Content Marketing is the cornerstone of every successful business. In this article, we will cover some reasons why content is important for businesses in every industry, followed by our top 10 picks of ideas you can use to help your brand become a success.

Jump to Section

• The Importance of Content Marketing
• 10 Content Marketing Ideas for your Business

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out, coming up with new ideas for your Content Marketing Strategy is hard work. You might have come up with some great ideas in the past, but you can’t keep on reusing ideas more than a few times. Your Content Marketing Strategy needs to be able to give you tangible benefits in the form of increased business output and a larger customer base. At its core, Content Marketing is meant to drive profitable Customer Action, which is what you should aim for in all of your content strategies. In this article, we’ll be looking at examples of good Content Marketing from various brands around the world. But, before we get into that, we need to understand the impact Content Marketing can have on the growth of your business.

At its core, Content Marketing is meant to drive profitable Customer Action

The Importance of Content Marketing

In the past, when the internet was a new thing for the majority of people, Content Marketing used to be looked at as an exciting new concept that had the potential to attract new customers with engaging content. Now, it has grown into a very significant part of business operations in almost every industry. As a result, Content Marketing needs to be given the utmost importance and be treated as a vital part of the business decision-making process.

Content drives Business

Content Marketing is important because it has the ability to increase the volume of quality traffic to your website. Quality traffic refers to people who are good leads for your business and have a high chance of being converted into paying customers.

Content Marketing has the potential to drive profits for any kind of business. Well known companies like Disney, IBM, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc, have utilised Content Marketing to attract people to the brand and its offerings, and then using Content Marketing to retain customers over the long term. Large and successful businesses aren’t the only ones that can benefit from a good Content Marketing campaign. Small and medium-sized businesses can also use the power of good content and marketing to drive more business their way. In the past, the traditional form of advertising and marketing was expensive and costly, and marketing campaigns were a risky investment, with success not being guaranteed.

Content Marketing has levelled the playing field by removing most of the expenses related to Traditional Advertising.

Consistency is key

There is one aspect of Content Marketing that is often overlooked by a shockingly large number of people who try to create content. They focus on trying to make their content as engaging as possible but ignore the equally important aspect of being CONSISTENT. Making content that is engaging is of no use unless you remain consistent and keep making engaging content now and in the future. This has been a point of weakness for many businesses that don’t manage to keep producing content consistently and frequently. There are many benefits of consistency, including;

• It establishes the brand as an authority in the topic
• Consistently publishing engaging and useful content cements the credibility of the brand
• It increases the traffic to your website and helps with Search Engine Optimisation
• Through the process of ‘Cross-Distribution’, it increases the number of customers

Now that we’ve gone over the basic need of Content Marketing for your business, let’s look at some interesting examples of Content Marketing that break the mould of traditional marketing and push the envelope of creativity and innovation.

10 Content Marketing Ideas for your Business

Memes

The Memes that we are all familiar with can be a great way to create engagement within communities by communicating an idea or information that can be easily understood by everyone in a group of people. Memes give people a sense of belonging and community, something that can be seen in action all over social media platforms like Facebook. It is the power of Memes to generate such emotions that makes them such a valuable tool for marketers. If you are able to create Memes that your target audience finds relatable and relevant, they can generate a lot of engagement. Memes can instil a sense of belonging and encourage feelings of brand loyalty, helping you access the previously untapped markets.

Memes can instil a sense of belonging and encourage feelings of brand loyalty

In case you are thinking that Memes are something that is less than respectable and too low brow for your brand to put its name behind, remember that some of the most successful and recognizable brands all over the world have used Memes in their Content Marketing strategies. Memes keep your audience engaged and make your audience feel as if they are part of an inside joke that only they can understand, which translates into loyalty to your brand.

Memes are very easy to make so you can get started with making Memes for your brand right now. There are many meme generators on the internet, such as QuickMeme, Appy Pie Meme Generator or Meme Generator, which let you craft your own Memes free of cost. Just try to avoid going overboard with Memes by making them the main part of your content strategy. It is best to use Memes as jokes to entertain your audience from time to time, while still putting out other types of content.

Infographics

Infographics are a visual representation of any kind of information and are used to communicate a complex idea in an easily understandable way. They work so well in Content Marketing because human brains are already wired to prefer visual cues and prefer visual content over written or verbal content. When people visit a website, they spend over 10% more time looking at visual content as compared to reading text.

An example of an effective Infographic is the manual that comes with machines and appliances. Instead of explaining how to operate the machine by using lengthy and technical writing, the instructions are presented in a visual format. Each step of the process is represented by an image that is accompanied by a minimal amount of text. The average person can easily learn how to operate the washing machine with the help of Infographics, but many people would get confused if that same information was presented solely in written format.

To make an effective Infographic, you should:

• Simplify a complex consent and, if needed, break it down into smaller parts
• Summarise the information; the fewer words you use, the better
• If the visual elements include boring numbers and labels, spruce up the graphs and charts by making them look visually appealing

Sharing your Brand Story

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of art, and it is deeply ingrained in all societies all over the world. We are naturally inclined to want to hear stories that can entertain us and make us feel emotions. Similarly, it is just as important for brands to tell their story in a way that affects the audience and encourages an interest in the brand and its products and services.

When people visit your website, the first thing they will want to look at is to see what products and services you are offering. After they have browsed your inventory, visitors might feel curious about the company itself and open the ‘about us’ section of your website to find out more about the company and the people in it. If the story is compelling, viewers will develop a positive image of the brand and be more likely to become a customer. Your brand story plays an important role in determining your brand’s success, so carefully craft a story that will attract like-minded customers.

