Squeezing Blood from a Tutorial: The Art of Turning One Good Idea into a Content Empire

Let's be honest. Creating content feels like being trapped in a never-ending episode of "Just One More Thing to Do Before I Die." You finally craft that perfect tutorial—the one you've poured your soul into—only to realise that approximately seventeen people have seen it. Meanwhile, your competitor's blurry iPhone video of their cat accidentally walking across a keyboard has gone viral across seven platforms. The universe has a twisted sense of humour, doesn't it?

The Brutal Truth About Your Precious Content

Your brilliant tutorial—the one you spent 40 hours perfecting—is currently sitting in the darkest corner of the internet, gathering digital dust. Why? Because you created it once, published it once, and expected the world to beat a path to your digital door. (Spoiler alert: they won't.)

After watching my own meticulously crafted content disappear into the void more times than I care to admit, I've learned that creation is only 20% of the battle. The other 80%? Distribution, repurposing, and borderline content necromancy—bringing your dead content back to life in so many forms that people can't help but trip over it.

The teaching multiplier isn't about creating more; it's about squeezing every last drop of value from what you've already created. It's content maximalism for minimalists. Or, put another way, it's being intelligently lazy.

The Multiplication Matrix: One Tutorial, Infinite Possibilities

The problem with most content strategies is they treat each piece as a one-and-done affair. You publish a blog post, share it on Twitter (sorry, "X"—still can't say that with a straight face), and then move on to the next thing. This is the content equivalent of using a Ferrari to pop to the shops for milk.

Instead, think of your tutorial as raw material—the clay from which you'll sculpt an empire. Let's say you've created a comprehensive tutorial on email marketing automation. Here's how to turn that single piece into an armada of content:

• Extract the three most controversial points and turn each into a LinkedIn carousel (with appropriately smug headshot).
• Pull out key statistics and create shareable infographics for Pinterest and Instagram.
• Record yourself summarising the main points for a quick TikTok series.
• Transcribe the video into a Medium article, adding a few extra insights.
• Take the most common objections and create an FAQ video addressing each one.

The multiplication doesn't stop at format—it extends to perspective. The same tutorial can be approached from the angle of the beginner ("Email Marketing for Absolute Novices"), the expert ("Advanced Sequencing Techniques for Email Automation"), the sceptic ("Why Most Email Marketing Fails—And How to Be Different"), or the results-focused ("How We Generated £10,000 from a Single Email Sequence").

The Lazy Genius Approach to Content Multiplication

Having spectacularly failed at building systems in my own business (nothing quite teaches you the importance of systems like watching your company implode without them), I'm now borderline obsessive about creating frameworks that work. Here's my embarrassingly simple system for content multiplication:

• Create ONE piece of "cornerstone content" per month (a detailed tutorial, comprehensive guide, or in-depth case study).
• Break it into FIVE "content pillars"—the main subtopics or key points.
• For each pillar, create THREE different content formats (video, written, audio).
• Distribute each format across THREE different platforms.
• Repeat the best-performing pieces with slight variations.

That's 45 pieces of content from a single tutorial. And I haven't even touched on the possibility of updating it quarterly, translating it into different languages, or creating industry-specific versions.

The truth is, this approach isn't just about efficiency—it's about sanity preservation. Because the alternative is trying to create 45 unique pieces of content from scratch, which is the express route to burnout, mediocrity, or both. And we've all spent enough time in that particular circle of hell, haven't we?

The Multiplier Mindset: Content as a System, Not a Task

The real magic happens when you stop seeing content as individual tasks and start seeing it as a system. This requires a fundamental shift in thinking—from "What should I create next?" to "How can I get more mileage from what I've already created?"

This isn't just efficient; it's strategic. By presenting the same core ideas in different formats across different platforms, you're reinforcing your message, accommodating different learning styles, and dramatically increasing the odds of reaching your target audience wherever they happen to be lurking. Research shows that the average person uses more than 6 social media platforms per month, and using 2+ marketing channels can increase engagement by 166% compared to single-channel campaigns.

