Between coming up with topics, coordinating with guests, and dealing with the inevitable last-minute tech issues, webinars are resource-intensive. You're putting too much effort into them to let that content sit around and collect dust.
In my five years as a freelance content marketer, I've seen (and helped) companies repurpose their webinar content into all sorts of formats. But when you're so close to the content, it can be hard to see just how far it can go.
Here, I'll share some of the webinar repurposing strategies I've encountered that can get your webinar content in front of more people and make your hard work go a little bit further.
Why you should repurpose webinar content
The thought of adding more work to your to-do list might not make you jump for joy. But the more content you can get from a single webinar, the better your ROI.
"We've seen great engagement with the content we've pulled from our webinars," says Deb Tennen, content marketer at Zapier. "Instead of a one-time event, we now have a few evergreen pieces of content that people keep coming back to."
Here are a few more reasons to repurpose your content:
Everyone learns differently. At least one of your goals for each webinar is likely to teach your audience. Not everyone learns in the same way, though. Some people might like watching a long video to get every little detail, and others may only want to scan text for the highlights. Sharing the same content in different formats maximizes the number of people who it can benefit.
Repurposing saves you time during content creation. Picture this: you sit down at your desk to come up with new content plans. The only problem? You feel like you've written about the same topic about 1,000 times already. Since coming up with new ideas is tough, you can leverage webinars across channels to fill your content calendar without reinventing the wheel.
You increase the impact of the webinar. Aside from educating customers, what are your webinar goals? Do you want to boost brand awareness, increase leads, or make more sales? Getting your webinar content in front of more people makes all of that more likely. Additionally, linking to webinars across your site and content keeps traffic flowing to it long-term.
5 ways to repurpose your webinar content
Now that you're revved and ready to repurpose webinars, let's tackle execution. Below are five ways to breathe new life into your webinars and when to use each tactic.
1. Link related resources on the webinar page
Evergreen or top-of-funnel webinars are perfect candidates for creating hub pages. You can leave the webinar ungated (for maximum SEO potential) and then link to related content below. Think of it as a choose-your-own-content-adventure page.
Zapier's on-demand webinars take this approach, with each ungated recording followed up with related blog posts.
Use this method if you want to increase your website's domain authority, or if your webinar content is serving a top-of-funnel, lead-generating purpose. This turns each webinar into a content discovery point and allows you to test which topic clusters are most popular or profitable.
If you don't have dev resources to build this on your own site, you can use a landing page builder for one-off pages.
2. Include top tips in a blog post
You can turn a "too long, didn't watch" webinar into a roundup blog post with key takeaways or important quotes. Since these posts will all follow a similar format, you can work from a template or standard outline to make it less of a lift.
These recap posts have been a go-to for my clients in the past, and I like to stick to three to five key takeaways per post. If it was a content-heavy webinar, that might mean you can get a whole series of blog posts out of it.
Zapier used this method to repurpose a panel-style webinar about transitioning to remote work. Teams can watch the entire webinar or browse tips and quotes quickly in the blog post.
Since these types of posts can be text-heavy, try creating simple graphics with a few quotes or pulling quotes out as centered and italicized text to stand out from the rest of the content. Make sure your subheaders are descriptive, too, since people might skim the post. And don't forget to embed the webinar recording.
Use this method if you're looking to build up your evergreen blog content library. This strategy can also help you test which format different audience segments prefer.
3. Create a lead magnet
If your webinar is gated, it already acts as a lead magnet. But you can still leverage ungated webinars to find new leads or grow your email list. To do this, turn webinar takeaways into a downloadable guide or offer supporting documents.
After hosting the webinar about transitioning to remote work, Zapier also created a Suddenly Remote Starter Kit eBook to help the same audience, but in a new format.
Use this method if you want to collect leads. Gated supporting content for webinars is also an excellent way to grow your email list, and tagging subscribers based on what they downloaded makes segmentation easier down the road.
4. Cut short clips for cross-channel promotion
Did a guest share an interesting quote? Or did the host offer a summary of top tips? Cutting short clips from a webinar makes it easier to share across channels. You can use basic video editing software to add a catchy headline and subtitles to make it more accessible, then share it on social media or via email.
Nathan Barry regularly does this with podcast clips on Twitter, but you can apply the same idea to your webinar.
Use this method if you want to grow your social media following. Short clips like these are easily shareable, which means you might be able to get some great engagement.
5. Add webinar quotes to new blog posts
As you're thinking of where to repurpose your webinar content, remember that the webinar doesn't have to be the main focus of the new content. If you're working on a new piece of content that's related to a webinar topic, you can pull a few quotes from the discussion to add to the blog post, eBook, or email.
In a recent Litmus post about holiday email marketing, I used a quote from a webinar about the challenges of holiday email planning. Tying these two pieces of content together had two benefits: the blog post got an interesting quote to add to the narrative, and the relevant webinar got a shout-out.
Use this method if you want to add unique perspectives to blog posts—think of it like interviewing an expert, without having to actually do the interview. In fact, every time you host a webinar, I recommend creating a spreadsheet with excellent quotes, grouped by topic. Then you can use it for reference down the road.
Once you've taken your webinar and turned it into multiple different pieces of content, keep an eye on how each piece performs. You'll learn a lot about what resonates with your audience, so you can start to focus your content repurposing efforts on the formats that drive the most value.
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