How to Repurpose a Whitepaper

Whitepapers are vital to your marketing strategy. While the information in whitepapers is a content asset, oftentimes it ends up in the background of additional blog posts, social media pages, and website copy. This is why it’s not only important but invaluable to learn how to repurpose a whitepaper.

Repurposing your whitepapers is a great way to take advantage of the content within these reports. Through content repurposing, you can generate content across your social media accounts and website to ultimately increase traffic, leads, and conversions.

Benefits of repurposing whitepaper content

Effective business writing stems from repurposing content. B2B marketers can improve their content marketing strategy by using whitepapers as the basis for repurposed content.

What does it mean to repurpose content?

Repurposing content turns existing content into new content. The goal of repurposing content is to generate content creation by reformatting posts, articles, and videos for different social platforms.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to content repurposing. For example, you can use an old blog article to create an infographic or video. Likewise, you can turn a vlog into a podcast series or an in-depth blog post.

What type of content is in a whitepaper?

The content in a whitepaper is educational and persuasive. Rather than pitching a product or sale, whitepapers present a solution to an industry problem.

In general, a whitepaper contains an abstract, methodology, and key data findings. As informative and in-depth pieces of content, whitepapers are typically longer in length, ranging from six to eight pages. As a result, whitepapers are a content asset for your B2B marketing strategy.

Why should you repurpose whitepaper content?

Whitepapers are packed with relevant content and metrics. Therefore, they’re a great source of information and inspiration when repurposing content.

Marketers that use whitepaper content to generate new content optimize their marketing strategy. By repurposing content, you can achieve different marketing goals with the same piece of content. For instance, while the information in your whitepaper generates leads, the same statistics can be used in a blog post to drive website traffic.

Repurposing whitepapers can also save your marketing team time. Instead of developing new content creation ideas, your marketing team can pull research from a recent whitepaper to generate engaging content in the form of blog posts or infographics.

Additionally, repurposing content can help improve your SEO. Repurposing content across social channels increases your online presence. The more content you publish online, the more visible your brand is to search engines.

Types of content to create from a whitepaper

Developing new content from whitepapers is a great way to improve your content marketing strategy. By reviewing different whitepaper examples, you can generate multiple content formats that drive leads, traffic, and conversions.

How do whitepapers differ from writing other types of content?

The tone and style are the main difference between whitepapers and other types of marketing content. With whitepapers, the tone should be professional and explanatory. This is different from the casual style often used when writing a blog article, social media post, or website copy.

Because whitepapers often contain an executive summary and methods section, they are often confused with case studies. However, case studies are long-form testimonials. The tone and style of a case study is generally less academic than a whitepaper.

Marketers often think of a whitepaper in terms of a persuasive essay. The goal of a whitepaper is not to sell a product. Instead, it’s to persuade the reader of a certain argument based on a set of facts. As a result, whitepapers are long-form content that inform the reader of an industry product, solution, or service.

What types of writing can whitepaper content be repurposed into most easily?

In general, whitepaper content is easily transferable into a series of blog posts or an infographic. Because whitepapers contain industry statistics, they best fit content forms that highlight data points.

When repurposing whitepaper content, consider ways to turn key findings into easy-to-read formats. While whitepapers are loaded with valuable information, they’re not the best way for the average, on-the-go reader to obtain information. As a result, breaking down your whitepaper into more accessible pieces can help expand your reach.

Visuals are a great way to break down your whitepaper content. Long blocks of text can be overwhelming for readers. Images and videos, on the other hand, help engage viewers and summarize important information.

In fact, Facebook posts containing images perform 2.3 times better than those without images. Consider creating a branded graphic of a main statistic from your whitepaper to post across social media channels. Turning a statistic into an image is a simple way to highlight a key fact from your whitepaper content.

How can you use a whitepaper to generate SEO content?

There are two ways you can use a whitepaper to generate SEO content.

First, you can use the whitepaper itself to improve your SEO and ranking. By formatting your whitepaper for SEO, you can increase your whitepaper’s visibility and ranking. This can drive web traffic, which also improves SEO.

To format your whitepaper for SEO, start by creating a title that is concise and informative. Search engines use your title to find and rank your content. As a result, it’s important to follow SEO practices when writing your title.

Metrics also help improve SEO rankings. Fortunately, with whitepapers, recent and relevant statistics are often a main part of the content. Incorporating data points in your whitepaper is a great way to write for SEO.

The second way you can use your whitepaper to generate SEO content is through repurposing. Consider the target audience for your whitepaper. In general, whitepapers are curated toward marketers and industry experts.

Most of your customers and site viewers aren’t going to read an entire whitepaper. Thus, it’s a good idea to repurpose whitepapers into new SEO content that appeals to a different audience base. For example, you can generate multiple Facebook and Instagram posts from the content in your whitepaper.