Here's how to embed the multiplier mindset into your content workflow:

• Before creating anything, map out at least 10 ways you'll repurpose it (this forces you to create more substantial original content).
• Schedule "repurposing days" in your calendar instead of "creation days."
• Develop templates for common formats (carousel posts, email sequences, video scripts) to speed up the repurposing process.
• Track which repurposed formats perform best for different types of content.
• Build a content "remix" database where you store snippets, quotes, and sections for easy reuse.

The hardest part isn't the process—it's overcoming the strange guilt that comes with repurposing. There's a bizarre psychological barrier where it feels like "cheating" to reuse your own material. This is nonsense. Your audience doesn't care if you're being cleverly efficient; they care if you're providing value.

And let's be brutally honest: most people won't see your content the first time. Or the second. Or possibly even the tenth. Most people require 5-7 impressions to remember a brand, so your "repetitive" content strategy is just meeting the reality of human attention spans in 2023.

From Theory to Ruthlessly Practical: Your Next Steps

Enough philosophical waxing. Here's exactly what to do with your next tutorial to implement the teaching multiplier system:

• Record yourself delivering the tutorial (video AND audio separately) while simultaneously taking screenshots.
• Have it professionally transcribed (not by some janky AI—spend the money for quality).
• Extract the top 20 quotes or insights and format them as standalone social posts.
• Identify 3-5 key processes from the tutorial and create step-by-step graphics.
• Develop a one-page PDF checklist or worksheet that complements the tutorial.

The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to create better original content. When you know your tutorial needs to support 50 different content pieces, you'll automatically make it more substantial, more thoughtful, and more valuable.

Consider incorporating video into your multiplication strategy—89% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool, with 93% of marketers reporting good ROI from video marketing (the highest rate ever recorded). Video content can easily be repurposed across multiple platforms, from short-form TikTok clips to comprehensive YouTube tutorials.

This isn't about gaming the system or tricking people into consuming the same content repeatedly. It's about recognising that different people learn differently, hang out in different places online, and need different levels of depth. Some want the comprehensive tutorial; others just need the key takeaway in a format they can consume in 30 seconds while pretending to listen to their partner talk about their day.

Your content multiplication strategy isn't just saving you time; it's serving your audience better by meeting them where they are.

When Multiplication Goes Wrong: The Fine Line Between Strategy and Spam

I'd be remiss not to mention the dark side of content multiplication. There's a fine line between strategic repurposing and becoming the digital equivalent of those people who hand out flyers for discount mattresses at traffic lights.

The key difference is value adaptation, not just format adaptation. Each version of your content should be optimised for its platform, format, and context. A Twitter thread isn't just your blog post chopped into 280-character chunks; it's a reframed version that works natively in that environment.

When crafting headlines for your repurposed content, remember that the ideal headline length is 11 words and 65 characters based on analysis of 100 million headlines across Facebook and Twitter. Numbers 3-10 drive the most social media engagement, so consider incorporating these into your multiplication strategy.

The warning signs that you've crossed into spam territory:

• You're repurposing without reimagining (blindly copying and pasting).
• Your audience engagement is dropping with each repurposed piece.
• You find yourself publishing content you wouldn't personally want to consume.
• The repurposed content no longer delivers standalone value.
• You're prioritising quantity over quality to hit arbitrary content goals.

Remember, the goal isn't to fill the internet with your content; it's to fill the right corners of the internet with the right versions of your content for the right people. Quality and relevance trump quantity every time. This becomes especially important when you consider that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying, yet the average conversion rate for retail leads is only 3%—making every touchpoint crucial.

After watching my own business collapse partly because I was too busy "creating" to build proper systems, I've become evangelical about the multiplier approach. It's not just a content strategy; it's a business survival strategy. Because when you're doing everything yourself (and let's be honest, most of us are), efficiency isn't optional—it's existential.

The teaching multiplier isn't about doing more; it's about accomplishing more while doing less. It's about being smarter, not busier. And in a world obsessed with hustle and grind, that might be the most revolutionary approach of all.

Stop creating more. Start multiplying what you have. Your sanity, your audience, and your business will thank you for it.