The buyer’s journey has drastically changed in the last 10 years.
According to LinkedIn, 75% of B2B buyers turn to various social media platforms for research and content discovery. This is alongside the usual ‘Google’ search that we’re used to.
So, if your customers are spending more time on social media platforms, then publishing a blog on your website alone won’t cut it. You need to make your content is available on these platforms in a format that resonates with your audience.
Producing engaging content is an investment of your time. But to maximise the return on your investment (ROI), content repurposing is a must. This inflates the reach of your content.
In this article, we explore:
Content repurposing is the process of taking existing material and reusing it in a different format or context to extend its reach and value.
This could involve transforming blog posts into videos, infographics, podcasts, social media posts, or even e-books, which helps you to target different persona niches, preferences and platforms. This maximises your investment in original content by diversifying its presentation, which can also help reinforce the message, enhance SEO, and reach a broader audience without the need for creating new content from scratch. It’s about working smarter, not harder.
While creating personas helps you become familiar with consumer pain points, it doesn’t share their preferred way of consuming content.
Some of your target markets would rather digest information through visuals like infographics, others like to watch a video and some like to listen to a podcast. Of course, there are those who like to read text. Everyone has a preference.
Your brand needs to be present across multiple channels to build a genuine relationship through content that resonates with your audience. As Alison Irlam, Social Specialist at Axon Garside, explained, brands should strive to have as many people as possible in the top quadrant of the Seventh Level of Engagement.
“Since the majority of people who are following you are disengaged, it’s the top few engaged followers you want to organically resonate with on a very personal level. This is what B2C companies have been doing for years, but B2B businesses are now realising the importance of this.”
Alison also emphasised the growing importance of influencer marketing in the B2B space. If you go on LinkedIn today, you’ll notice how personal accounts or thought leaders and brands have more persuasive power than corporate accounts.
In fact, 90% of B2B buyers use social media to start a conversation with these thought leaders. This emphasises the need for active participation in conversations rather than simply pushing out content.
It's important to note that content repurposing doesn't mean you should stop your traditional inbound efforts like blogging. As Rob White, Head of Marketing at Axon Garside, says:
“It’s crucial to diversify your content, but it’s also important to continue blogging. This will help you build up internal links through content clusters where several blogs are linked to a pillar page to help rank your website rank higher in the search results.”
There are many ways you can kickstart the content repurposing process, however, the process for existing content is as follows:
It’s relatively straightforward to turn a blog into a video, infographic, or podcast. But it is much more efficient to create content in an audio or video format, and then repurpose it to text-based content and reels.
For example, if you record a podcast, you can transcribe the audio into text using a transcription tool. With this transcription, you then paste the text to ChatGPT and ask it to adapt the content into article format and optimise it for SEO.
However, as Lawrence Chapman, Content Lead at Axon Garside, emphasised, it's crucial to add the human touch.
“It's really important to highlight that this isn’t a case of putting the transcript into ChatGPT, lifting its copy, pasting it and then hitting publish. That's not how content repurposing works. There’s a human element to it as well. You need to conduct your keyword research, edit, and optimise the blogs to make sure that they're aligning with your marketing goals and what you're trying to eventually achieve.”
Podcasts are great for content repurposing.
With the right structure, one podcast can spin out a minimum of three blog posts, all linking back to a pillar page.
You can also bolster your social media scheduling and share insightful expertise, with posts originating from your podcast. A range of content, including Infographics, audiograms, quote graphics and carousels can all be created from a single podcast.
In the best case scenario, one podcast can produce up to nine pieces of content, as shown below:
It’s also important to record your podcast in video format, not just audio-only. This allows you to create preview clips, and share the content on platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
While producing different content formats is crucial, it’s vital that you share it across multiple platforms, as explained by Lawrence:
"Often, businesses create excellent content, but fail to share it on social media. Social exposure is paramount to ensure your content reaches your followers and target audience. It may well be the case that you’ve created an amazing piece of content, but it doesn’t perform to its optimum potential, because nobody knows where to find it.”
