As a freelancer, your time is precious and everything you create – from your marketing material to your social media posts – can be so time-consuming that you are taken away from what you love the most: providing high-quality services for your customers. Luckily, there is a better way to balance marketing your business and attending to your clients. By repurposing content you’ve already made for educational purposes or promotion, you can not only save time but also create a new stream of passive income.
In this practical guide, we show you 5 easy ways in which you can take existing content and transform it into new products that will delight your current customers and attract a new audience that is eager to learn from you and buy your products. As a wonderful bonus, you will be able to earn extra income without spending time creating new products from scratch.
How Repurposing Content Can Help You Make a Passive Income
Create More Interest in Your Business
Every piece of content you write can help you see what your audience likes and wants to know more from you. You can get a better idea about which of your topics and pieces of content are the most popular with your audience by taking a look at your content analytics. These numbers are only a part of the story when deciding on content popularity but are a great indicator of what your audience enjoys.
For example, if a specific social media post receives a lot of likes and comments, you can use the topic of the post and create a blog article or even an ebook that greatly expands on the subject. Since you already know that your audience members enjoyed the topic, they are highly likely to engage with your more detailed, long-form content that can further teach them about their favorite subject.
You can create a nice passive income from your repurposed content if you then monetize your blog (through affiliate links, ads, sponsors, etc.) or sell your ebook (through self-publishing on a third-party website or your own online shop) on this popular subject.
Build Trust with Your Current Audience
Repurposing content also allows you to show your existing customers that you are listening to them and teaching them subjects they want to learn from you. The more you teach them and provide great value every step of the way, the more they will trust you and hire you for your services. Additionally, your audience is more likely to buy products from you if they like and trust your information, helping you create a nice passive income stream over time.
Enhance Your Authority in Your Field
As you start repurposing your high-quality content and going deeper into your sought-after topics, you will be able to inspire and help many more people. This engagement with your audience places you as a leader in your field, where your peers, customers, and your new audience will give you feedback on how valuable your knowledge is for them and your specific community as a whole.
Once others see that your content is shared by people whom they already trust, they will be more willing to trust you and engage with your business.
Reach A Larger Audience
As you post more repurposed content, more people will see your work and will be able to engage with it. Your current customers can also share your work, introducing you to a much larger audience. The larger your audience, the more chances you will have to show your content, introduce others to your services, and show them your products which they are more likely to purchase from you.
If you would like some ideas on how to repurpose your content to create products people can buy, here are the 4 best examples of digital products you can create for a passive income.
Save Your Precious Time
As a freelancer providing services for your customers, you don’t want to spend all your time promoting yourself and creating new content. Using your existing content, you can save time on thinking about novel topics and developing new content from scratch. You already have a structure to work from, and sometimes there is minimal work you need to do to repurpose your existing content into a new product.
For example, if you are a relationship coach, you can repurpose your social media posts into blog articles very quickly. Or, as an artist, you can take some of your paintings and convert them into digital prints that your audience can purchase from you indefinitely. This way, you can start making extra income while you continue doing what you really love, be it relationship coaching, painting, or creating incredible recipes.
5 Easy Ways to Start Repurposing Content to Create Passive Income
1. Social Media Posts to Blog Articles
As a freelancer, you probably have one or multiple social media channels that you use to attract new customers and engage with your existing audience. The social media content you post is a goldmine when it comes to repurposing content. You can take ideas you started working on in the social media short-form format and expand on them in the blog article long-form format.
The blog articles you create from your social media posts will not only help you gain more authority in your field but will also allow you to reach a new audience through blog SEO optimization. You can monetize this new traffic to your blog for passive income by creating affiliate links and placing ads on each blog post that is relevant to your niche.
2. Blogs to eBooks
So you’ve already written in-depth blogs about topics of your expertise. Because people love to have content they find interesting in one place, you can comprehensively organize your blogs and create an informative ebook that they can buy online.
Since you can create an ebook from blogs that have performed well with your audience, your book is very likely to receive a lot of interest and purchases. You can sell your ebook on a third-party platform such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark or in your own online shop you can create through an app such as Squills and add to your website.
