How Pros Reuse Content
Content has to be fresh, not new. This little difference saves pros a lot of time.
Your content is very valuable because of the time and money you spent creating it.
Writing a newsletter, preparing the pictures, and formatting it for different channels can take five to seven hours, sometimes even longer. Designing a social media post is usually much quicker, perhaps an hour or two, but that depends on how good the source material is, such as photos or videos, and how much editing has to be done. And that's after you spent weeks developing a brand-consistent marketing strategy that outlines which products or services should be promoted and which customer groups (audience) should be addressed and how.
Don’t use your content only once.
Fresh Content Doesn't Have to Be New Content
A common misconception is the need to post new content all the time.
That's not entirely true.
Content has to be fresh, not new.
I know fresh content often requires you to create everything new. But not always. And this little difference saves pros a lot of time.
Change the Look
If you look closely at promotional social media posts from the same company and compare them side by side, you will notice that many consist of the same images or illustrations. They all look slightly different — fresh — even though they use the same pictures.
It doesn't take much effort to alter a photo's appearance. You can do this with your smartphone or with a professional photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop:
change the crop of the image;
enlarge a section of the photo;
vary hue, saturation, or brightness;
flip the photo;
turn the picture into a black-and-white image;
blur parts of the photo.
To maximize the transformation, you can also alter the width and height of your post, use a different background with gradients, or vary the typefaces. Adding a few mood-enhancing icons or small illustrations can also significantly alter the look of your content.
Use Your Content Across Multiple Platforms
Another time-saver is to use content across multiple platforms.
For example, you could incorporate a social media post picture in an upcoming newsletter. It is a great way to break up your copy and make it more readable. You can also link that picture to your social media page or company website to increase traffic to your business.
Why You Need a Written Marketing Strategy: Memorizing all the details of your marketing strategy can be a challenge. By writing it down, you give your marketing strategy an official touch and create a checklist for yourself.
Develop a Marketing Strategy
Before you start creating content, step back and think about the goals you want to achieve with each campaign or platform.
Do you want to grow sales of a specific product or increase brand awareness?
Based on these goals, you devise a plan for how to achieve them, choosing platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest, and developing the messaging for your campaign.
When pros develop a marketing strategy, they typically consider using the same photos, illustrations, or videos in different campaigns and across several platforms to reduce costs for their clients. You can then use these savings to increase your campaign's frequency or reach.
