Your Best Content is Actually in Your Archives

Can I tell you a secret about my success, and about my business growth?

I make good money helping clients repurpose content that they have already created…but usually, forgotten about.

That’s correct – I’m a marketer and copywriter who has built a multiple six figure “done for you” service business by digging into the archives, mining the forgotten gems, and spending MORE time on amplification and LESS time on creation.

Back in 2017, I published an ebook called “Make Your Old Content New Again: Six steps to getting more traffic, money and followers by updating your existing posts.”

I sold it for 14.99 and made about $2,500 in sales which at the time made me feel like a BOSS, y’all. Heck, I’d still take $2,500 in sales for a digital product, so yay for past Katy!

All these years later, I still believe that most people are missing out on the opportunities to make their old content new – and to use that content to generate and educate new leads, to make sales, to empower current clients, to create a memorable brand, to niche down and so, so much more.

And I believe it because I’m actively USING these strategies on behalf of my 7-figure founder clients, and taking their old content, activating and amplifying it with new funnels, social media posts, email sequences and more…

…and without exception, this work WORKS.

I pulled out that old ebook this week and you know what? It all still holds up. In fact, I think it may be more important than ever because we’re all fighting the algorithms and trying to get our content in front of the people who have CHOSEN to follow us.

Forget growing – I know how frustrating it can be to work on something new and realize that only 30% of your email subscribers, your Instagram followers, your TikTok followers, your YouTube subscribers, etc. – see your posts.

That means that MOST of the people who have chosen to see your content do NOT.

Plus, think about the time it takes you to write a blog post, produce a video, make a new product, craft an email…

…each one of those items probably has 5-10 absolute GEMS of content that are not included in the headline or description, but stand alone as valuable content.

Write once. Break it out into lots of different nuggets. Take each nugget and make a new format from it. Post. Post again. Post again. And THEN move on.

In my ebook, I shared these six tips for bloggers:

Choose the right content to repurpose.
Edit and optimize.
Consider republishing with a new date. (That one is obviously very specific and technical for bloggers but by the way, I was ahead of my time and now this is a service that many SEO experts not only recommend but SELL!)
Remarket on social media.
Watch your analytics.
Keep going!

Let’s dive into a few of these points in more detail.

FIRST – not every post is going to be worth revisiting. So start by creating a list of your most evergreen posts. These can be blog posts, newsletters or email messages, videos, past trainings, etc.

Topic-wise, these can be tutorials, reviews, recipes, workouts, product roundups, event recaps or just about anything else that doesn’t feel dated.

Create a list of your Top 10 most read posts from all sources.

Google Analytics can be your best friend here, if you’re looking at content from your website. Analytics from your social media platforms will also help you understand what topics are resonating with your audience!

Many of my clients are stunned to find out that their most popular posts are items that they had written years earlier and had since forgotten or stopped marketing.

If these posts are getting traffic without you trying, imagine what will happen if you put a little effort in? And even scarier…if these posts are old and have bad photos, broken links, outdated information or worse, that’s the impression you’ll give new visitors about your site overall.

NEXT – add, delete and update this content. Make sure there are no typos, broken links or funky formatting. Re-shoot or re-edit any photographs or graphics that just aren’t as good as they could be. Optimize for search engines. If you use them, add new affiliate links and/or ad network placements (why not capitalize on the posts that are already getting a lot of traffic?).

AFTER THAT – remarket!!!

The key is to share this updated content as much as — no, more — than new content that you publish.

Let me give you a specific use case. If you have written a weekly newsletter for two years, that’s more than 100 separate messages to your subscribers. But I’m willing to bet that your list has grown significantly in those same two years.

That means that someone who joined your list in Year 2 has had NO exposure to your great, evergreen, original content from Year 1. What a waste!

Why not use that amazing archived content and bring it back to your funnel, or even change the way you send your newsletter? Why not take some of those old messages and create a new email course or sequence that can attract new subscribers and leads and even sell into your product or service?

Another use case. If you post a blog, you probably share it once or twice on social media and maybe send out an email blast. And when you do, I bet you focus on the main headline and takeaway.

But if you went back to that post…I am CERTAIN that you’d find that many if not most of the paragraphs throughout the post, could stand alone as NEW headlines, pushing people to the same blog post.

As a challenge for my clients, I often host a working session with them where I copy a blog post into a Google Document and add a line break after each sentence of the piece. We go through together and eliminate any sentences that are not good headlines or standalone swipe copy.

And we see what’s left. It’s almost always at least a dozen individual messages or hooks, and EACH of those could be recorded as a Reel, a TikTok, sent as an email blast, posted on Twitter, crafted into a carousel of quotable copy…

Do see where I’m going?

Now as I said from the top of this episode, I do this FOR my clients, and it’s part of my fractional CMO and CRO services. My clients invest in me, and I execute this strategy. I use their past work to make them NEW money, and it feels like I’ve somehow cracked the code or even rigged the game.

But the truth is, anyone can do this! And if you’re overwhelmed at the idea of creating NEW content all the time…why not step back and focus on your OLD but GREAT content and repurpose it.

And if you do, let me know how it goes.