Teach an old dog new tricks: Why charities should be repurposing their content

How to repurpose the content

Now that suitable content has been identified, charity marketing teams should think about how to revamp the format and content. Here are some simple tips and tricks on how to repurpose charity materials:

1. Evergreen content goes everywhere

Hootsuite, the social media platform manager says that evergreen content is “your golden goose – it’s content that just keeps giving.”

Hootsuite recommends using evergreen content across all marketing channels, not just the original one. Repurposing the content into an email series, checklist, case study, or slide deck are just a few examples of how evergreen content can be reused and shared again.

2. Reusing materials for social media

Increase audience reach while minimising budgets by reusing campaign and stock images. Old images can form the background of new social media posts.

Graphic design and editing tools can help charities repost edited images with new messages.

Older content can also be included in digital reach strategies. Reposting content with leading questions, quizzes, updated factoids, and new charity experiences can drum up new interest from supporters. To revive previous events, charity digital leaders can also ask audiences to repost their own experiences to add to existing content. This will also help increase sustained engagement.

3. Creating new from old

Repurposing older content for digital inclusion also works well. Digital CRM experts Hubspot recommend turning popular blog posts into webinars, videos, and podcasts. By shifting to new formats, content can be made more accessible and increase audience reach. Remember, when repurposing content for digital inclusion, accessibility tags and text should be added.

4. Thematic throwbacks and recaps

Looking through archives with nostalgia can bring new purpose to older content. Throwback Thursdays or #TBT is a popular social media trend across all platforms.

Charities too can repost older content and invite audiences to comment and recall good times. Similar to #TBT, charities can use reuse content by adding updates to older topics or themes.

Charities should leverage previous success stories

When going through the archives, make sure to revisit successful campaigns from the past.

When designing #GivingTuesday charity campaigns, TinyTickers, the UK charity dedicated to helping babies with heart conditions, repurposed content across their 2018 and 2019 campaigns.

In 2018, the small charity set a modest goal of £725 for a machine to be placed in a hospital. Using the #GivingTuesday and the charity’s own Test for Tommy campaigns, they raised £3,085 – four times more than expected. Repeating the successful campaign from the previous year, the 2019 campaign launched again under the same #GivingTuesday banner with messages of successful from the 2018 campaign. The 2019 campaign raised three times more than expected.

“Our small charity budget was £0 so we had no money to spend on this, so we decided to set up a Facebook fundraiser and use our text donation platform and our online donation platform and see what we could do.”

- Jon Arnold - CEO of Tiny Tickers

This is the appeal of repurposing successful content. It allows small charities to build on what has worked, stretching a small budget over multiple campaigns.