Modular Content Marketing: 5 Steps To Create Reusable Content
With a modular strategy, you can build a flexible and scalable content framework that can evolve and grow along with your business.
In this post, we'll explore what modular content marketing is, why it's important, and how to get started. So let's dive in and see how a modular approach can take your content marketing to the next level!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
What is modular content marketing?
Modular content marketing is the process of breaking down different types of content into individual content blocks (or modules) that can be tested, optimized, and re-purposed into different types of content, in different combinations, on different platforms, and for different purposes.
Think of modular content like Legos. Each block can be plugged into other blocks to create an infinite amount of designs and options.
Or you could think of modular content is like intentionally choosing clothing that can be easily mixed and matched to create hundreds of outfit combinations.
Compare this to having a couple of onesie pajamas, which is how most people create content.
Modular content is not creating one big piece of content, looking for good parts, and pulling those out. It is creating only good parts and rearranging them later for different types of content.
What are content modules?
A content module is a piece of content that answers a question in one minute or less when read out loud.
For example, if you did a video on Vegan Meals: What I Eat In A Day. Then you might break this down into four content modules: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Each one-minute video could stand alone as its own piece of content AND it can be combined and grouped to create other larger pieces of content too.
After doing this type of video enough times you now have a library of video modules or blocks that can be swapped and reordered for different topics like:
5 Vegan Deserts
3 Vegan Breakfast Ideas That Are Gluten Free
7 Quick Vegan Dinners
These small pieces of content can be re-arranged and re-used as needed to create new content.
What is modular content strategy?
A modular content strategy is made up of 4 parts.
It’s written down first. This will become super powerful for SEO as you use it for blogging.
It answers a question and has an engaging hook for each content module.
Each content module can add value and stand-alone. Make sure someone would know what you are talking about, even if this were the only content module they are seeing. For example, don’t write or say, “As I said before...” or use acronyms and jargon that need explanation.
It’s under one minute when spoken out loud and at a conversational pace. This is usually a maximum of around 170 words and it ensures you can use it across social media platforms.
When you have enough content modules you can rearrange them for different types of content in different places.
Each content module is used as a social media video, a section in a blog, a point in a long-from YouTube video(s), and/or a minute of a podcast.
What are the benefits of modular content marketing?
Since modular content is made up of content blocks, AKA modules, you can:
Reuse content to make new content for years to come. After you have created enough modules, you can optimize and assemble modules together to complete new content.
Streamline your content development. Modular content marketing’s four rules allow you to give writers and creators clear brand consistency when making new forms of content. This template makes sure you are creating the right content for the right customer experience without the bottlenecks.
Improve your reach. Different content platforms require channel-specific content elements. However, if you create modular content it is much easier to do omnichannel marketing across a variety of platforms without creating anything new.
Answering Questions With Modular Content
People discover brands every day because they answer questions well. The more questions you can answer for your buyer persona, the more times they will come into contact with your brand.
Modular content allows you to answer specific questions with relevant content where you need them throughout your website instead of giving someone one giant video or blog post to sort through.
If there is a section dedicated to your customer’s questions, they will feel more qualified that you are giving them the right answer.
This creates a flywheel and speeds up the content creation process.
After you have enough digital content, you don’t have to always create content, sometimes you can just rearrange the content you already have.
This modular content approach creates a personalized content workflow for unique digital experiences.
Examples of Modular content
Which example of modular content are you most interested in:
Blogging and Modular Content Marketing in 5 Steps
Here is how to create a modular content keyword-optimized blog post in five steps.
1. Find a key phrase that you want to rank for and that you can rank for based on your website's domain authority
2. Find the top questions related to that key phrase using the "People Also Ask" section on Google search result pages, or Answer The Public.
3. Answer that question in a modular content block using an SEO tool like Clearscope, because this ensures that you're using all the related keywords when answering the question.
4. Make sure that your blog post is well over 1500 words, and that it's on as low a reading level as possible so that it can reach the largest audience.
5. Keep paragraphs three lines or under. Use bullet points, number lists, bolded words, relevant visuals and/or helpful videos at every scroll depth to break up the text.
Blog sections and modular content
The best modular content marketing starts as a section of a blog. Sections help people easily navigate your content and find what they are looking for.
Think of each section as a block or a content module. Search engines also prioritize H1s, H2s, and H3s also known as heading 1, 2, and 3s when looking for SEO keywords.
