I was interviewed a while back by Bryony Thomas as part of an article titled "Reduce, Re-Use, Recyle - a marketing philosophy". This is top of mind right now as I start my new role at Silverpop and begin to think of building out the future. The temptation for someone like me is too start afresh and launch some stunning new content into market. But this would be foolish. I'm going to dig into our back catalogue and see what juicy tidbits are fit for recycling.
I'm a big believer in re-using existing content. Marketers need to work harder at being more consistent with the same messages over a prolonged period of time. Its tougher to stand out in the digital market place, so we need to be creative in recycling older material and getting away from the shiny new message syndrome.
IBM were masters of this back in the early 2000s where they owned the eBusiness tag for many years, whilst most rivals chopped and changed messages every quarter.
Consistency is no bad thing as you also have to accept that most customers don't see your content first time round. That 20% email open rate means that 80% don't read what you sent. And with customers being awash with 24x7, inbound-marketing led digital content, its doubtful they even noticed that Q1 integrated programme.
So (along with better targeting and more relevant content) there's no harm in creatively re-cycling content for re-targeting & re-marketing. Take that old eBook and turn it into blog posts (or vice versa!). Re-edit those lengthy customer testimonials into bite sized snippets. Re-cycle an old article into new commentary (ahem). Take those old gems, polish them up and re-pimp them to the market.
And don't just think this is a cosmetic exercise. [In Bryony's words] Intelligent re-use of marketing content has three key benefits:
- It helps you get more from your marketing budget
- It means that people see your message repeated multiple times so it’s more likely to stick, and
- It extends your reach by appealing to people who like to consume different media formats (some people like print, some video, some audio, etc.).
So, come on. Join me and start re-pimping that content!