Getting Mileage out of Your Content: Purposely Repurpose Your Video

Last week we defined and discussed what makes for valuable content. But being able to create good content is just the first part of the story. What do you do with that content once it’s made? And how do you plan a grand strategy for your content from conception to execution and distribution?

Picture your content strategy as a teenager’s first car purchase. You want to buy a car that will perform well, impress people, and that you can drive through college, cross-country a few times, and hopefully until your wife (or husband) insists that a third child means it’s time for a minivan.

Essentially, you want to generate great content that can get a lot of mileage. After you invest so much time and energy into your content, put it to work for you. Use it and reuse it.

Execute Beyond Initial Expense

The first thing to think about is execution. Once you have your content idea, you want to create it in a way that will give you a lot of latitude. For this reason, seriously consider investing in really great production. Making a video in standard definition will certainly suffice for YouTube, but when your CEO wants to show it on a 42-inch plasma, who willbe the one to tell her that it isn’t good enough?

Make your initial assets well. Shoot in HD. Shoot more than you need. Invest in vector graphics and hi-res photos that can work for trade show booths and billboards. The cardinal rule is that you can always make assets smaller and in lower resolution, but you can’t very successfully do the opposite.

Yes, this can mean spending more money up front. But it is worth your while. The better your production quality, the more uses you can find for your content. The more you repurpose and distribute your content, the more your investment can amortize across various projects. Using this strategy, your ROI can increase exponentially.

Repurpose with Purpose

Repurposing can take as many forms as there are channels to support them. In other words, the possible formats for your content are expanding every day. Once your content is made, get it out there. Don’t wait for your audience to come to you. Experiment and play with it. And don’t forget what we said last week about appropriate context. Fit your content to each channel and tell your story.

An example of this strategy executed well is the video created by Tippingpoint Labs for the GO740 LIVE GPS for >TomTom. The original TomTom video was created as a long, comprehensive demo for their website. This full video worked really well, but it could also be edited into smaller, easily digested bits. The same demo was repurposed, either in its entirety or segmented, for an on-device demo, blog posts, YouTube, QVC TV, in-store displays, and a product microsite.

The creation of longer, quality content allows for multiple uses of different durations and types. You can also repurpose video from the b-roll, outtakes, and related interviews if the initial investment in quality is made. Quality content has longevity and a continuing usefulness.

Another instance is video content created for Breville . Originally Tippingpoint Labs created the videos in HD. Their first use was web-based “Learn More” videos that people were directed to from ad campaigns. This very quickly resonated with viewers and Breville’s retail partners.

At the request of these retail partners, Breville and Tippingpoint Labs then syndicated content for their 800ESXL Espresso Machine with a branded video page to Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond, increasing sales at both. This same content was later used on the Home Shopping Network as well as for Breville’s PR pitches. It has continuing value because of the initial investment in quality and the willingness to repurpose purposefully.

Transform Your Content

Repurposing should also extend beyond merely reusing content. Re-envisioning content may serve your purposes very well. You haven’t just invested in the production of content, you’ve invested in the idea and the story that drives the content.

Tell your story in many ways, across diverse media and channels. If you have a video, write the story into a blog, post video interviews about the process and its success, write a whitepaper, make a podcast, tweet about it. Whatever channels stimulate your audience, find a way to fit your big idea into them.

So back to our initial metaphor: the first car should also be a Transformer that can fly and go underwater and into space and get all nano and enter your bloodstream. Wherever your audience is, there your content should go. And though a Transformer may seem like overkill at first, its value shows itself through time and versatility–same as the content you should be making.

Takeaway Idea

Invest in content with high production values, experiment with it, repurpose it again and again. Get serious mileage out of your investment.

Questions

Have you ever created content with quality that kept you from repurposing? Is your company willing to experiment and repurpose and find a way to make content work?

About the author

Jim Cosco -

Jim Cosco founded Tippingpoint Labs in 2002 in an effort to pursue the creation and distribution of high-quality content for the purposes of marketing and advertising. Jim’s experience as an executive producer, producer, director, and writer for television programming ranging from local public affairs and national news to reality television, enables him to create compelling stories designed to trigger powerful, emotional responses from his audience. No matter the medium, Jim’s passion for story-telling remains the common thread in all of his projects and is always the founding principle in driving his team to deliver high-quality, relevant content at every turn.

Jim relies heavily on his journalistic routes to create transparent, honest, and open content that helps build trust and nurtures meaningful brand relationships over the long term.

Since the early nineties Jim has devised and executed projects for clients like MTV, Fox News Channel, ABC, Putnam Investments, and Tufts University.  He has directed television shows and independent features, written screenplays and television treatments, and created content for marketing campaigns and product launches.