You probably spend a lot of your time, energy and money creating content. You know the importance of content to drive traffic, market your business, provide value and ultimately to support your business. However, chances are you’re not making the most of your existing content efforts.

Here are a few key strategies to make your content go further.

E-books and Reports

One of the wonderful things about e-books and reports is the sheer size of them. There’s a lot of content packed into a thirty page e-book or report. That thirty page e-book could be repurposed to create:

  • Articles
  • Blog posts
  • Guest blog posts
  • Email messages/autoresponders/business newsletter
  • Social networking posts (imagine the number of Tweets you could pull out of a thirty page e-book!)
  • Lessons for an online course
  • A workbook from the e-book or report, depending on the subject matter.
  • Audio files – Get really creative, read the e-book or report aloud and create audio files. Add screenshots and make it a video series.

Articles and Blog Posts

While articles and blog posts are generally shorter in content, they can still pack a powerful punch. You can use articles and blog posts in almost as many variations and formats as you can repurpose e-books and reports. Here are a few ideas to get your creative thoughts  flowing.

  • Collect articles and/or blog posts that are similar and create a report
  • Collect articles and/or blog posts and create an e-book. Organization is key here. You’ll want to add an introduction and transitions to make the report or e-book flow. However, your organization will be the biggest time expenditure.
  • Pull tips or information out of blog posts or articles and post on social networking sites.
  • Repurpose blog posts or articles for article marketing sites.
  • Collect articles and/or blog posts and create an online course.

Finally, you may have a few pieces of content you are completely unaware of that can be tremendously valuable to you and maximizing your overall content strategy. They include:

Blog And Forum Comments

Your comments are often well thought out and valuable, right? These comments can be used as material for articles and/or blog posts. Don’t let your input go to waste by leaving it to just one site. Reuse it!

Social Networking Interactions

Quite often the material you receive from social networking interactions is ripe for republication. Upon receiving permission from the contributors to your discussion, you can use the material as a blog post or article on your site.

Miscellaneous Downloads

This includes blueprints, worksheets, templates, mindmaps and other miscellaneous content. Your downloads can often be compiled into one large file for added customer value. It’s a great way to add a bonus to a product, launch an opt-in list promotion or simply draw attention to your website. Collect your downloads into one nice package and offer them to your customers.

Before you sit down to implement next month’s content plan, create a content maximizing plan too. Decide in advance all of the many ways you’re going to reuse that content and watch your return on investment grow.