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Build a ‘Content Factory’ With a Tight Budget With Three Steps

by Vitaliya LetnitskayaDecember 15th, 2022

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Many companies have well realized that creating valuable content is an excellent way to acquire new customers and retain them over time. However, creating content takes time and money and any business, especially those operating on a tight budget, has limits to what it can spend on it. The good news is that it is possible to build a content production ‘factory’, even if the team is small and the budget is limited. All the steps you take in content production should be strung together in a clear and thoughtful sequence of actions, a system of interrelated tasks and principles to make quick and effective decisions. This system needs to have specific objectives and measures of performance to determine whether those objectives have been met, just like any other business unit. Keep in mind that the editorial team does not always have to create all the content themselves. become a platform for people to share their knowledge and experience. You can invite others to create content for you. For free.

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Many companies have well realized that creating valuable content is an excellent way to acquire new customers and retain them over time.

However, creating content takes time and money and any business, especially those operating on a tight budget, has limits to what it can spend on it. The good news is that it is possible to build a content production ‘factory’, even if the team is small and the budget is limited.

Build the Contact Production Factory as a System

Building a content 'factory' does not necessarily require a lot of people or a lot of money. The most important thing is to develop a clear content strategy, select a team, create processes that are easy to follow, and help multiply the benefits from editorial and marketing efforts.

The scale of the project does not matter. Maybe you are running a small project where you only need content to improve brand awareness and social media performance, or you are responsible for an entire content department that needs to be hired, managed, trained, monitored, and tracked.

In either case, you are using the same approach to build content production as a business-driven system.

There are two keywords here –– 'system' and 'business-driven'. All the steps you take in content production should be strung together in a clear and thoughtful sequence of actions, a system of interrelated tasks and principles to make quick and effective decisions.

This system needs to have specific objectives and measures of performance to determine whether those objectives have been met, just like any other business unit.

Content cannot and should not live in a vacuum, and an internal editorial or content department is not a group of writers, editors, producers, and other creatives who create art for art's sake. It is a service division that helps a business grow and make money.

Even if you publish magazines, books, or create educational courses or an information service by subscription, content is a product for you and it must be built according to product rules and taking into account business objectives.

It could be arranged like this:

You determine what tasks are facing the business in general and marketing in particular, and which ones you plan to solve with the help of content.

You develop a strategy for getting there.

You turn the strategy into a tactical plan –– taking into account the timing, communication channels, benchmarks, and available resources.

You determine what content you need at each tactical point.

You create a system for the production of fast, efficient, high-quality, and evergreen content.

You assign yourself checkpoints where you check if everything is going well and make changes to the system if necessary.

It is important that the editorial team works closely with the marketing and product teams. This will help to accurately assess the effectiveness and communicate with the audience correctly if the agenda and business objectives change.

Any Content Is Ideally Cross-Platform

Content creation should be waste-free. This means that every large content unit must be highly flexible, evergreen, and versatile in terms of media, formats, and distribution.

In other words, each content unit is created so that it can then be used in different forms across many marketing channels. Ideally, keep this idea in mind at every stage of the content production cycle, starting with planning.

This will make content production technically faster and easier. Therefore, it's a fantastic first step to incorporate this approach into your content strategy.

In this case, you consider each large content unit as a separate project. This means you can rethink the structure of videos or articles so that they can be easily converted into different formats or broken into blocks that can be used in other channels.

For example, live broadcasts and articles are large formats that give you almost endless opportunities to create numerous pieces. So, use this creative tool to get the most out of every content idea you have.

We conduct lectures with MBA professors twice a month for RBC Pro, a content subscription for business leaders.

Each lecture is first presented as a live-stream video with a chat room where attendees can ask questions and offer their thoughts on the subjects being covered.

Then, we add the text transcripts while keeping the video.

The greatest lectures' textual content is also included in the bimonthly magazine, and a QR code with a link to the promotion page on the website is placed there.

Another way we reuse video is to convert it to an audio file and distribute extracts on podcast hosting sites and platforms like Yandex.Music, SoundCloud, ApplePodcast and VKontakte. It's a common practice. For instance, TED Talks do the same since they want their audience to enjoy content on all devices: you can watch TED Talks with an app and listen to TED podcasts.

Repurpose Existing Content

Another way to reduce costs and save time is content repurposing. First of all, you need to understand which content is worth recycling. The data you already have will point you towards high-performing pieces of content to reshape and redistribute.

Go through the library of old blog posts and videos to see which content is high quality and relevant and how you can make it different while keeping the message the same. Add these evergreen pieces to your content repurposing plan.

Keep in mind that it isn’t about copying what you’ve created. It is all about taking a unique angle and repackaging your content with a platform’s unique requirements in mind.

