It’s becoming more challenging and expensive for brands to create engaging content, but reusable content could be the answer. Users now expect online content to not only be of higher quality but also to be more relevant and personalized to their needs.
Consumers also expect content to be available to them in their preferred format. They’re not prepared to go and seek out information in an ebook if they want to read it in a blog post, for example.
These expectations mean content creators have their work cut out, but it’s not all bad news.
Content management platforms have also become more sophisticated. This makes it easier for content managers to create reusable content, organize content assets, and reuse them at a later date.
What Is Reusable Content?
Reusable content can be republished in a different format or at a different time. This means you can maximize content creation resources and improve your content marketing Return on Investment.
While any content has the potential for reuse, reusable content should be specifically designed for reuse. This means structuring and categorizing it in a way that makes it easy to find, reconfigure, and adapt later.
Benefits of Content Reuse
Reusing content offers several benefits to content marketers, particularly when the process is partially automated. These benefits include:
- Reduced content development and maintenance costs: Rather than spending a specific budget and resources on a single piece of content, you can use these resources to create multiple pieces of content to publish in different places.
- Improved quality and consistency: Reusing parts of content at later dates also means reviewing and updating it regularly. Continually reviewing and reusing content means that quality and consistency naturally improve over time.
- Potential to reach a wider audience: Reusing a single piece of content in several places and formats means it has more exposure. For example, you could use an infographic in several blog posts, eBooks, emails, white papers, etc. This allows you to reach a much wider audience than a single piece of content published in one place.
Factors to keep in mind for Reusable Content
- Have multiple platforms and formats in mind when creating content. For example, don’t refer to ‘this blog post or the image above.’ This allows for more flexibility when reusing content and means you can keep changes to a minimum. Likewise, when storing image assets, keep them uncropped with minimal edits so you can resize and adjust them later.
- Create multiple headings. Writing multiple versions of your headings when you create content means it’s quicker and easier to reuse later.
- Provide a content summary. A summary of your content means that it can be assessed quickly without the need to read through the entire piece. This makes things easier when you’re looking for information later. Content summaries can also be used as meta descriptions, blog post previews, and chapter summaries.
Types of Content Reuse
There are several different types of content reuse that you might want to consider using in your content strategy.
Linked content is a single piece of content stored in a single location, such as a database. This content can be pulled into different formats and used in different places.
One example of the commonly used linked content is website images. Images are generally stored in a single folder but may be used in several different web pages or hot-linked from external sites.
Boilerplate content – commonly seen on websites as a standard disclaimer or terms of use. This text might be used across several web pages and sites without changing the content.
CTAs at the end of blog posts are another standard boilerplate content you may use in many locations.
Content reuse in multiple formats may require more work than simply cutting and pasting a paragraph or pulling it from a database, but it offers enormous benefits. With a little more work, a single piece of content can create several new pieces in different formats.
Content reuse for multiple audiences may involve slight changes to the content to make it more suitable for a wider range of users. For example, a piece of content for internal use could be adapted to use for external marketing.
How to Get Started with Reusable Content
While technically, you don’t need any special software or procedures to start reusing your content, it certainly helps to have a system that enables content asset storage, management, and easy search-ability.
A good content writing platform will make it easier for you to organize and store your content and keep track of where content assets are being used.
If you’re serious about reusing your content and maximizing ROI, a content writing platform like Dimensions can be a sensible investment.
With a robust content platform, it’s simple and efficient to tag, categorize, and file away content for later use. Built-in content automation and duplication functionality also mean that content assets can be reused automatically.
