Writing this blog post is taking me time.

Time I could use to do other things. I could be working on one of the presentations I have coming up this month. I could be working on our upcoming mobile app. I could be putting together our next marketing email.

But I’m not. I’m writing this blog post.

On average it takes me about an hour to write a good blog post. I often have to spend at least 20 minutes researching, to bring you data points to support what I am writing. I have to type the post—even when I’m not at my most inspired. Then I have to put everything into our blog system, add some images, and make sure everything is set up correctly for SEO.

It all takes time.

It’s a lot of time for one blog post. So is it worth it for a local business? I believe the answer is “yes” but only if your reuse your blog content.

A blog is a great place to start your local business marketing. But it should not be the place where your content marketing ends. If it is then that hour invested per post may well be too much.

The key to content development is: Create your material once and use it many ways. Here are some ways you can start with a blog post and end up with so much more:

• Turn your blog posts into e-newsletters: a great way to create an e-newsletter is to use the introduction from 3-4 of your blog posts as the content of the e-newsletter and then link your “read more” on each “article” to your blog posts. This way you create an e-newsletter with minimal, or no, new writing.
• Turn your blog posts into ebooks: once you’ve written a couple of dozen blog posts you have the foundation for an ebook. Write an outline for your ebook; take your existing blog posts as your initial content; and then fill in the gaps. This makes ebook development far less overwhelming.
• Turn your blog posts into social media posts: post links to your blog posts on your preferred social media sites. Link back to your blog. It will give you more to say on your social media pages and drive traffic to your blog.

• Turn your blog posts into videos: use the concepts in your blog posts to create an outline video script. Shoot the video yourself or hire a professional.
• Turn your blog posts into slide shows: use your blog content to create an outline; turn your outline into visuals and you will soon have a slideshow you can post to Slideshare.
• Turn your blog posts into talks: turn your blog content into the outline for a presentation you can give in-person or on a webinar.
• Turn your blog posts into a book: do enough blogging and it’s quite possible to use your blog posts as the basis of a “real” book. You can self publish as needed.

By creating these different formats of content you can: (i) Reach different people—different people consume different media,, and (ii) Build up your credibility as an expert in your field—“look at this fellow he’s got a blog, an ebook and a webinar on the subject. He really must be an expert.”

All this content can help you drive not only awareness and credibility but also actual leads and customers for your business. Different types of content can be designed to fit into different stages of the buying process from creating visitors, to generating leads to email marketing to nurture leads into paying customers.

If you’d like to understand how content fits into each part of a content marketing process download our free ebook below. (Oh yes, a fair bit of the content in this ebook previously appeared here as blog posts but it’s still worth reading.)