Generating whitepaper content across social channels can help improve your SEO and content marketing strategy by expanding your reach.

Where to use your repurposed whitepaper content

With numerous social channels and business hosting sites, there are infinite options when it comes to publishing repurposed content. However, each site offers different content marketing strategies. As a result, be sure to identify your marketing objectives before deciding where to place your repurposed whitepaper content.

What are the different places repurposed whitepaper content can go?

Whitepaper content can go across social channels. Posting whitepaper content on your social media accounts, blog, and website is a great marketing tool for boosting engagement and traffic.

Marketers can also post industry statistics from their whitepapers on their landing page to drive lead generation.

Posting whitepaper content on LinkedIn is another common B2B marketing strategy that can help improve your content marketing strategy. Because LinkedIn is a social platform predominantly used by business leaders and industry experts, whitepaper content is easily transferrable into LinkedIn posts.

Lastly, SlideShare is another destination for your repurposed whitepaper content. Transfer your whitepaper content into a PowerPoint or video. By creating a presentation with visuals and smaller blocks of texts, you can essentially post an interactive whitepaper on SlideShare.

How do you know where it would be best for your business to place whitepaper content?

The best place for your whitepaper content depends on your business and its target audience. For effective content repurposing, you need to post on social platforms that your target demographic actively uses. For example, if your company’s target demographic has a large Instagram presence, then consider repurposing statistics from your whitepaper into a series of Instagram stories.

On the other hand, if your target demographic prefers long-form content, consider creating multiple blog posts that cover the topics from your whitepaper.

Different social channels have online resources for measuring post activity and user demographics. For instance, Instagram and Twitter have their own analytics tools you can use to collect performance and engagement metrics. Gathering this information will help you create repurposed content that most appeals to your target audience.

Where will repurposing whitepaper content yield the most benefits?

Your marketing goals will ultimately indicate the most beneficial location for your repurposed whitepaper content.

For example, if your marketing objective is to increase your reach, then you’ll want to post repurposed content across your social media accounts. This will help expand your online presence and increase brand awareness to new users.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to generate leads, repurposing whitepaper content in the form of educational resources, such as ebooks or webinars, can help encourage new customers.

Finally, if your marketing objectives are focused on the end of the buyer’s journey, then long-form content on your company’s website can help generate sales. Repurposing your whitepaper content into case studies is a great way to provide customers with product and service reviews that encourage them through the sales funnel.

Examples of repurposed whitepapers

Now more than ever, content plays a vital role in your marketing strategy. In fact, 95 percent of B2B service and product customers say content helps them trust a business.

As a result, content is a key factor in helping potential buyers purchase your product. Understanding the components to successful content can help you effectively repurpose your whitepapers.

How have companies repurposed whitepapers successfully in the past?

In general, companies have repurposed whitepaper content for a variety of different platforms. For example, blog posts and press releases are often created from whitepapers. By pulling key facts from a whitepaper, you can write a short blog post or press release that generates clicks.

Twitter is another platform companies often use when repurposing whitepaper content. Because Twitter is a popular site for journalists and thought leaders, tweeting statistics from your whitepaper can help your whitepaper gain attention.

Review Twitter writing tips and tweet an impactful data point from your whitepaper content. When Twitter users scroll past and see your tweet, they will be more likely to read your whitepaper and source information from it.

What are good examples of repurposed whitepaper content?

There are multiple online resources that offer great examples of whitepaper content. LinkedIn has marketing webinars that offer tips for writing whitepapers as well as a library of repurposed whitepaper content.

If you’re looking to repurpose your whitepaper into an infographic, Canva has template examples you can use for inspiration.

Finally, visit your competitor’s website, social media pages, and blog. See how they’re updating and repurposing their content. This is an easy way for you to keep up with your competitors and publish content that is fresh.

How can you get started with repurposing whitepaper content?

First, outline your marketing goals. Determining whether you want to increase clicks, brand awareness, or sales will help you repurpose content to achieve your desired marketing objective.

Next, read through your whitepaper and highlight the most important information. Then, create a list of the different social platforms and sites for posting your repurposed content. Identifying where you want to post will help you create content that best fits each platform.

From there, you will have a clear foundation of your marketing strategy before you begin the content creation process.

Repurposing whitepapers with Elite

Whitepapers are a content asset with a great ROI. Packed with industry updates and statistics, whitepapers offer endless opportunities for content creation. By continually repurposing your whitepapers, you can achieve different marketing goals.

Don’t let great content go to waste! At Elite Editing, we have professional content creators and editors who can develop and repurpose your content. Explore our writing and editing services to learn how you can improve your content marketing strategy.