Sections also organize your content into short specific questions and answers.
H1s are your blog’s title.
H2s are the sections of your blog.
H3s are sub-sections.
If you can answer someone’s question in 170 words or in under a minute when spoken out loud under an H2, do it.
If you will need more examples and/or explanations, create sub-sections under H3s.
But remember, each section should answer at least one question completely.
How to turn your blog into a video script
When taking a modular blog section and turning it into a video for social media and YouTube you’ll only have to do a small bit of adjusting.
You’ll need to add a good hook. You need need to make someone feel some kind of emotion.
“How to turn a blog into a video script” won’t cut it.
Instead, you might say, “This one tactic can cut your content production time down in half.”
It’s benefit-focused and it’s meant to make people stick around. Even if all your info is amazing, if no makes it past the first 3 seconds of your video then it’s a waste.
Amanda Gant | Director Of Marketing at Orbit Media
According to our blogger research it takes over 4 hours to create a blog post up 17% from 2014. Over half of bloggers reported that their biggest challenge was finding time to create and promote content. These numbers are trending upward so it makes sense to take advantage of every piece of content you create. Especially if you’re a small marketing team with limited resources. Creating modular content widens your reach and makes content development more efficient.
Use a teleprompter or take it line-by-line.
When you have a script you actually have to say the words on the script while looking at the lens of the camera.
Here, you have two options.
Use a free teleprompter app on your phone while recording if filming on your phone, or put the teleprompter right next to the lens with text small enough so your eyes won’t track back and forth as you read.
Take it line by line. Look at your script, say one line, and then repeat. I like this approach because it causes jump cuts which can also help keep the viewer more engaged.
Next Level Modular Content Strategies for Blogging
Use modular video at the top of each blog section.
Since each blog section also provided the basis of your video script it makes sense to post them together.
It helps to break up the text and allows people who prefer the option of video over reading, which is a lot of people.
Also, every second that someone spends watching a video on your website counts towards that webpages time on the page. A key metric for Google search algorithms when determining what pages to show in search results.
Basically, if you can keep someone on your page for a long time, Google thinks your page is providing a lot of value, even if they are watching a video rather than reading.
Jumplinks and Modular Content
Jumplinks allows you to create a unique URL that sends someone to a specific spot on a webpage. Most content management systems like WordPress and Squarespace have them.
This allows you to do two things:
Create a table of contents at the top of your webpage to help people quickly navigate around.
Share a link to a specific section of a webpage that is relevant to them.
Both of these strategies are essential in most digital marketing strategies because the best content is usually long-form content, meaning over 1,500 words.
Video and Modular Content Marketing
I created a video on fentanyl for the behavioral healthcare company Sandstone Care that had three parts:
What is fentanyl?
If it’s so deadly, why do dealers use fentanyl?
How do you recover from fentanyl addiction?
Each video part is created within one minute because that is the cap for some social media platforms like YouTube shorts.
I posted each individual video, on Tiktok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, and Linkedin.
Therefore across 3 one minute blocks of content, I generated a total of 49,188 views in 4 weeks with zero paid advertising.
Create re-usable intros and outros
A key difference between YouTube videos and social media videos is that YouTube videos usually have an intro.
Now, the intro and outro should be short, around 15-30 seconds and it should introduce your topic and yourself.
But, you can create intros that can be reused. Think of it like Tubberware, the container is the same, but the content can be swapped out and different.
Record and intro that could apply to multiple videos like:
“In this video, I’m going to explain 3 mind-blowing psychological laws that are gonna change the way you think about the world.”
The psychological laws inside the video and the written title of the video can change, even if the intro and outros are the same.
Elements of a YouTube Video Intros and Outros
A YouTube video intro outro is usually formatted like this:
Intro
Introduce the topic of the video. “In this video, I’m going to explain X,Y, and Z.”
Introduce yourself. “What’s up, I’m Clint and on this channel we do X,Y, and Z.”
Transition. “Let’s get right into it.”
Stay short and to the point because people really don’t care about you until they know that you can help them.
Outro
Use a call to action. What do you want people to do? They will do it, but usually, you have to ask first.
“Hit that subscribe button to get notified when my next video drops.”
“Learn more at SandstoneCare.com or call the number linked up in the description box below.”
How To Find YouTube Video Topics
Before you go writing video scripts or blog posts there is one super important thing you need to do first.
