’t bold enough to begin with. — Heike Young, head of content, social, and integrated marketing, Microsoft
Go for great, not garbage
In the era of AI, everyone is able to repurpose content more efficiently. So, we're drowning in a sea of content. But few are able to repurpose effectively. The difference between great content and garbage content is to offer unique insights and perspectives, something that AI simply cannot do the way your subject matter experts can. That is your competitive advantage. — Abdul Rastagar, CEO, Sirona Marketing
Let the data help
When brainstorming content ideas, think about the audience first, then the strategic goal, and only then can you start thinking about channels. Look at your data. Better yet, let AI look at your data. — Brian Piper, owner and consultant, Brian W Piper LLC
Make remixes a lifecycle play
When many think about content repurposing, they think of reusing the same piece of content in the same format but on different channels. I would call content repurposing “content remixing” because you can take content in one format and easily change it into other formats to give it a new shine and a new audience. You need to make content repurposing a step in your content lifecycle processes to accomplish it successfully and consistently.
One type of content that often gets overlooked when examining opportunities for reuse is internal content. You probably have a lot of great material created for internal training or presentation purposes that can be used for external thought leadership content. A lot of time and effort is put into these types of materials. Why not extend their life? — Andi Robinson, content strategy and operations consultant, Hijinx Marketing
Cook up a system
Think inputs and outputs. Build a system where every input (research, webinars, reports) triggers multiple outputs (articles, LinkedIn posts, nurture emails, shorts). Bake repurposing into the original planning, not as an afterthought.
At NetLine, we:
Turn sales enablement decks into blog series and webinar outlines.
Turn old webinar transcripts into short LinkedIn posts.
Create bundles and e-kits from existing high-performing assets.
Turn e-books into shorter tip sheets and checklists.
If it was good enough to create once, it’s good enough to remix three to four more times. — Josh Baez, senior manager, demand generation, NetLine
Knock down the tactical content silos
The single takeaway from all that advice? Adding a “re-” to your content strategy, whether it’s repurposing, repackaging, or remixing, requires a forward- and backward-looking approach. You must plan, and you must look at the data. Then, you can deliver what your audience wants while making the most of your brand’s content investment.
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Advice From Content Marketing World Speakers