Alison added that social media provides immediate results:
“With social media, you can immediately see what worked and what didn't, and then look at how [you] can adapt our strategy. [You] can also interlink [your] content so you can add videos onto pillar pages, add a podcast within a long-form blog, which will positively impact your SEO. When all your repurposed content is all connected, your website is no longer the centre, but rather just another spoke on your business's wheel.”
As mentioned earlier, B2B buyers are turning to social media to discover new knowledge and learn about products. It’s no longer just a platform for forming personal connections but has become an interactive hub where user-centric content thrives.
Given this shift in B2B customer behaviour, content marketing within the B2B sphere is no longer a "nice-to-have" but a necessity. As Lawrence said:
“The mindset of content marketing being nice-to-have should be dispelled. There are so many benefits to content marketing when done correctly. By consistently producing valuable and relevant content for your target audience, you raise awareness of your brand, establishing yourself as a leader within your industry.
“What many businesses don’t know is that content marketing plays a big part in customer retention. Content marketing is not just a gateway to acquiring new customers, it can be used to nurture and retain those existing customers and turn them into advocates of your brand.”
While content marketing helps to position your business as a thought leader, it plays a key role in driving organic traffic and higher search rankings. It’s a win-win for your brand and customers.
However, while an increase in web traffic is appealing, most C-suite executives are interested in how your campaigns are generating revenue. As Rob said:
“It's so important to try and link back to revenue metrics where possible because at the end of the day, if you create all this content and generate results or improve the bottom line, then it won’t positively impact your business.”
Lawrence added to this by saying how conversion is a key metric that aligns with revenue.
“Conversion is the sweet spot because it does align with the bottom line. You need to monitor how many visitors are taking the desired action through your content. This includes measuring the number of sign-ups or eBook downloads, and then seeing how many of those visitors who did those actions make a purchase.”
When repurposing your content, it opens up opportunities to gain valuable insights into how prospective buyers interact with your brand.
However, Rob mentioned that you need to consider the following:
“The challenge with content diversification is that it opens up a myriad of new data channels you have to sift through and find the most relevant key metrics. While this process may be time-consuming, it's essential to understand whether our efforts are yielding results and to report back to our leadership team. This is where HubSpot's Campaign Suite proves invaluable."
We understand the importance of centralising data points and measuring the impact of your marketing efforts. This is why we use HubSpot.
With HubSpot Campaign Suite, you can choose from a range of different templates that can be customised to your specific requirements. As Rob explained:
“When you customise HubSpot’s campaign templates, it’ll support you in centralising all different data points into one place. This means you can connect a social post, a podcast, a webinar, landing pages and blogs into a singular campaign, and track both your base metrics in terms of impressions, email, open rates as well as revenue.”
For those planning virtual or in-person events, HubSpot offers the capability to link Zoom or Eventbrite to your campaign. Additionally, you can use the same campaign to send invitations via email to your contacts. The same can be applied for podcasts and webinars, as well.
However, the main way in which HubSpot assists with content diversification is through its reporting and analytics capabilities.
HubSpot enables you to establish attribution reports that track a buyer's journey through the funnel, identifying the assets that have contributed to revenue generation.
At Inbound 2023, HubSpot's annual conference, they introduced their new AI Campaign Assistant. This tool allows you to swiftly create and launch campaigns. It offers assistance in generating copy for landing pages, emails and ads based on prompts, as well as automated email workflows.
Given the importance of launching campaigns quickly, HubSpot's AI Campaign Assistant facilitates the creation of cohesive plans in minimal time.
The modern B2B buyer doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Now, they consume various forms of content on social media, so it‘s vital you adapt your content strategy.
Thankfully, It’s easier to repurpose a single piece of content such as a podcast or pillar page into different formats, but make sure it’s centred around the pain points of your target audience.
This is key to building a genuine relationship with your potential buyers, and establishing your experts as thought leaders.
We use an innovative approach to content diversification through HubSpot. By packaging your content under a single campaign, you’re in a stronger position to measure results and see which assets are driving your company’s bottom line.