SBA Consultation Insight
One Blog Post Becomes Five Marketing Assets
A mission-driven business owner dreaded the idea of maintaining a blog. When she understood what a blog actually was, it became the engine that powered everything else.
By Doug Mansfield | President, Mansfield Marketing
Home > SBA Consultations > One Blog Post Becomes Five Marketing Assets
The Homework Problem
I sat with a business owner recently who had built something genuinely different. Her product was common enough, but the way she delivered it was not. The business connected to social causes she cared about. The branding reflected real beliefs, not marketing positioning. Customers found her through Instagram and kept coming back because they felt something when they engaged with her.
She needed visibility. More people needed to know she existed. The obvious answer was a blog.
Her reaction was immediate resistance. A blog sounded like homework. It meant sitting down to write multiple paragraphs about topics that would eventually run dry. After a dozen posts explaining why her product was special, what would she write next?
This reaction is nearly universal. And it comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what a blog is for.
The 80/20 Content Rule
I suggested a different approach. Eight out of ten blog posts should not sell anything.
This sounds counterproductive for a business website. But here is what happens when every post pushes product: readers stop engaging. They recognize the pattern. Every visit feels like walking past a salesperson. Eventually they stop visiting.
Instead, become a curator of useful information for people who share your interests. In her case, that meant:
- Links to organizations working on causes she supported
- Local news about topics her customers cared about
- Shoutouts to complementary businesses that do not compete with her
- Announcements about community events
- Brief thoughts on why these things matter
Two out of ten posts can promote workshops, new products, or special offers. But surrounded by genuinely helpful content, those promotional posts land differently. They feel like updates from someone you know rather than pitches from a stranger.
What a Blog Post Actually Is
I asked her to reconsider what constitutes a blog post.
It does not require multiple paragraphs of polished prose. A blog post can be as simple as a link to a news article with one sentence explaining why it matters. That takes five minutes, maybe ten.
In the first ten minutes of our conversation, she had given me enough material for ten blog posts just by explaining her business and what she believed. The content already existed. She just had not recognized it as content.
The shift in her face was visible when she understood this. The homework assignment became something closer to keeping a public notebook of things she already noticed and cared about.
One Piece of Content, Five Uses
Here is where the strategy becomes powerful.
A blog post on your website is one asset. But that same content can serve multiple purposes without requiring additional creative work.
First, the blog post lives on your website. Fresh content signals to search engines that someone is home. Google rewards active sites with better visibility in search results. This alone makes blogging worthwhile even if no human ever reads the posts directly.
Second, that same blog post becomes a Facebook update. Not by copying and pasting the entire thing, but by sharing a link with a brief introduction. Each blog post generates a social media post automatically.
Third, accumulate four posts over a month, and you have a newsletter. The newsletter does not require separate writing. It simply collects links to recent blog content with a brief summary. People who missed the individual posts get caught up. The newsletter writes itself.
Fourth, the same content works on Instagram. Pull a quote or an image. Reference the full post. Different platform, same underlying material.
Fifth, if you ever establish a LinkedIn presence for corporate clients, the content stream already exists. You are not starting from scratch on each platform. You are distributing the same core ideas through different channels.
The blog becomes the engine that powers everything else.
Why the Website Matters More Than Social Media
She was already active on Instagram and Facebook. She had built genuine relationships there. Why prioritize the website over platforms where she already had traction?
Because social media platforms are rented space. The terms of service can change. The algorithm can shift. The account can be suspended. Everything built there exists at the pleasure of the platform owner.
A website is property you control. The blog posts you write accumulate value over time. Search engines index them. They remain discoverable for years. They establish your presence independent of any single platform's decisions.
Social media amplifies the website. The website anchors everything.
Virtual Workshops as a Revenue Test
She mentioned that customers had asked about virtual workshops. Parents wanted activities for kids at home. Professionals wanted something to do other than stare at screens passively. The in-person experience she offered could potentially translate to an online format.
I suggested committing to a specific number of workshops over a defined period. Not one experiment that might fail and discourage further attempts. A series of six workshops over two months. Enough repetition to refine the format, build awareness, and generate useful data.
The logistics required some setup. A video platform that supported paid registration. A system for shipping or local pickup of supplies. Pricing that at least covered costs.
But more importantly, the workshops themselves become marketing material. One recorded workshop generates multiple blog posts. Screenshots of participants enjoying the experience. Highlights from the teaching content. Testimonials from attendees.
The first few workshops might break even or lose money. That is acceptable if they generate assets that promote future workshops and the business overall.
Authenticity as Differentiation
Her products were connected to social causes she genuinely cared about. Some of her items carried messaging about current issues. She wondered whether expressing those beliefs publicly was smart business.
I told her what I tell everyone who asks this question: if it comes from a place of sincerity, share it.
The danger is when businesses jump on social movements opportunistically. Everyone recognizes that. The eye-roll is automatic when a large corporation suddenly cares about whatever cause is trending.
But when the beliefs are genuine and predate any business calculation, they become differentiation. Customers who share those values feel a connection that commodity products cannot replicate. Customers who disagree were unlikely to become loyal buyers anyway.
There are plenty of places to buy what she sells. Only one of them comes with her particular combination of beliefs, personality, and approach. That uniqueness is the competitive advantage.
Stock Photos Versus Real Photos
Her website used a mix of professional photography and authentic snapshots. The professional images looked polished but generic. The authentic photos showed real people engaging with real products at real events.
I pointed out that the authentic photos were more valuable.
When a local business uses stock photography, it looks like every other business that licensed the same images. The rough edges of a smartphone photo taken at an actual workshop communicate something that perfect lighting cannot: this is real.
She had the skills and access to create original imagery. The website should reflect that. Every stock photo replaced with an authentic one increases the sense that a real person with real passion stands behind the business.
Where Advertising Dollars Should Go
She had experimented with Facebook advertising and found it effective. I agreed that Facebook remains the best social advertising platform for targeting specific demographics and interests.
But I also introduced a different advertising approach: remarketing through Google's network.
Remarketing works by showing ads only to people who have already visited your website. They searched for something, found you, looked around, then left without purchasing. Maybe they got distracted. Maybe they needed to think about it. Maybe they planned to come back later but forgot.
Remarketing keeps your business visible to those people as they browse other websites. Your ad appears on news sites, blogs, and other content they visit. The cost is dramatically lower than pay-per-click advertising because you are not bidding on competitive search terms. You are simply staying visible to people who already expressed interest.
For workshop promotion especially, this approach makes sense. Someone visits the website, sees the workshop announcement, but does not register immediately. Over the following days, they see reminders as they browse the internet. When they are ready to commit, your business is still top of mind.
The Priority List
I ended with a specific sequence of actions.
- First, enhance the website with authentic photography and descriptive captions. The foundation needed to be solid before building on top of it.
- Second, launch the blog using the 80/20 approach. Aim for weekly updates, understanding that most posts would take minutes rather than hours.
- Third, commit to a series of virtual workshops. Promote them through boosted Facebook posts. Accept that early workshops might not be profitable but would generate assets for future marketing.
- Fourth, set up remarketing advertising through Google to stay visible to website visitors who did not convert on their first visit.
The timeline for seeing results would be months, not weeks. Brand building and search engine visibility compound slowly. But the alternative was continuing to depend entirely on personal connections and social media algorithms, hoping for growth that might never come.
