The biggest challenge B2B marketers face is producing engaging content. One way to address this challenge is to leverage your press releases and content for additional avenues of communication.
A key component to effective marketing is to create and publish a lot of content and a great way to do this is to leverage published content. For example, you can re-purpose a press release to reshare as a blog, social post, event idea, pitch, webinar, etc. In this article, we will learn some of the best practices to turn a press release as primary content into a blog article. Marketers should always do their best to deliver content in new, interactive ways and channels.
Tips to Turn a Press Release into a Blog Article
Pick the right press release.
Before you re-purpose any content, make sure you are picking the right press release. What does that mean? It means to avoid press releases that are promotional in nature. A customer case study would be a good fit for a blog post. The purpose is to work with interesting content such as survey data and industry trends. The rule of thumb is to work with content that is informative.
Use catchy headlines
If the headline of the press release sounds factual and boring, try changing it into a fun and interesting title. You are basically aiming to entice people to read the article so the more interesting the headline, the more likely someone will read your blog post.
Add lists with key points
Most readers tend to enjoy blog posts that use some sort of a list and one that provides step-by-step instructions.When you are writing your next blog post, add key learnings or takeaways for ease of reading and retaining information. Keep these practices in mind when leveraging your press release.
Format the blog correctly
Press releases use a standard format and have an “about section” at the bottom and use contact information and a location and date of the news. All of this can be removed, as it is not a recommended practice for a blog article.
Take out internal quotes
Most press releases have quotes from your company, often from the CEO or other member of management. These are generally not appropriate for blog articles and should usually be removed. Most of the content in your blog post is considered a quote from your company.
Example of Repurposed Content
To demonstrate, we will write a press release about the CPRS Vancouver PRestige Awards and then turn it into a blog post.
To publish this content as a press release, we would first get a quote about the CPRS Vancouver PRestige Awards, and use a factual headline. Ensure You add the company information, contact names, and dates at the bottom of the news release. We will also answer the five W’s (when, why, what, who and how) in the first paragraph of the release and then reinforce our points in the third and fourth paragraph of the press release. This is a standard format for writing a press release.
To turn this into a blog post, we could interview someone about the PRestige Awards and use that quote /interview in the blog article. As noted above, we will avoid any internal quotes. We can look at the “new categories”list and explain the different categories.
We can rewrite a particular section and turn it into a social media post. For example, we would look at the submission due date, and turn that piece into a social post discussing when the award is due and how long the process takes. You can also create content for each bullet point under the “how to submit an application” section.
Content leverage is using every piece of content in different ways to get the highest return on investment from each piece of content, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
Is there any other way you can think of leveraging a press release? Comment below.
Do you have any questions about re-purposing content? We’re happy to help! Contact us today, and set up a free consultation.