Make sure there is demand for your content.
For YouTube, you can do this for free by typing in your content keywords and seeing the auto-suggest fields underneath.
The first topics are searched more than the bottom topics.
You can also put an underscore sign before or after your keywords for more ideas.
Also, adding a superlative, like:
How to
Best
Worst
Most
into the search field can generate even more specific ideas.
When you choose a topic idea see the view count of the top-ranking videos and check out their profiles.
If all the videos have a solid amount of views regardless of subscriber count and # of videos uploaded this could be a great topic.
If you are just looking for topic ideas this is also a great free tool.
How To Use Tubebuddy For Even Better YouTube Topic Ideas
A next-level topic-generating tool is the YouTube extension Tubebuddy. You can type in a content idea, and get the search volume and competition for that video.
It even gives you a score out of 100 for that video topic.
Newer channels should try to find videos that have a high search volume with lower competition because it will be easier to rank for that content in search.
The Secret to Out-Ranking High-Performing Videos On YouTube
Here is the secret to outranking top-ranking videos on YouTube.
Create a better video.
This doesn’t mean you need fancy equipment either.
Think about doing more.
Be more entertaining, more helpful, or more visually engaging.
Use lower thirds (Those words that appear on screen)
Jump cuts
Sound effects
B-Roll
It all matters.
Like all search engines, YouTube’s main goal is to put the best piece of content in front of a person's question.
You’ll only beat out a top-ranking video if your video is better.
Period.
When you create a great piece of blog or video content you can bet that it will be evergreen, meaning that it will work for years to come.
How To Repurpose A Landscape Video To Vertical Video For Social Media
There is a problem with creating video content that works on TikTok or other vertical social platforms and content that works on horizontal platforms like YouTube.
One is tall and one is wide.
In order to create video content that works well on both, you’ll need to do two things…
1. Shoot with a 4k camera. If you film on a phone, when you crop the video in for vertical it will be blurry. However, I will show you how one creator uses just their phone and this strategy to get millions of views at the end of this post.
2. Shoot far enough away so that you have room to punch in without cutting the figure off.
If you are thinking to yourself, is it worth it to create a video consider this:
People are consuming more and more content on their phones compared to desktop.
Also, Google has even started mobile-first indexing, meaning they measure how a website performs on a phone above how it performs on a desktop when determining which web pages to show in search results.
Vertical videos take up the entire screen on a phone compared to horizontal videos.
Also, having a vertical version of your video allows you to circulate your video on YouTube Short’s algorithm which prioritizes average view duration.
Having a landscape version is better for putting the video on a website and getting into the long-form SEO algorithm that prioritizes title, click-through rate, and average view duration.
How To Use Hashtags For Modular Content Marketing Strategy
Hashtags play a big role in expanding your content reach on social media.
They let platforms know what your content is about.
Log into a platform like Instagram and click the search option to research different hashtags.
What you really need to focus on is hashtag posts and follower count.
If a hashtag like #mentalhealth has millions of followers and posts, your content will get lost in the noise.
If you can use a hashtag like #mentalhealthcheckin that has around 50 thousand posts, you have a much better chance of getting some traction.
Think about hashtags that are within that 25k to 60k range.
Also, if you can find a hashtag specific to your target audience like #mentalhealththerapist in that 25 to 60k range, that's even better.
Don't Let Your Hashtags Go Stale
Maybe you posted a video with some hashtags and it got great results. So logically you thought, "these are my hashtags, I will just use these all the time!"
The problem is that hashtags can go stale. Each social post can have some overlapping hashtags sure, but they should also have content-specific hashtags.
For example, this content has the hashtag, #socialmediahacks, because it is a hack for social media with around 60 thousand posts.
I won’t use #webdesigntips, because it's not relevant to this particular piece of content even though I do have tons of web design tips elsewhere.
Next Level Modular Content Strategies For Video
Use data to create long-form content.
If you post video content modules on social media platforms first, you can see which content people are most interested in.
Then, when creating long-form content you can prioritize this content early to keep the average view duration of your video high.
The goal of all long-form videos is to keep the average view duration or AVD at or above 50%
Speed up your content
Occasionally you might write a script that and you go over your one-minute time limit when recording for social platforms like YouTube shorts.
How do you keep all the valuable info you had without cutting stuff out?
