Anyone who is operating in the digital space, or knows anything about SEO will know that regurgitating content is not much use; when it comes down to it, putting the same exact article in lots of different places rarely helps – Google just puts its blinders on. However, there is a time and a place for recycling content, and it can be done in a way that works to a brand’s advantage. The way we see it, there are two key purposes – and we’ve outlined these below.

Control and consistency of your story

In an over-saturated market, the brands and businesses that stand out are the ones that know what it is that makes them special and different, and communicate that effectively. Only a cursory look at the current pre-election chaos is needed to demonstrate the disillusionment, and lack of trust, that the public (read: your market) feels when a story and key messages seem unclear.

We’ve long known that a strong brand is crystal clear on what it’s about, but we are – now, more than ever – seeing the importance of a business crafting its narrative in a way that consistently reinforces those messages. Great pieces of content contribute to your narrative; they demonstrate what makes you special in a way that moves people to think, feel and act in a particular way. And those pieces of content are powerful.

People need to see a message consistently, in a range of different ways and places, and at various times, to get it. As you tell your story and invite your customers and prospects to truly ‘get’ you, great bits of content provide the cornerstone foundation for this. You can be creative about it, but don’t be afraid to say the same thing more than once.

Getting maximum marketing mileage

When written well and reflecting all of your key messages, a little content can go a long way. If you’ve carefully crafted a key portion of your story, tell it and keep telling it. We have so many great channels for communication, and touchpoints with customers and prospects, at our fingertips nowadays, and a strong piece of content should be able to be leveraged across many of them.

Avoid making the mistake of merely copying and pasting though. To maximise your marketing mileage from a piece of content in the optimal way, you need to consider your audience, and the different way that those people interact with each channel, so that you can tailor your content accordingly.

For example, people bring a different attention span to an online publication that they have opted to read than they would when they’re engaging with social media (not to mention their varied expectations of different social media channels). Or, another example may be that you have used an article as a blog post, and then receive the opportunity to include it as a thought leadership piece in another organisation’s newsletter. You could just flick off a carbon copy of your original article, but your piece will get better results if you think about the types of people reading this specific newsletter, and do a small amount of tweaking to increase the relevance of your article to them.

Eco-content: Recycling like the pros

Clever copywriters know how take the compelling parts of a story and craft content that is optimised for use across a range of different channels. This allows you to achieve better bang for your buck and maximise the value you get from an investment in great content (and it is just that – an investment!) Not only that, it also helps you achieve a consistent brand voice, increases the chance of people buying into your story, as well as enabling you to control the conversation you are having with your market.

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