Maximizing content ROI with AI

The importance of content repurposingContent repurposing is the key to maximizing your return on investment (ROI) by meeting your audience with content that fits their needs across different formats and channels.Meeting your audience’s needs. Repurposing content is an audience-focused strategy that expands your reach. For example, a customer video can be turned into a written case study, a blog post, social media snippets, and even visual evidence for presentations. Similarly, a whitepaper can be transformed into an infographic, a series of blog posts, social media updates, or even a video or a song! This approach increases the content’s reach and enhances its impact by delivering it in the most effective format for each audience segment.Improving ROI. Repurposing content is a cost-effective strategy that minimizes the need to constantly create new content from scratch. Instead, you can extend the life and value of existing high-quality content by adapting it to different formats. This approach isn’t just about reusing content—it’s about enhancing its value. For example, turning a whitepaper into an infographic or a series of social media posts allows you to extract more value from that initial investment, reducing the need to produce as much new content.Though not comprehensive or applicable to every situation, the table below offers sample asset types and content ideas for repurposing. By fully embracing content repurposing, marketers can make their content work harder, reach a broader audience, and drive better results—all while saving time and money.

ChatGPT and Poe offer users the ability to build custom AI models today—this feature is free for Poe users and requires a paid subscription for ChatGPT users. Google has announced it will offer this feature (called Gems) in Gemini, but as of this writing, it is not available yet.

Custom AI models are ideal for these use cases—they are trained on your data and style, are persistent, and can be “called” from any conversation. If these are unavailable to you, you can follow a similar process each time you want to create a specific type of content (see Appendix for how to repurpose content without custom AI models).

In a perfect world, your AI specialists should be created by, or in collaboration with, the channel experts themselves—for example, the social media expert or team should develop the social media specialists, the web expert or team should create the landing page specialists, and so on. By involving the right people and teams in the creation process, you ensure that the AI is trained with the most relevant best practices and high-quality data, leading to better outcomes. Below is a guide on how to set up your AI specialists, including the necessary training data and example prompts.

There are business-focused AI content marketing solutions, providers like Anyword, Copy.ai, Jasper, and Writer, that deliver these AI specialists out of the box. While they can save time and bring consistency to content, marketers who want more control over the training and output will find it more effective to build these AI specialists on their own.

How to build your AI specialistIn your preferred LLM, navigate to the screen to build your customized AI model. Name it, provide a description, upload the appropriate data (see table below), and prompt with something like the examples below.

These are just a few examples of AI specialists you can create. Marketers should develop an AI specialist for every content type they want to produce, using this format to ensure each piece of content is optimized for its specific purpose and audience.Note: In the above prompts, you should fill in the [TARGET AUDENCE] with as granular or broad personas as make sense. For example, it can be as simple as “an IT security manager” or as detailed as “an IT security manager, working at a Fortune 100 retailer, responsible for securing the retail kiosks.”How to call your AI specialists for text-based contentNow that you’ve built your text-based AI specialists as GPTs, Bots, or Gems, and have selected your non-text-based tools as your media AI specialists, the next step is to effectively use them to repurpose your hero assets into a variety of content formats.Prepare your hero asset: Start by ensuring your hero asset is in its final form. This could be a video, a white paper, a keynote presentation, or any other substantial piece of content that you want to repurpose.Select the appropriate AI specialist: Identify which AI specialist(s) you need based on the type of content you want to create. For example, if you’re turning a white paper into social media posts, call on your Social Media Specialist AI—usually done using the “@” symbol and the name you gave your specialist.Provide context and guidelines: Upload or copy/paste the asset you want to repurpose. Give your AI specialist the necessary context by sharing details about your target audience, the desired tone, and any specific goals for the repurposed content. This ensures that the output aligns with your overall strategy.Generate the content: Run the AI specialist to generate the content. The AI will create the output based on the information you provided and the training data it has received.Review and refine the output: Review the AI-generated content and make any necessary adjustments to refine the messaging or format before finalizing the piece. As a marketer, your most important job is to ensure that the content is accurate, on-brand, and tailored to your audience so do spend some time here.Deploy the content across channels: Once you’re satisfied with the content, deploy it across the relevant channels.Example scenariosTo illustrate this process, here are two examples of how you can use AI specialists to repurpose different types of anchor assets:

