The Multiplier Effect of Content
The beauty of content is that it can produce value over and over again.
At Sprig, we’re all on board with content. In fact, we’d be willing to argue that content is the best use of a Marketing or Communication professional's time, especially if they’re on a small team. (And many nonprofits and mission-driven businesses are pretty lean.) The reason for this advice is that one piece of content can quickly and profoundly multiply itself if used thoroughly and thoughtfully.
Don’t believe us? Let’s talk about the magic.
Write It Once, Use it Many Times
For the sake of an example, let’s say you write an article—a blog, a thought piece, or even a newsy write-up for your brand’s website. (Congratulations, that’s the hardest part!) Now, you get to decide what to do with it.
We bet you’ll put it on your site first, and share it across your usual channels, but did you know you can do more than that?
Here are a couple of our favorite ways to use and reuse your content:
Full-text version:
You have the piece, hooray! Now, assuming you’ve done some keyword research and have included keywords relevant to your target audience and what they’re searching for, then by publishing that singular piece of content on your site, you’re immediately making your organization more findable and relevant to your audience.
With your original content published, promote it to all of the usual channels such as social media accounts and newsletters to audiences that would be interested in the content.
Cut it up and reuse it:
Does the article have compelling subheadings that can stand alone as content? If yes, cut it up and use those short text subheadings to create a text or graphical post (like this!) for social media or a newsletter. Maybe the subheadings don’t work well by themselves, but you have a statistic or a compelling quote from an interviewee or the findings shared in the piece. Use that instead, overlaying it onto a photo, reel, or other branded graphic (like this!) for social media or as a pull quote within a newsletter with other updates.
Make it digital:
The 2023 Video Marketing Trends Report from HubSpot, with data from Wysowl research, suggests that many Marketers believe that video outperforms other content in several metrics from engagement to click-through rate. That doesn’t mean you’ve missed out if your original content is written, it just means there’s an opportunity to capitalize on successful content by adapting it to a video format.
Simply adapt the written content to an outline script for on-screen text or spoken audio and overlay it over animation, b-roll, or slide-through photos. Then, share it all over again!
Marketing materials:
Does your business or nonprofit share leave-behind materials at events? Mailers? White papers? Use paragraphs, sentences, and quotes from that original content for any of your printed marketing materials.
Test a concept:
Some content is just stickier than others. When a story or topic resonates with your audience, don’t drop it and move on to the next idea. Instead, run with it! Use the concept, story, or topic as inspiration for your next campaign!
Republish:
High-performing content is fair game to repurpose later, either with some modifications to make it current or as it is. The amount of time you wait depends on the amount of content you produce. If you post more frequently, you can repurpose content earlier, though you likely don’t need to. Those who post or create original content less frequently might choose to wait a year or longer to reshare the same content.
There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel for each piece of content that you share across all of your channels and tactics. Instead, work smarter and multiply your impact by repurposing existing content.
We love to help mission-driven organizations with content strategy and execution. If you’re a lean team looking to multiply the bandwidth and reach of your current approach, schedule time to find out how.
