Every marketer wants a steady flow of ideas for content, but it’s inevitable for that creativity to dry up at some point. Avoiding this kind of stress and making life a bit easier is a given for a savvy marketing manager, and we have just the thing for saving your precious time. Repurposing content for email marketing.
What’s more, utilizing email marketing can deliver specific content to specific audiences directly, thus expanding and personalizing your customer base. Content teams need to work smarter, not harder.
Here’s some practical advice for getting your repurposed content ready for email marketing, and how to make every campaign more successful than the last. Remember, it’s all about the customer’s journey; engineering the content to appeal to them and ensuring the call to action (CTA) is exactly where you want them to go, is vital.
Segmenting Success
When repurposing content for email marketing, a very important aspect to think about at every stage is segmentation. There’s no point spamming people with material they’re not interested in, as they’ll just unsubscribe. But giving the right audience the right content in the right way? That’s one of the best lead generation strategies you can have.
Many businesses have multiple industry specialties and audience demographics. These groups have their own unique customers, and they hold very different views when it comes to content. One segment could prefer a long, in-depth eBook on the technicalities and history of motor engines, for example, while another will only engage with short videos that show them how to fix a specific engine problem.
Changing up the same content can mean reaching new people, and therefore increases the likelihood of them engaging and, hopefully, becoming a customer. Appealing to the same people in a different way, changing someone’s mind on your brand (as a whole), reaching someone who had previously had no interest in your brand with something they are interested in, are all also valuable tactics for growing your customer base. If content is King, repurposed content is the Queen.
Image Source: neilpatel.com
One piece of content will work for some users, but not everyone. Having a variety of options and using your segmented research well, so that content is delivered to the right person at the right time, could mean the difference between a click and a brisk hit of the Delete key.
There are lots of ways to refresh work in new and interesting ways, and you can completely change the result of a customer’s journey, as well as the journey itself. Following up with relevant and/or similar communication will keep getting the person closer and closer to the onboarding and/or closing stage, whether that’s them buying online or agreeing to a free video call with your sales team.
You can engineer your customer’s journey according to how they interact with you, but you need to get their attention first.
Now, let’s talk about how to match content with segments.
Winning the Content Games
Obviously, successfully repurposing content has a lot to do with how you use email marketing, the actual mechanics and set-up. But what about the content itself?
When repurposing content for email it’s the content that needs to enrich your marketing message appropriately and appeal to your customers. Changing up the design, format, angle and even language (appropriately localized) can make a huge difference to potential customers noticing, liking, and engaging with your brand.
There will be some trial and error, as always, but market and competitor research is always helpful. See what gets the most engagement from previous campaigns, poll your customers, and ask what they’d like to see.
Try out a rival site’s ecommerce UX compared to yours. Is it very visual? Video or written? What’s the tone and register? What material do they feature most prominently for each service/sector? These are useful details to consider when planning your next steps.
Keeping in mind that email can be limiting in terms of size, images and embedded material should be used sparingly, and links to digitally hosted content are the best way to encourage engagement. Ensure your emails are attractive and well-written, and the call to action (CTA) is appropriate and relevant to both your audience and the content itself.
Here are some ideas for repurposing content in a useful way, with something for every segment you might target. Any of these content types can be embedded, linked to, or included in an email. Remember images should be small, and don’t include all the information in the body of each message.
Infographics
A data-driven case study can be turned very easily into an eye-catching infographic. People respect numbers, percentages, graphs, so put your most valuable information in big, engaging spotlights in a pleasing design.
This content is perfect for a younger segment of people, offering bite-size advice and other concise information in a visually engaging way. Great for sharing results and data, explaining processes, workflows and features, products, and services quickly.
For instance, imagine you have a piece of content that did well as an eBook; a long-form, very detailed piece on cloud communications that took forever to create. You’ve marketed it to all your contacts, but a large chunk of your audience doesn’t even open the email—maybe the word ‘eBook’ scared them off.
You can segment this group of people—it’s also useful to analyze if they have anything in common like age, role, industry, geographic location, etc. —and send them an infographic that features the eBook’s highlights and/or main selling points, with a link to the original for further details. It’s a ‘whet your appetite’ kind of tactic.
Video
A webinar presented at a live conference released as a YouTube video, either recorded or recreated, will reach a much wider audience, and can be referred to and/or shared at any time. Embedding a video in your email marketing means it is available in two places, one very direct, and one that is very useful for search engine optimization (SEO).
Use screenshots, thumbnails, and quotes in the email body for context and intrigue. Videos are also great because they are a relatively quick thing to localize, widening your customer base even further by including other languages. Video appeals to younger customers who want a lot of information quickly, but appeals to almost everyone.
Roundup Newsletter
Individual pieces could be collated and presented in a “roundup” newsletter that includes several items that center around a certain subject, type, or time frame.
This theme can appeal to a very specific segment of your audience through niche content, and therefore make engagement a lot more likely. Or, you can choose a broader theme with a range of subjects, and that can be very useful for analysis for further segmentation.
For example, a roundup of best-selling products under a certain category or a news or user-generated content (UGC) highlight reel can show several pieces that relate to a particular industry under your brand’s umbrella.
eBook
A blog post can become a detailed eBook, with extra or updated data for a higher value version of a good idea.
Expanding on a subject, especially if it got a lot of engagement to start with, is an excellent way to keep information relevant and up to date. A 2,000-2,500 word, properly designed eBook can be just as much a show of authority as it is a well of information, and a sectioned approach (about 300 words each) can appeal to a range of segments.
This sort of item can also be invested in further by printing it and asking users to order their own copy via a ramp-up and follow-up email campaign.
Live webinars and one-on-one conversations
Some people don’t want to read or even sit and watch a video. A live webinar is ideal to advertise quite heavily on email, repurposing literally any piece of content you already have.
A step further than this, and particularly useful for customer services or sales teams, is the option to book a one-on-one video conference with a knowledgeable member of your team, hyper-personalizing the customer’s journey and delivering a very clear marketing message.
Humanizing your team and communications with customers can help with creating a connection between the customer and the brand. Something as simple as a personal email signature for the relevant salesperson, or even the marketer who created the content, can offer a better connection than a generic company sign-off. It also provides another layer of contact for those who want direct communication.
Conclusion
Any of these repurposed content options, among many others, can enrich an email campaign. High-value content, in any format, not only provides thought leadership and authority in your particular industry, but creating it out of repurposing content saves you time and often adds value to previous work.
Effectively segmented and well-constructed email marketing with repurposed content will help grow your customer base and save your team precious time.
Interesting in seeing how easy it is to search your content archive and repurpose content for email within DivvyHQ? Request a demo today!