11 Simple Ideas to Get More Mileage from Your B2B Content Marketing

Creating new, quality content is a big investment of time, resources and even budget. So it’s important to make sure you get the most mileage you possibly can from the content you create. In other words, don’t forget that the content you already have offers a myriad of opportunities for ongoing uses. Here are 10 simple ideas to get more mileage from your content:

1

Create an eBook from a series of blog posts and vice versa 

Developing an eBook can take a lot of effort, especially to do it right. But leveraging content that already exists in the form of blog posts can jumpstart the process. As your blog becomes more populated with quality posts, it’s likely that those posts can be woven together (obviously with some editing) to form the basis for an eBook or guide. In fact, it’s a great idea to create a series of blog posts on a particular topic with an eBook in mind. And it can also work the other way around. Take the copy from an existing eBook or whitepaper and reverse-engineer that into a series of blog posts. 

2

Turn a whitepaper into a more visually engaging eBook

Long before marketers were calling it content marketing, companies were creating whitepapers as a way to educate their audience about a particular topic. In fact, many B2B firms have a virtual library of whitepapers. Many of these whitepapers are still relevant; they just lack the visual appeal that has made eBooks so popular. Break up the text, add in stunning visuals and design, use larger type treatments, and you’ll breathe life into those old whitepapers.

3

Revive and update old blog posts

One way to supplement your blogging efforts and to keep your content fresh, is to revive older, mostly evergreen, posts that need to be updated. If your firm has been blogging for some time, you’re likely to have plenty of posts over a year old that are still very relevant; they simply need to be refreshed. This could include updating facts and figures, supporting graphics or points where the thinking has evolved. Or perhaps you could add some additional items to an existing list or expand further on an idea. The point is, keep your evergreen content as green as possible and extend the shelf life. Once the post has been updated, you can change the post date and promote like you would a new article.

4

Revise eBooks starting to show some age and re-launch

Borrowing an idea from the book publishing industry, revising eBooks starting to show age can be a great way to extend their usefulness. Similar to older blog posts, it’s highly likely that most of the content in an older eBook is still relevant; it just needs some updating and tweaking. Try revising not only the copy, but the cover, design and graphics as well. It doesn’t need to be a wholesale update, but as with books, take out what’s no longer relevant, add in what’s missing and re-launch as a newly revised edition.

5

Create a series of “how-to” videos using blog content

Video for content marketing has been increasingly popular for years and is on our list of B2B marketing trends. A very easy idea to execute is to use content from your blog, webinar or other formats as the basis for short “how-to” videos. These don’t have to be professionally produced, but they do need to have a professional feel. As visual content becomes more essential to your content marketing efforts, these “how-tos” are a simple way to add video into to the mix.

6

Use snippets from blogs and eBooks for social media posts

Coming up with the right kind of content for social media is always an ongoing challenge for marketers. Don’t miss out on the wellspring of social media posts that your existing content offers. Try pulling compelling quotes, statistics and other snippets from your blog posts, ebooks, etc. and use those to engage your followers on social media. Also, instead of just using the blog or eBook title to promote your content, try testing snippets that are compelling and intriguing as a way to attract clicks.

7

Use blog posts for lead nurturing emails

Lead nurturing emails are a great way to engage prospects that aren’t ready to engage with your sales team. Using marketing automation software, the process to build these campaigns is quite simple. The challenge lies in creating the various email messages that will be used for each campaign. In addition to other content offers, using existing blog content is a great way to fuel your lead nurturing campaigns. Choose blog posts that are relevant based on what a lead has already expressed interest in and break those into “teaser” emails that drive leads back to your blog. Lists of relevant posts that leads would find interesting are also a great way to leverage the quality content on your blog.

8

Repurpose webinars into a multitude of other content formats

A lot of hard work goes into putting together a great webinar. So don’t let all that hard work and great content fade away. Past webinars can be an ongoing source of lead generation and new content too. For starters, be sure to record your webinars and offer them to new audiences as on-demand webinars using landing pages and calls-to-action. Webinars can also form the basis for a series of blog posts or a guide by leveraging slide content as well as presenter notes.

9

Turn a conference presentation into a webinar

Many B2B firms have thought leaders and subject matter experts speaking at various conferences, tradeshows and other industry programs. Don’t let that valuable presentation go to waste! Turn those presentations into webinars and expand your audience. With some help from the marketing team, your firm’s subject matter experts can minimize their additional time investment and maximize the return on the time they invested in putting together the presentation in the first place.

10

Lift “thought leadership” copy from proposals and client presentations

Believe it or not, proposals and client presentations — especially for A/E/C and professional services firms — contain a wealth of good “thought leadership” content. Once you get past the elevator speeches, a good proposal is likely to have some well-written, educational and informative copy that firm principals and subject matter experts have taken the time to write. This content can be easily lifted, tweaked and repurposed for uses in everything from blog posts, emails and guides to name a few.

11

Use blog posts as a departure point for podcast and/or vlog episodes

Looking to launch a podcast or vlog series or struggling to come up with new episode ideas? Look first to your firm’s blog for inspiration as existing blog content could offer a treasure trove of episode ideas. A well-planned blog is foundational to your overall content marketing strategy and should encompass your firm’s subject matter expertise and topics that speak to your target audience’s interests. Dive into your analytics and see what content is most popular or has the most engagement to identify what ideas should be considered.

Don't always reinvent the wheel

Marketers are all pressed for time and it often seems as though there is never enough time in the day, week, month or year to create all the content that is necessary to fuel your company’s content marketing and demand generation efforts. But you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, just the content.