Repeat after me: You do not have a problem with creating content.
You, like many companies, may think you have a content creation problem. While you’re in good company, your problem is less about creating more content and more about how to recycle and repurpose content.
Most marketers have mastered the art of “create and promote.” Even companies with immature content creation strategies have reaped benefits of curating, sharing and engaging audiences. But not all content is evergreen. It performs until it doesn’t.
Mike Corak of Louisville’s DAC Group advises marketers to deal with ROT content by regularly evaluating whether existing content should be recycled or killed. ROT content is defined as content that is redundant, outdated and/or trivial.
The objective and responsible way to determine ROT content is to lean on metrics. Tracking analytics should be an essential part of any content strategy, and often tells the story about how well content is performing. An infographic meant to be shared should have the results that say it did what it was supposed to do. Was a white paper published with the intent to drive leads? Your analytics can validate that.
Reviewing analytics can also hatch ideas on how to recycle content. Maybe that gated white paper can live again as an infographic illustrating key ideas. Combine that with relevant industry or current news, and you’re in sharing territory. When reviewing blog posts with the similar tagged topics, determine if there’s an opportunity for a white paper or eBook. Emailing a blog digest is another one of many ways to keep blog content in front of readers.
The Content Marketing Institute reported that 80% of B2B marketers have a content marketing strategy, and that 51% plan to increase spending on that content marketing strategy in the future; 35% said budgets would stay the same. Time and money spent reinvesting ways to repurpose the quality content you already have, and knowing when to kill the ROT content, is time and money well spent.
All together, now: You don’t have a problem with creating content.