Although it may take you some time initially to put your ebook together, your efforts will pay off in the long run because your ebook will be out in the world available for purchase anytime and anywhere.
3. Videos to Courses
Are you a YouTuber or perhaps you have been creating videos for your audience, posting them on social media and your website? Your video content has an incredible amount of useful information for your audience which you can repurpose to create a whole new online course.
For instance, if you love teaching others how to cook healthy food, you can take a few of the videos with an overarching theme (gluten-free, vegan, oil-free, etc.) and create a course that provides people with instructions and tips on how to cook healthier meals.
You can also include other pieces of your content such as downloadable study materials, blog articles, and worksheets to enhance your students’ learning experience. It is a good idea to form a Facebook group where your students can connect with you and each other so that you can create a community around your courses. The more your students can engage in your courses in a meaningful way, the more likely it is that they will take additional courses and buy your other products, helping you make another stream of passive income.
You can find an audience more quickly if you post your courses on platforms such as Thinkific, Teachable, and Udemy where a lot of people search for interesting courses every day. These platforms do take out a commission for every course you sell but they also do much of the marketing for you. However, it is always best to post your course on your website as well since you own the copyright to your material. This way, you can earn 100% of your asking price and have more control over your branding and marketing.
4. Artwork to Print-on-demand Products
If you are an artist or a creative, you can digitize your artwork (if it isn’t already in digital form) and sell it on print-on-demand websites where you can place it on t-shirts, mugs, notebooks, home decor, and many other objects. If you would rather just offer prints of your artwork, you can do so on different materials such as wood, metal, paper, canvas, and plastic.
The beauty of print-on-demand platforms is that your item is created and shipped by these companies only when someone purchases it. The platforms take a percentage out of the cost of your item to create and ship it as well as to make a profit. However, these websites are highly trafficked and you may be able to sell your items more quickly and frequently.
Some of the best print-on-demand websites include Redbubble, Printify, Art of Where, and Printful and each of them has a different commission scheme so it is important to research which one works best for you. If you would like to make print-on-demand a large part of your passive income, here is a print-on-demand YouTube video guide for beginners that can help you get started.
5. eBooks to Webinars
How do you make your eBook come alive so that a new audience can get to know your work? You can take the chapters of your ebook and create a webinar or a series of webinars where you can introduce people to your work and teach them what you know best. A webinar can be a live, recorded, or pre-recorded online event for which interested people can buy tickets in advance. Webinars not only bring you passive income through ticket sales but also through advertising and selling your products associated with your webinar topic.
Because live webinars are very interactive, people can ask you questions about your work and get to know you personally. This more intimate approach will work to establish a better bond between you and your attendees who are more likely to purchase whatever you are advertising through your webinar, be it your ebook, print-on-demand products, a course, or digital products, creating another source of passive income for you.
If you record your live webinars or you pre-record them without an audience, you can also make them available to view for a fee. You will be able to bring in more passive income but this may not be the best way to create strong bonds with your new audience like you can with live webinars.
How to Run Your Webinar
Once you have settled on the webinar structure and how you want to teach your subject, the next step is to find the best software to run your webinar. Many people use Zoom but there are other excellent alternatives such as Demio and WebinarJam.
Where to Sell Your Webinar
You can sell your recorded or pre-recorded webinars on platforms like Podia (free and paid options) and Yondo (free trial and paid options). As you expand your audience, don’t forget to make your webinars available for purchase on your website.
Takeaway
Life as a freelancer comes with a lot of perks but managing your time and your budget can be more of a challenge than you’ve expected. Fortunately, there is a simple and easy way to save time and create more passive income: repurposing content you already have into new products that your audience will love and buy.
Although new products you make through repurposing your content might require some initial time investment, you will be able to do little to no upkeep once you post your products online to be seen and purchased.
One of the best ways to sell your repurposed content is to create your own online shop and a landing page for the shop on your website. You may have to spend a bit more time marketing and advertising your store and products on social media but you will receive the full revenue from your sales.
One of the best apps for managing your freelancer needs is the Squills freelancer app, which allows you to create an online shop and landing pages for your products and services. In addition, it offers an elegant client portal to streamline all your client interactions. Try Squills out for free today to make your freelancing journey so much more enjoyable!
