Repurposing Blog Posts | Bright Owl Marketing

Wondering how you can walk people through the sales cycle by combining social media content with blog posts?

This article reveals all you need to know about repurposing blog posts into social media content and leveraging them for all stages of your sales funnel.

#1: Map out a Clear Marketing Goal

Your social media marketing funnel will have to be set up in line with your marketing objectives. You can start by figuring out the one most important goal you want to achieve.

You will have more success if you set short-term goals than if you have long-term goals. Also, your goal needs to be achievable, measurable and realistic.

The following examples are perfect goals for a social media marketing funnel:

If you are hosting a webinar, you should target a specific number of registrations before the webinar goes live.
If you are starting a new freelancing business, concentrate on getting a certain number of clients for the first three months of your business.
If you’re looking to grow your YouTube subscriber base, you should focus on getting, say, 100 subscribers per week.

#2: Create Six Blog Posts to Set Up a Funnel That Supports the Customer Journey

The first thing you need to do after identifying your goal is to publish content that helps people move closer to their goal. To achieve this, you need to ensure that your content is tailor-made for your prospects regardless of where they are in the funnel. Create two posts that go with your goal at every stage of the funnel: awareness, trust, and conversion.

Create content that appeals to people at every stage of the funnel.

Stage 1: Create Awareness with your Blog Posts

The best way to create awareness is to create blog posts that show people what you have to offer and make people interact with your brand. Also, if you publish blog posts that give people a solution they can use right away; you’ll win their trust for a long time to come.

Here are some of the example blog posts that work extremely well in this first stage of the buying process:

Best resources post: write short reviews about your best resources and let your audience know.
Product guides: write about gifts, products or services and how they can help your audience.
How-to posts: come up with a problem and present the solution(s) to the problem.
Frequently-asked-questions posts: compile a list of frequently asked questions about a product. For instance, if your website is about dog training, you can compile questions about common dog behaviors and answer then authoritatively and in detail. The post will be a helpful resource for those who are committed to solving the behavioral issues of their dog.

Publishing content that creates brand awareness earns you new followers.

Stage 2: Your Prospects Want to Connect With You

The keyword at this stage is “want.” Marketers believe that you have to work hard to win the loyalty of your audience. However, the more you help people, the more they will be naturally inclined to trust and like you. They will be more willing to find out if you have the solution to their problem. At this stage, more content is required to push a higher priced product.

The following blog post ideas are great for building loyalty and trust:

Publish case studies of real customers: Share the experience of a customer that your audience can relate well with.
Exclusive interviews: interview an influencer or expert in your niche on topics that are of high interest to your readers.
Share stories that motivate and inspire: if you have a personal story that can inspire your readers, do not hesitate to share it.
Get readers’ opinions: allow your audience to share their point of view on an important issue in a conversational way.
Research breakdown: conduct expert analysis on several research studies about an industry-specific trend. Or help your readers simplify a report in your industry, so your audience can better understand how they are affected by the information. For example, Go Daddy provides web hosting services in Australia. An expert interview on factors to consider before choosing a hosting company for your website is perfect for an audience that’s looking to set up a website for their business.

Expert interviews are a great way to solve specific needs of your prospect and build trust.

Stage 3: You Now Have Warm Prospects That Are Ready to Build a Stronger Relationship

When engaging in conversations, you don’t necessarily have to push for the sale right away. You might persuade the readers to subscribe to your mailing list so that you can send them follow-up emails. However, don’t ever refuse an opportunity to include sales messages in your blog posts.

Remember you are in business to make sales. It’s important to let your prospects know what you can offer them and why your product is the best option for them. 80% of your marketing efforts should be focused on relationship building, while the remaining 20% can focus on converting them into paying customers.

These three types of blog post are great for conversions:

Call to action posts: run a contest that propels your readers into taking action. You can get your readers to participate in an informal challenge, aimed at fostering a sense of community.
Organise a giveaway/competition: promote a service or product by allowing your readers to participate in a giveaway/competition by submitting a maximum of 25 words about a specific product.
New product or service launch: publish a new blog post that talks about the launch of a new product, explaining how your customers will benefit from the product. For instance, if the product is a keyword research tool, you can walk the readers through how to use the tool to find low-competition keywords that can help them take their SEO campaign to the next level.

You can write a blog post about a service or product and use it to convert more prospects into paying customers.

#3: Repurpose Existing Posts and Use Them for Social Media Marketing

Take the six blog posts you published earlier and break them into smaller pieces that can be posted on social media. Use videos, graphics or infographics to support the content you post.

These blog post ideas might be perfect examples for the launch of new keyword research software:

How to come up with a perfect keyword research strategy within 5 minutes (how-to)
Ten tools for analysing keyword competition (tool roundup)
How an affiliate made $5k in 2 months from a tiny niche website (customer case study)
Why I left every other thing to concentrate on setting up an SEO agency (inspirational story)
Set up your keyword research calendar in 5 days – be a part of the challenge (using a challenge to call readers to action)
Small beginnings: Our keyword research experiment takes off (product launch)

After publishing those blog posts, it’s easy for you to repurpose them for use on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on.

You can break the each of the above blog posts into small pieces and turn them into social media post such as the following:

How to come up with a perfect keyword research strategy within 5 minutes: short video presentation, Infographic, SlideShare, short Instagram videos to demonstrate five steps of the process
Ten tools for analysing keyword competition: short, shareable tips for Twitter and Facebook, Instagram image post
How an affiliate made $5k in 2 months from a tiny niche website: segmented Instagram story posted at different times in a day, quote graphics, Video testimonial
Why I left every other thing to concentrate on setting up an SEO agency: graphics containing inspirational quotes, inside-look videos
Set up your keyword research calendar in 5 days – be a part of the challenge: Facebook group for participants of the challenge, live video Q&A every day until the challenge is over
Small beginnings: Our keyword research experiment takes off: an inside-look video demonstration of how the product works, Infographics highlighting the benefits of the product, conversion ad with a call to action message/message to purchase the product

You can reuse one blog post across several social media channels.

Notice how you can take a single blog post and repurpose it in several ways. If you are promoting a software product in a blog post, you can create a YouTube video that walks people through how to install and use the software.

Giving your prospects the right amount of content

It may take a longer time to convert prospects into paying customers, especially if you are pushing a higher priced product. In that case, the lead needs to be nurtured for a longer period. The ability of your prospects to tolerate information will determine how long they will stay in your marketing funnel before they decide to make a purchase.

For example, you may only require three pieces of content spread over a week to sell a lower-priced item like a gadget or book. On the other hand, you may require about six pieces of content and a longer lead time to sell a higher-priced product like a private jet or a luxury wristwatch.

Conclusion

It is not enough to create a social media marketing funnel. You have to regularly come up with relevant and targeted content for both your social media channels and your blog. Also, you can easily take any of your existing blog posts and repurpose them for your social media marketing.

Don’t forget that your prospects will always be at different stages of the buying cycle and you need to ensure that your content appeals to everyone. You also need to adjust the amount of content you post based on how well you know the customers and the product.

What are your thoughts? Do you have a social media marketing funnel incorporated into your overall marketing plan? Do you repurpose your content for your social media channels? Please let’s know your tips and thoughts in the comment section.

Need help with your social media marketing and content writing?

If social media seems like too much hard work, but you know that you need to communicate regularly with your customers using these channels, why not contact us today to discuss how we can help you design, write, schedule and promote your social media posts to help you communicate with your customers and stand out from the crowd.