How To Gather Content Marketing Ideas

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business because everything else you do online depends on having content to support it. There are three key reasons why you should invest time in your content marketing:

• It can help grow your sales and leads
• It can be a very cost-effective strategy
• It can increase brand loyalty among customers

The main issue for many businesses is gathering ideas. However, we have created a list of ideas for you below that should keep you inspired when updating your content marketing calendar. 

Repurpose Existing Content

Use your existing content and repurpose it to be published on a different channel. For example, use a long-form blog post and select the most important points for a slideshow or images for Instagram. This means you already have an existing idea to work with (and hopefully evidence that it gathered engagement previously!) and you just need to amend it to suit a different format or audience.

Update Existing Content

Look over some of your older posts - is there any additional content that can be added? Has anything changed since the content was posted? Make amendments where necessary and reshare. For example, perhaps you wrote a step-by-step guide for completing a task using a certain piece of software, but the software has since been updated. Or perhaps you wrote an opinion piece on an issue, but recent news has brought more nuance to light and your thoughts have changed.

Use Trending Topics and Hashtags

Look at trending topics and hashtags within your community or sector. Google Trends is a great source of information for trending topics. Is there a way to make your business relatable to this? For example, a shoe company may notice the hashtag #trainertuesday trending each week. This may inspire posts for upcoming Tuesdays.

Introduce User Generated Content

A photo competition on Instagram could create a group of individuals who are tagging your page and sharing your brand with their followers. Customer-created content can increase conversion rates as well as provide content that can be shared across different platforms. It’s a great way to get people involved with your brand and get your business noticed.

Product Comparison Guides

Help your customers make an informed decision about your products with comparison guides. This could be particularly useful for a new product launch. This could also help increase conversion rates for products. 

101 Guides

Writing expert guides will give you content that remains relevant for a longer period. This type of content will likely be one of your key pieces as it benefits new starters to your field.

Spotlight on Employees

Your employees are brand ambassadors and customers are more likely to respond to someone similar to themselves - people connect with people, not brands. Showing yourselves as a company that recognises the work of its employees also increases trustworthiness to potential customers.

Video Tutorials

This may be a chance to answer some of your frequently asked questions or showcase the features of a new product. Unboxing videos are a good source of information for product-based videos. What information are you keen to share? Check the comments on existing content (either yours or someone else’s) for questions from customers, and answer them yourself in a video. 

Market Research

Use surveys and research channels to find topics that your customers want you to discuss. Use Google’s People Also Ask function to find similar questions that may inspire more content. Answer The Public is also a great tool for assessing your audience and their queries. 

Competitor Analysis

Use an analytics tool such as SEMrush to review your competitors’ content. Which posts are achieving the most engagement? Use this as a building block and improve on it, fill keyword gaps and add additional information where possible. 

Word Association

Start a brainstorming session with your team, jotting down any relevant ideas that come to mind and anything following. By taking an ‘anything goes’ approach you might hit on something special. 

Keywords

Use tools for keyword research to find long-tail keywords that could inspire a blog post. Ideal tools for this would be Moz Keyword Explorer, Ubersuggest, or Google Ads Keyword Planner. 

Case Studies

Write about your important projects and success stories. These stories are always unique to your business so they are a great source of information that could resonate with potential customers and highlight your expertise. 

Highlights

Highlight popular products or services, their benefits, which applications they are appropriate for, how they work, and more. This is informative and useful for potential and existing customers. 

Follow the News

Set up news alerts for your industry, for example setting up Google Alerts for certain keywords. This could provide a regular source of inspiration for new content. 

Essential Tools and Products

Make informative lists of essential tools and products to complete jobs for your sector. Make recommendations for essential items to help with productivity, reliability, and profit. 

Infographics

Take data from surveys, reviews, or data and insert them into an eye-catching infographic. Infographics are also shared more on social media than other types of content. 

Following these ideas should make completing your content calendar a quick and easy task. It should also ensure a steady flow of varied and engaging content for your readers, leading to more visibility and sales.

If you would like any help with your content marketing strategy, get in touch with SilverDisc.