If you’re anything like me and then you’re always looking for ways of getting more results for less work.

So, in this post I’d like to share with you some great ways of repurposing content to enable you to boost the leverage in your online business!

What is “Content Repurposing”?

The most helpful definition I could fine online was from The Free Dictionary:

Basically, content repurposing is a fancy jargon name for taking a piece of content – such as an eBook, video or audio – and either converting it to a different format or repackaging it into new content.

This is a brilliant way of leveraging whatever content you have, whether it be a blog post, audio interview, powerpoint presentation or tutorial video, and putting it to maximum use and benefit.

7 Great Ways To Repurpose Content

1. Convert Text-To-Audio

In recent years there has been a huge rise in popularity of audio books and the 431,510 results given by Amazon is testament to this:

We as internet marketers can do exactly the same by converting our blog posts or eBooks to audio format.

How to do it: Either use some audio recording software such as Audacity (free) together with a high quality USB microphone (I use and recommend a Snowball Mic) and record the audio yourself, or, hire a voiceover freelancer on a service such as voices.com or odesk.com to do the job for you.

2. Audio-To-Text Transcriptions

As you may know I’m a big fan of creating audio Skype interviews and for each of the ones I’ve produced here at Gain Higher Ground I’ve repurposed the content as text.

I feel this is a real no-brainer as it not only gives subscribers more choice in how they consume the content but also has the SEO benefit of a few thousand words of original content being posted on your site.

How to do it: Unless you can speed type (I certainly can’t!) then I highly recommend you do what I do which is do hire a freelance transcriber on Odesk. You can see me doing this in real-time in the video in this post. On average expect to pay $30-$35 for 60 minutes of audio transcription.

3. Text-To-Video

It is a great idea to convert the text contained in eBooks, Powerpoint presentations or blog posts to video format.

I’m currently in the process of developing a new autoresponder sequence for my blog and have been recording screencast videos of some of my previous blog posts that are in written format.

How to do it: Take the ideas and concepts laid out in your eBook or blog post and use screencast software such as Camtasia to create a how-to or tutorial video. Camtasia also has a Powerpoint add-in so if you already have a set of slides that you’ve used in the past then it is very straightforward to record them and turn them into a video.

4. Break Up Text Into Chunks

This idea is especially good if you have a lengthy eBook already written. If the original text is, say, 10,000 words then why not break it up into 10 shorter articles, each of 1,000 words in length?

You could use the shorter articles as either blog posts or perhaps 10 days worth of content for your autoresponder sequence to provide valuable help for your subscribers.

How to do it: Firstly, identify logical segments in your eBook. Then just copy and paste, reword and tidy up the smaller articles.

5.Consolidate Articles Together

This is simply the last idea in reverse!

The key to making money online is to build an email list of subscribers. And the key to building a list of subscribers is to offer a free gift in return for people’s email addresses. Whatever niche you choose to focus on, one of the most popular and successful free gifts for this purpose is an eBook.

So, if you are struggling to write that eBook then a great idea is to repurpose the content which is already published on your blog. I’m actually doing this myself (at least in part) with a new product that I’m currently developing.

While you will probably recall most of your own blog posts the majority of your subscribers won’t and it is seldom that newcomers to your blog take the time to trawl through the archives looking at your entire collection of posts.

So repurposing old blog content is a great way to not only save you time but get your best content in front of brand new subscribers who might never otherwise see it.

How to do it: You may find (as I did!) that it’s not quite as simple as pasting together all of your individual blog posts. If so, then I recommend that you join together the posts that you can and then rewrite the best themes and ideas from the rest.

6. Update Old Blog Posts & Ideas

My first attempt at a personal blog was pretty much a failure in terms of traffic (but it’s still online here).

However, in light of the internet marketing journey that I’ve been on since I started in April 2010 it is fascinating for me to go back and read some of the posts that I made as it really takes me back to what I was thinking at the time and, perhaps, what a newcomer to internet marketing might themselves be wanting to know right now.

So despite the marketing failure of that blog there is still a fair amount of inspiration that I’ve taken from it and used to write new posts here at Gain Higher Ground.

How to do it: Look though old blog posts for inspiration! If possible, I’d also recommend reading old blog comments from visitors to your site to try to get inside the minds of your audience and discover what they want. It’s also a great idea to keep some notes of things that you learn when you’re building your business as this can really help with inspiration for new blogs posts.

7. Create “Swipe” Files, Resource Lists And Cheat Sheets

When you create any kind of content it is highly likely that in it you will discuss various resources such as websites, software, blogs, books and so on. This is certainly true for the content I create for my two main niches (stock trading and internet marketing) and a powerful way to gain leverage here is to simply compile a shortlist of the resources which your subscribers would find particularly useful.

If you’re in the gardening niche then perhaps your list would include the best place to buy seeds and garden tools, the most effective lawn treatments and the best free gardening information websites.

In the cross country cycling niche then perhaps a list of the top cycling routes in the country or the best cycling accessories would be something that your blog visitors or customers would find useful?

How to do it: Compile your list as you create other content for your niche. As soon as you discover a new resource, simply take 30 seconds to note it down in a text file or Word document and before you know it you’ll be done!

It’s also a great idea to have your marketing head on when you name your resource list: Swipe File, Cheat Sheet and Rolodex are all great names to make it more appealing.

Finally, offer it in PDF format. PDF creates a higher perceived value and if you don’t have Microsoft Word 2007 or higher (which allows you to save files in PDF format) then use a free solution such as PrimoPDF.

Conclusion

There are tons of ways to repurpose content and in this article I’ve set out just 7 of them for you.

You don’t have to have an eBook or 5 recorded Skype interviews to get started – just a blog post or two will do.

Overall, I think the important thing is to get in the mindset of repurposing and always be thinking, “How can I get the maximum value out of my content?”

Good luck with your repurposing and please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!