The dictionary definition of “repurpose” ought to be illustrated with Sandra Fathi’s photograph.
Founder and president of the New York City PR firm Affect, Fathi makes sure the content her team develops for clients will be both interesting and flexible enough to drive engagement in many formats and channels.
“At the core of it is having something of value — to your readers, to your prospects, to your clients — and delivering it in a way that they’re going want to consume that information,” said Fathi, who worked as a tech journalist and marketing executive before starting Affect in 2002.
In an interview with Critical Thinking, Fathi talked about the fundamentals of content marketing and urged PR pros to carefully balance their clients’ messaging goals against the topics that key audiences find the most interesting. Once content is created, flog it.
“We really want to extract the maximum value out of the work that you’ve done,” said Fathi, adding that a survey can easily be repurposed as an executive summary, bylined article, infographic, Powerpoint presentation, blog post and webinar, among other formats.
Fathi urged those embarking on a content marketing program to start with measurement, getting buy-in from client CEOs on what KPIs – key performance indicators – they deem as most important. Examples she provided included tracking the number of new customers or people attending and event, or web stats, like site traffic or downloads.
“The measurement or the success is not just based on producing the content. That’s your action but that’s not the outcome,” she said.
