Content either make or break your marketing. Great content can help you earn the right to your audience’s time while average content will be dismissed and ignored. Good content connects directly with your ideal customers’ wants and needs and provides them with reasons to believe in your business.

If you’ve struggled with writers' block and can’t think of any good content ideas to write about, then stress no more!

In this two-part series blog, I’ll share 30 killer content marketing ideas with you; 15 ideas first and then the rest in part 2.

Ready? Let’s dive in! 

 1. How to guides

This can be in the form of:

• A blog
• Tutorial videos (vlogs)
• A downloadable instruction manual
• An online, live event
• A how-to page on your website
• An instore flyer that sits beside the product.

The content should help people understand how to make the most of your products and services AND the problems you are solving for them!

Start by thinking about the common questions your customers/clients ask you. You can also look into Google’s ‘People also ask’ section to find out the most frequently asked questions. Use the question as the title to your guide e.g. how do I grow tomatoes, how do I select the right accountant for my business etc.

 2. Share your personal and professional ambitions for your business

Write an introductory blog about why you started doing what you do and what you hope to achieve. By publically declaring your reasons, you’ll often find people are willing to help you achieve your ambition (unless it is world dominance or destruction of course). In short, you want to start a dialogue with your customers that will encourage their support and loyalty.

 3. Goals

Share your business goals with your customers! Many companies do especially social enterprises, to show their customers that they are trustworthy and in business to do good.

You can share your goals through social media, vlogs or blogs. Include customer testimonials or graphs that show how far you have come in achieving your goals.

Another approach is to ask your customers to share their goals with you and then reply with how your products or services will help them achieve theirs.

When sharing your goals, remember to celebrate when they have been met or a significant milestone has been reached. Success should always be celebrated. 

 4. Good analogies

Use something from everyday life to explain a tough concept or bring a good idea to life e.g. being stuck in traffic one day could inspire an analogy on how overcoming uncontrollable circumstances (the traffic jam) helped you reach your destination (goals).

 5. Anecdotes

Amusing and interesting stories from real-life e.g.  A story about good or bad customer service could lead to a discussion about what constitutes good customer service.

 6. Celebrate birthdays

Company birthdays, staff birthdays, customer birthdays, famous people’s birthdays. Ask customers whose birthdays are important to them. Identify birthdays that share a connection with your products, services or brand. E.g. a maker of horse saddles should celebrate August 1^st in some way because it is the official birthday of all horses in the southern hemisphere.

 7. Festivals, events and occasions

There is a huge range of festivals, events and international theme days that you can create content around. Choose the ones that can be connected to your product/service and create your content around that.

Big occasions such as royal weddings, royal births and sporting events offer lots of opportunity for content. E.g. tips for planning the perfect wedding, tips for holding the perfect baby shower, tips on how to get in shape like an Olympic athlete.

 8. Books, Books, Books

Write a review of a book that is relevant to your industry and would be helpful to your readers and customers. If you don’t think you can review something then create a list of books that have helped you. Chances are your customers will find those books helpful too.

 9. Create a bucket list

This is a list of things you want to do before you die. However, you can take this idea much further. For example, a travel agent could create a travel bucket list of ‘must-visit’ places or a business consultant could create a bucket list of ‘must-read’ business books.

 10. Create case studies

Create case studies to show what you have done for your customers and how your product/service met their needs. Case studies allow you to speak to your skills, expertise, experience and great customer service. Check out this example.

 11. Interesting facts and statistics

There’s no end of interesting facts to be shared. However, make sure they are relevant and interesting e.g. provide updates on statistics and trends in your industry or interesting data your own company has recorded.

 12. Fun

Where appropriate, inject a little fun into your communication. It may be as simple as a joke of the day or a meme that will appeal to your customers (nothing controversial, racist, sexist etc.). Animals doing funny things are always popular. The BBC scored over 1.2 million views and counting with this recent post.

 13. Develop checklists

Lists are great as they are:

• Short
• Easy to ready
• A quick way to share information
• Break up sometimes overly wordy blogs.

 Begin your checklist with - Top 5 tips, 10 steps to, 7 ways to, etc.

 14. Your connection to the environment

What are you doing to lighten the load on the environment? How can you be more sustainable? Make sure you are telling a genuine green story. Greenwashing (making unsubstantiated or false environmental claims) is easily discoverable. 

 15. History

‘On this day in history’ can be a great conversation starter. Opening with “Did you know that on this day in XXXX [something interesting] happened, is an easy way to begin a blog or a newsletter. If you can connect the event to your products, services or brand in some way, then even better!

Many people like a bit of nostalgia. So if your business or brand is an established one, your memories will also be your customers. Encourage your customers to share their memories of you and reward them for doing so in some way.

Use these ideas to create content for your marketing and read part 2!