By following this general approach, you can effectively repurpose your hero assets into a wide range of content formats, ensuring that your message reaches your audience in the most impactful way possible.How to call your AI specialists for non-text-based content

Watch how to use various AI tools to build derivative content:Create video cut-downsAudio-enable your contentTransform your written content into slidesRepurpose videos into blogs and social posts

Large tech company slashes costs by 87% and time-to-market by 90% with AIA leading tech company relied on agencies to repurpose anchor assets, such as white papers, into various content formats, a process that was both expensive and time-consuming. On average, each project cost $7,000 and took around 3 weeks to complete. The internal team reviewed the content twice: once after receiving the first draft from the agency, and again when the final copy was delivered, requiring 120 minutes of their time per project.Transition to AITo improve efficiency, the company piloted AI as a way to bring content repurposing in-house. Using AI, they transformed a single whitepaper into:12 social media posts (3 paid and 3 organic posts for both Twitter/X and LinkedIn) to promote the white paperA blog post that summarizes the key insights from the white paperLanding page copy to effectively capture leads3-step nurture email campaign designed to engage prospects and drive conversionsContent syndication summary tailored for distribution across partner networksResults87% cost reduction: Monthly AI tool subscription cost is $25/user, compared to $7,000 per agency project.93% faster time-to-market: Content repurposing time was reduced from 3 weeks to just 10 minutes. The internal team spent an additional 90 minutes reviewing and editing the copy. The new assets were ready for market in 1 day.Increased efficiency: The team maintained high performance and creativity with significantly fewer resources.By leveraging AI, the company drastically reduced costs and time-to-market, while gaining greater control and efficiency in their content creation process. The projected time savings over the year, across approximately 200 anchor assets like webinars, white papers, and case studies, is estimated to save the company around $1.4 million.

Generate the content: Use the AI tool to generate the content based on your prompt.Review and refine the output: Review the AI-generated content and make any necessary adjustments to fine-tune the messaging, tone, or structure before finalizing the piece.Deploy the content across channels: Once you’re satisfied with the content, deploy it across the relevant channels.Sample AI tools for content creationWhile this is not a comprehensive list, this table highlights some of the most effective tools available for repurposing different types of content, ensuring that you can find the right AI solution for your specific needs.

To repurpose your content into other formats, such as audio, video, or infographics, use one of the many AI-powered solutions available (see Appendix for sample tools). Each of these tools works differently but generally speaking, they take as input your anchor asset (or a summary of it) and will output the desired media asset.

Maximizing the impact of repurposed contentOnce you’ve repurposed your anchor assets into various content formats, it’s crucial to ensure that this content not only reaches your audience but also drives the desired outcomes. While this guide doesn’t focus on distribution strategies, here are a few key points to consider for maximizing the impact of your repurposed content. Note: Each type of content and platform has its own relevant metrics, so tailor your measurement approach accordingly.Engagement: Look at metrics like likes, shares, comments, and time spent on content to gauge how well your content resonates with your audience.Conversion rates: Monitor how effectively your content drives actions, such as form submissions, downloads, or purchases.Views and reach: Track the number of views or the reach of your content to measure its visibility and potential impact.Repurposing content with AI helps you make your content work harder—amplifying your message across multiple formats and channels with ease. As you deploy your repurposed content, keep an eye on the metrics that matter most to your goals, and continue refining your approach to ensure you’re achieving the best possible results.
AppendixHow to create content without custom AI modelsIf you haven’t created a GPT, bot, or gem, you can still use AI effectively by providing detailed, tailored prompts. The main difference is that you will need to work through this process each time you want to create repurposed assets:Prepare your hero asset: Ensure your hero asset is finalized and ready for repurposing.Select the appropriate AI tool: Choose your preferred AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Poe).Craft a tailored prompt: Here are two sample prompts for a LinkedIn post that you can use, depending on whether you have performance data to provide:

