All the great content you create for your events can potentially have a shelf life long beyond the conference—if you know how to properly reuse it.

A new report from Omnipress, 2018 State of the Conference Industry [registration], makes the case that many associations are building out their “content ecosystems” so that content goes further.

In a survey of 143 association professionals, 62 percent said they reused content, an increase from 55 percent in the 2017 report. Most of the time, repurposing goes toward promotion of future events (41 percent), learning reinforcement (30 percent), or content marketing (30 percent). Nineteen percent of respondents  said they used the content to drive revenue.

“We are seeing that more associations have figured out how to break down internal silos and build a more effective content ecosystem that will benefit the entire organization,” OmniPress General Manager Jonny Popp said in a news release. “It’s more than simply distributing final handouts and speaker presentations to attendees after an event.”

But successful repurposing isn’t easy. More than half of respondents (56 percent) listed content collection and review among their top content-delivery challenges, with 30 percent saying it’s the biggest one. About half (51 percent) said content changes are a major challenge.

On the other hand, leveraging content at the conference is a top challenge for only 37 percent of respondents, down from 50 percent in the previous survey.

Content challenges differed by department. Monetization is a relatively small challenge overall but one of the biggest issues for communications and executive departments. Managing content changes is a major challenge for conference planners.

And while content repurposing works well for reaching younger audiences, that means a lot more formats to manage.

“There is an interesting dichotomy at play right now,” Omnipress Director of Marketing Tracy Grzybowski said in the news release. “As associations use their content to attract younger members and attendees, they now have to cater to the needs of a very diverse audience, which is presenting a new set of challenges for conference planners.”

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