If the story is compelling, viewers will develop a positive image of the brand and be more likely to become a customer.

Company News

Sharing news about your company can be a great way to help your brand be more transparent and accessible to your audience. It’s not just a great way to inform your existing customers about any updates or announce new products. It can also be a great way to humanise the people that are behind the brand. People tend to be more trusting towards a brand when they realise that it has real people doing the work, and sharing Company News is a great way to do that. The social media channels that your brand uses for marketing purposes can also serve as an effective and quick way to share news about your company and announce any updates to your products as well. Given how rapidly information spreads over social media platforms, you should be careful about your wording and the tone you use to make sure that you don’t send the wrong message. When done correctly, putting out Company News can help increase audience engagement.

Employee Stories

Stories of the employees are a way to expand your storytelling beyond your brand story and can be an almost endless source of stories over the course of time. Employee Stories don’t require too much effort or creativity to develop, they can be entirely made up of stories told by your employees to talk about their work and what they do during a workday. As a marketer, you can find interesting stories told by your employers and package them in a way that can sell your brand.

The employees in your company will be natural advocates for your brand, and they will tell their stories at no charge. Your brand will benefit by publishing employees not just with increased appeal among consumers, but your employees will also feel valued and important parts of your company. By highlighting their thoughts, ideas and stories, employees will feel empowered, and their morale and productivity will benefit. So make use of this in-house collection of talent and use their stories to enhance your brand’s story.

Influencer Content

In an earlier article, we went over influencer marketing as an effective way to market your brand by having influencers advocate on your behalf. Influencer Content goes further than that by putting the focus on the creation of the content you will be using to market your brand. It is a collaboration between your company and influencers, where you take guidance from influencers throughout the content creation process. Influencers are experts when it comes to creating content that is appealing and attractive to a large number of people. Their existing fanbase can also provide you with a way to expand your reach to a larger audience or target new demographics.

In today’s digitally cluttered landscape, Influencer Content can help your brand stand out from the rest. They can be an invaluable method of leveraging the existing relationships already formed between the influencer and their audience, which means that the hard work of connecting with that audience has already been done, giving your brand the credibility it needs to have. Influencers can’t guarantee that their audience will engage with your content, however. For that, you’ll still need to make sure that you create content that will get through to the people you’re trying to reach.

Monthly Articles/Blogs

Blogs have the power to push your brand to the top of search results and drive traffic to your website.

Blogs and articles are an essential part of any content and marketing strategy for all businesses in today’s market. They are the most important element of the content strategy that your brand uses. Blogs have the power to push your brand to the top of search results and drive traffic to your website. Before you can start work writing blog posts for your website, you need to have a deep understanding of your customers and have a clear idea of what they are looking for and why they would choose to buy from you. By tailoring your blogs according to the needs and expectations of your audience, you can drive your SEO strategy effectively and have a clear roadmap of what you need to write about first. Going into the details of developing a good blog posting strategy would require a whole article itself! But the basic elements to develop a blog posting strategy for your brand is as follows;

• Understand the Customers Buying Journey
• Do Keyphrase Research
• Set up a Blog Post Schedule (Monthly Blogs are a good benchmark for businesses that are new to publishing blog posts)
• Choose suitable software applications for your Content Operations
• Consider the ways you can promote your blog and choose methods for promoting different types of blog posts
• Get a plan ready for Conversion Rate Optimization
• Go ahead with Blog Publications

Weekly #Hashtag Content

For any social media strategy, content and hashtags go together. Hashtags help expand the reach of your social media posts. If you fail to use hashtags properly, it won’t matter how well written your content is. Relying on people to share your content will only take you so far. To really get your content seen by a larger and new audience, you need to use hashtags to boost your Content Marketing. When you use the right hashtags in an Instagram post related to your brand, it will likely be seen by many thousands or even millions of people. The simpler your hashtag is, the more people will see it. But you can’t make it so simple that it loses relevance to your brand and what you’re trying to market.

Hashtags help expand the reach of your social media posts

It should also be stressed here that different social media platforms use hashtags in different ways, or don’t use them at all. For example, Facebook doesn’t make use of Hashtags, whereas Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter all use them. The platforms that do use hashtags all have unique ways of optimising their use to increase the reach of your content. So learn the ins and outs of hashtags and use them to increase your ROI on social media. Hashtags are especially useful for new businesses that can’t rely on paid ads to build an audience.

Industry Hacks

In the context of businesses, the word ‘hack’ means a clever way of solving a problem without using too many resources. A hack can be a way to solve a problem in an innovative and creative manner by using what is already available to you and not relying on spending money and time looking for outside help to fix it. An Industry Hack is any problem that is common to your area of business and is likely to be faced by many other people who are in the same industry as you. Problems can range from inefficiencies in various internal processes to issues your company might face when working with other people and companies. If you have past experience working within your industry, you have probably faced different problems doing a specific task, or while working with external entities. If you managed to learn how to deal with those situations on your own, or you observed someone else bypass those issues, you can pass on that knowledge to newcomers to the industry with content that explains these ‘hacks’. It doesn’t matter if very few people will face the problem your hack is addressing.

By publishing creative solutions to problems faced by other professionals in your industry, the audience will perceive you to be experienced and knowledgeable in that industry. These hacks will not only help the small fraction of people working in your industry, but they will also reassure the audience regarding your credibility and make them feel that they can rely on your expertise to provide them with top quality products and services. So if you have any tips and tricks to share, don’t hold back!

What all this boils down to is that content needs to be a primary area of focus. The best fit for the types of content that you put out will have to be determined based on the type of business you have and the audiences you are hoping to target. Once you have identified these aspects, you can get started with building a winning content strategy.