A simple way is to speed up your content in the edit. Apart from taking out unneeded gaps where you or swallowing or taking a breath, you can actually speed up the entire clip using a tool like Descript.
Here, you highlight all your content and can speed it up a tenth at a time until you are under the one-minute mark. Most of the time it’s not noticeable at all, and now you can post it everywhere.
Keep your clothing uniform.
It’s best when filming, to shoot a lot of content at one time.
This way you can make the most out of a good hair day. Instead of wasting time swapping an outfit for each video, choose something neutral that won’t be noticeable for different videos.
Usually, a solid color shirt will do.
Or Have a content shirt.
Nas Daily does this with his 35% life shirt that he wears for everything. It’s kinda his thing, and it makes it more difficult to tell when a video is older or newer when he is using modular content.
Speed up the editing process with Descript.
If you script out your content then using a tool like Descript can make editing so much faster.
When recording continues to do a take until for a line until you get it right and how you want it. When editing in Descript you can easily see the last time that line was spoken and delete everything before that.
You can also remove filler words and gaps in your speech with a click of a button too.
Have versions of each modular video without music.
Music is a great way to tie things together, even if you are wearing different clothing, sound a little different, or have different lighting.
Create one version of your modular video with music and one without. This way you can plug a video module into another video and it will blend right in.
Modular Content in Webdesign
Web design has long understood modular content, even though the rest of marketing is slow to catch up.
There are some things that are good to have on every page like a call to action, the steps it takes to do business with you, or a list of your SEO-optimized services.
When you create these content modules, build them once, and can use them on other pages much as you need later on.
Also, the best modular content can be changed in one place, and then it will update every other place on your website where that block is used.
Eventually, this makes web design more like content assembly than actual design.
And if your like, wait, won’t have the same content on different pages give me a penalty in Google for duplicate content. That is a myth, there is no such thing, so duplicate on.
Modular Content For Podcasting
Social Media videos are usually one minute or under.
You can combine these one-minute videos to make YouTube videos which are usually around 3 minutes or longer.
You can combine themed YouTube videos into podcasts which are usually 20 minutes or longer.
If you create modular content, all you have to do is group and stack content around different topics to make longer and bigger pieces of content just like you would stack blocks.
Combine and export the sound from your videos.
Using a tool like Descript you can combine multiple YouTube videos quickly and export the audio to upload to your podcast platform.
The process is as simple as copying and pasting text from different google documents into one new document.
You may need to record a new intro and outro to introduce the topic of the podcast and close it out, but that should only take a couple of minutes.
Why You Shouldn’t Convert Your Podcast Or Video Into A Blog
Modular Content For Graphic Design
For many types of marketing collateral (stuff that is printed out), there will be overlapping content. You might need:
A QR code
Your phone number and email with your company’s logo
A picture of your physical location and contains your address
A section where you describe the specific details of your thing
A section where you explain the steps it takes to do business with you
A section that describes what your company does in simple language
All of these blocks can be considered content modules, and they can be standardized so that when you open a new location, the only thing you are swapping is specific content and pictures.
This also helps to ensure your branding is uniform and that there is a clear process to follow when making something new, that doesn’t require a graphic designer.
FAQs And Tools
What tools do you need for the modular content marketing strategy?
Descript (To add subtitles and do quick editing. This is also a really easy tool to onboard someone onto even if they have zero video editing experience)
WeVideo or other Video Editing Software (To edit this video, add b-roll, and add music. This video editor can’t do everything but it drastically reduces the time-to-market of the content reuse and digital transformation process.)
Tubebuddy (To find my YouTube Video Topic)
Squarespace (To build my website and for digital asset management)
Clearscope (To write this blog post)
Canva (To create graphics for YouTube thumbnails and blog posts)
Vyond (To create video animations and gifs)
Screenflow (For highlighting screenshots and screen shares)
How big a marketing team do you need to pull of modular content marketing?
You’ll need someone who can write, someone who can film videos and someone who can edit videos.
There are services like Dingus Digital that can use your blog as a script and take care of the entire video process from start to finish, and there are services that can write your blog for you too.
Depending on your content operations budget you may need to outsource one or two steps to different vendors.
What industries use modular content marketing now?
Pharma marketing, life sciences, and other healthcare providers are probably the biggest players in this space currently.
Because of the regulatory laws around new prescription drugs, modular content helps these companies get pre-approved content for stakeholders in the form of whitepapers or videos super fast.