Create text transcripts of your videos. Making transcripts is one of the simplest methods to guarantee that your webinars and videos are equally exposed to everyone. It can also offer an easy-to-read recap of your original content.
Turn video transcripts into blog posts. Transcripts can be used to create blog posts and other text-based content (like checklists, how-to articles, interviews, etc.), which is an advantage. A transcript won't likely require much editing if the original video has a clear structure.
Post snippets of existing video content. Short videos you can use in social media, including Reels and Stories. It’s not only the way to make your content more diverse and ‘digestible’. It helps to deliver it to the popular platforms where your audience already opts to consume content.
Create a playlist. You can take snippets on the same topic from different videos and create a playlist for the website, blog, or YouTube. Last year , a streaming platform with 100+ instructors across 11 categories, introduced its themed playlists with short videos extracted from their original masterclasses.
Make a short e-learning course. You can create a course (long read or email) from the content you’ve already created by adding tests or quizzes.
Make an email newsletter. Pull the information from the blog post or long-form article, break it into easily digestible sections, and add contextually relevant CTAs throughout. This newsletter content then directs readers to the original blog post so you repurpose content for different marketing channels.
Create social media posts. You can also repurpose text-based content and blog posts to make a series of social media posts (text, mini graphics, image cards). Pick one point from the blog post and elaborate on it rather than trying to squeeze everything into one social post.

Later, you can collect links to the best-performing pieces into one post and use them again. Interesting statistics, insightful quotes, and actionable advice can be re-used on all your social platforms. Additionally, they make for an effective carousel, which has quickly become the most engaging type of social content.
Infographics. Highlight steps or takeaways from your blog post, research report, or guide and convert them into an infographic. It enriches original content pieces and can be shareable.
Make audio. This way, content consumers who prefer to listen to your blog content can tune in rather than read through all the text.
Create a template. Cases, instructions, and checklists can be edited and used to create templates.

Implementing the principle of reusing and recycling is a smart approach to marketing. Ideally, every business should focus on both creating a steady stream of new relevant content and repurposing the existing content to grow its online presence and increase audience reach.

Last year, I executed a series of six webinars about leadership with business coaches and other experts for RBC Pro. What we repurposed them into:

Videos. We ‘chopped’ the video into 5-10-20 minute snippets and created themed playlists. We also released short videos in Reels and Stories on all our social media channels.

Email newsletter. We adapted the texts that were published on the website and reused them in an email newsletter. Two months later, we collected the links to the videos and resent them in an email to draw extra attention to the series.

Social media posts. We divided articles into blocks and made posts for social media Facebook, Instagram, Vkontakte, and Telegram. In total, we published 40+ posts (excluding Stories and Reels).

PDF. We extracted the key takeaways and quotes and created PDFs to use them as lead magnets on the website to collect a database of addresses for mailing. So we won’t only repurpose content but also grow our email list.

Book. Finally, we collaborated with a book publisher and created a book compiling mostly the content which we already created from the original webinars.

How to Get the Best Return for Your Efforts

✅ Play with different forms. If you have a large article or an interview, you can easily turn it into a series of How-to articles or a checklist with valuable insights and tips.

Big text-based content isn’t restricted to just blog posts; it also comes in case studies, comprehensive guides, interviews with industry experts or thought leaders, and more.

✅ Diversify content. Keep in mind that not everyone likes text-based content or video content.

Instead of alienating a part of your target audience by creating a specific format, repackage your existing, high-quality pieces into new formats to meet the demand of a broader audience (clients, partners, subscribers, followers, and other stakeholders).

By repurposing content, you only give it a new life, extend the lifespan of your big content pieces, and ensure that all segments of your audience can gain value from the relevant, useful information you have to offer.

✅ Distribute better. Obviously, not everyone will see your content the first time you post. Repurposing it or giving it a different look allows you to achieve greater visibility and reach.

And by cross-linking separate content mediums, you only grow engagement, traffic, brand awareness, and leads.

Invite Others to Create Content for You

The editorial team does not always have to create all the content themselves. Become a platform for people to share their knowledge and experience.

😇 Internal specialists. There are probably employees in the organization who can educate your audience and who are motivated to produce content on their own behalf for either professional or personal reasons.

Such folks frequently lack the encouragement, nudge, and support to start. Offer to assist them. Editors, for instance, can proofread their writing.

If a person has a fear of starting from scratch, you can approach working with him in a different way: create a list of questions, interview him, record the interview, transcribe it, and then edit it to create a comprehensive expert article.

😎 External specialists. Not all professionals are willing to work just for pay. Many experts are happy to share their knowledge for free, especially if you can give them an audience.

The chance to introduce oneself to many people and share their knowledge and experience with others, especially outside of their small professional network and their followers on social media, maybe really motivating.

Some specialists may merely be interested in your project and highlight their connection to it, getting involved.

The key is to be explicit about what you specifically provide in exchange: your audience, your reach, and the available marketing channels.

🥰 Community and users. User-generated-company-distributed content is already a widespread thing. You can start with a community, your most engaged and devoted users who can share their success stories and product use cases which will become UGC.

Some companies like Notion, Readymag, and Figma repurpose CustDev interviews and make product-led articles telling the user’s case with a focus on how their product or service helps them to solve the problem.

One More Thing …

Only content that is closely tied to the product and integrated into the business procedures of the organization is effective. Working simply with outside advertising or SMM agencies makes it challenging to develop such synergy.

If the contractor is not fully involved in the business and only has a basic understanding of the product, no detailed brief will help.

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