How AI changes the content repurposing processHistorically, content repurposing was handled in one of two ways: by generalists or agencies managing the entire process, or by subject matter experts (SMEs) adapting the content. Both approaches had their benefits, but they also came with certain limitations.Generalists: Jack of all trades, master of none. Many organizations relied on generalists to handle the repurposing of hero assets. These individuals were responsible for adapting content into various formats, from blog posts to social media updates. This approach offered flexibility and efficiency, but often sacrificed depth and precision. Generalists often lack the deep specialization needed to tailor content perfectly for each channel or format. Additionally, they might not be as well-versed in the original content or subject matter, which could lead to misrepresentation or dilution of the anchor asset’s core message. The result was often content that, while serviceable, didn’t fully capture the potential impact of the original material.SMEs: Depth without breadth. On the other hand, some organizations tasked SMEs with repurposing content. These experts had a deep understanding of the original material and subject matter, ensuring that the core message was preserved. However, SMEs might not fully grasp the nuances of different platforms, leading to content that doesn’t perform as well as it could across various channels. While the content maintained its integrity, it sometimes lacked the strategic adjustments needed to thrive in different formats or on different platforms.The AI-driven model: Combining the best of both worldsWith AI, the content repurposing process has evolved dramatically, offering a solution that combines the strengths of both generalists and SMEs while mitigating their weaknesses. Instead of relying on a single generalist or SME, you can now use AI models specialized in specific content types. These AI tools undergo the same general training as others but are further enhanced with high-performing examples specific to their domain. For instance:LinkedIn AI specialist: Imagine an AI trained on thousands of your brand’s LinkedIn posts—both those that have done exceptionally well and those that haven’t. This AI can identify unseen patterns, such as the optimal length, tone, and even timing for posts, allowing it to generate LinkedIn content that’s more likely to resonate with your audience and perform better.Email AI specialist: Similarly, an AI specializing in email content can be trained on emails with high open and click-through rates. By analyzing successful patterns, this AI can generate new email content in a similar style, tailored to your target audience’s preferences.These AI specialists aren’t just tools—they’re valuable colleagues who bring specialized knowledge to the table, allowing you to create content that’s finely tuned to the needs of each platform and preserves the integrity of the original message.Collaborative expertise: AI and SMEs working togetherOne of the most powerful aspects of using AI for content repurposing is how it enables a true collaboration between SMEs and AI specialists. As an SME, you know the ins and outs of your subject matter and anchor asset. You can call on these AI specialists whenever needed to quickly generate multiple options for each type of content. For example, if you need to turn a webinar into a series of LinkedIn posts, a blog, and an email campaign, you can work with the relevant AI specialists to get several drafts in seconds. This rapid generation of high-quality content allows you to create a comprehensive bill of materials with minimal effort and budget.Once these AI partners are set up, they become a reusable resource. While the initial setup requires some work—training the AI on high-performing content and fine-tuning it for your specific needs—once established, the collaboration between an SME and AI specialists is faster, more efficient, and more aligned with the original content’s intent and quality. The result is a streamlined process that enhances your content’s reach and effectiveness without requiring extensive outsourcing or additional resources.Building your AI specialistsTo fully leverage AI in your content repurposing strategy, it’s important to set up AI specialists tailored to specific content types. For text-based content, it is best to use Large Language Models (LLMs) that support custom AI models, which include GPTs in ChatGPT and Bots in Poe. For non-text-based content, there are specialist tools available that can create audio, video, graphics, infographics, and even songs (see Appendix for sample tools).