My kids love Thanksgiving.
Not so much all the grocery shopping, and days of preparation, and the hours of watching the turkey slowly roast in the oven.
And certainly not the smothering hugs and lipstick-stained kisses from Aunt Martha as she makes her grand entrance into our previously-bucolic homestead.
(OK, who am kidding? With three school-aged kids and three dogs, our home is never peaceful.)
No, what my kids really look forward to are the leftovers. I have a mean turkey rice casserole recipe, and my kids beg me to cook it up every day for a week following Thanksgiving. I also make some great turkey croquettes. For some reason, my children seem to enjoy the leftovers much more than the original dishes. You know, the ones that my wife and I sweat over for days preparing.
The key is to change the recipes up a little bit. Use the turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes in new, creative ways. Add some fresh ingredients, like cream of mushroom soup, rice, or egg noodles. Sprinkle a little pizazz into the mix.
Come to think of it, the same approach works well in your content marketing strategy.
(You, Patient Reader, knew this was coming, didn’t you?)
Repurpose your content leftovers
One of the many benefits of developing a regular and consistent content marketing program over the course of months and years is that eventually, you have created a massive library of rich and flavorful articles, white papers, webinars, blog posts, and case studies to draw on.
Once you’ve developed that library of delectable content, it’s simply a matter of defrosting the leftovers, reformulating your recipes, and mixing up all your ingredients until you have something new and delicious.
In practice, this may mean taking the white paper you published last spring and recycling the observations into a webinar featuring a panel of internal and external subject matter experts, making sure to introduce fresh new insights into the mix.
Or it may mean reheating portions of the article you wrote for a leading industry publication into a set of short blog posts.
Another tasty approach to try is leveraging your recent case studies to create a series of short client testimonial posts on LinkedIn.
The possibilities are endless. As we near the end of the year, it’s a great time to revisit all the delicious content you cooked up over the past twelve months. You’ll be surprised how many savory morsels are buried deep in those pages of valuable assets. All they need is a little loving attention and effort to turn them into a cornucopia of mouthwatering delights.
Whatever else you do this holiday season, remember to save your leftovers.
Your kids will thank you.