How to Squeeze More Juice from Your Speaking Engagement Beyond the Actual Event

As popular as search, social media and other online marketing channels have become, there’s no substitute for face-to-face interaction. That’s why so many professionals relish speaking engagement opportunities.

According to the 2016 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America report, 75 percent of marketers say in-person events are an effective content marketing tactic, making it the highest rated tactic for six straight years.

In the B2C report , in-person events (67 percent) were in a virtual tie for the most effective content marketing tactic with e-newsletters (67 percent), illustrations/photos (66 percent) and social media content (66 percent).

Speaking engagements could involve leading a workshop for the local chamber, delivering a seminar for a professional organization, giving a presentation at an industry conference or trade show, or revealing the findings of a research study. These events offer a phenomenal opportunity to establish yourself as an authority in your field and develop valuable – and profitable – relationships.

After a speaking engagement, you can follow up with attendees with targeted messaging and surveys to keep them engaged and interested. There are plenty of ways to gauge interest, monitor social media mentions and track online activity.

But what about the actual content from your speaking engagement? What happens to that content after the event? The content you spent days or even weeks developing?

Ideally, you would be invited to deliver the same message to a different group. But in many cases, speaking engagements are a one-and-done proposition. Either the content has a limited shelf life, or you just don’t get another opportunity to present it.

People often talk about repurposing blogs, website content, social media posts and other content. But I wonder why more people don’t repurpose the content from their speaking engagements.

Turn a presentation into a white paper or e-book. Turn your workshop into a series of newsletter articles or blog posts. Incorporate video clips from the original presentation.

Create a download that requires people to submit their contact information in a registration form. Give the content a permanent home on your website and optimize it for search.

You’ve already done the heavy lifting. Once the speaking engagement is done, you just have to repackage the content you already have into a different format, or hire someone to do it for you.

After you’ve repurposed the content from your speaking engagement, share it via email and social media. Use a phrase like “just in case you missed it” to tweak people’s instinctive fear of missing out. Ask people who attended the event to share your content with a testimonial to boost visibility and engagement.

The question-and-answer session at the end of a workshop or seminar is often the most valuable and interesting portion of the event. Even if you nailed your presentation, the discussion that follows provides insights into how the information was absorbed and what questions still linger.

Repurposing the Q&A from your speaking engagement allows you to continue the discussion that always seems to be cut short. It allows you to answer each question in detail, including those that were submitted but not answered during the event due to time constraints.

The Q&A not only gives you more content to repurpose, but it can serve as the foundation and inspiration for a new phase in your content marketing strategy. It could even help you land your next speaking gig.

Speaking engagements require too much work to allow them to fizzle after the actual event. You can build on that momentum and squeeze more juice from those engagements if you repurpose the content into a format that makes sense for your audience.

Repurpose it, share it, and extract as much value from it as you can.