Blogging and content marketing is one of the most important aspects of online campaigns. It’s like a stone that hits two birds, as it targets both search engines and real human readers. It can drive traffic, establish your brand as an authority in your niche, foster an online community to build trust, and eventually drive sales. This is why the majority of businesses make blogging a major part of their overall plan.
However, for blogging to work, you need to, well, blog.
Consistent blogging and posting high-quality content will expand both your appeal and reach to more readers by generating more website traffic. This is where the challenge comes in, writer’s block can hold you back. Many people simply run out of things to write about. And getting the words out when you have no idea what to write in the first place can be quite daunting, even worse when the deadline for publishing is approaching.
So how do you come up with fresh, unique, interesting, and valuable content to write about? Here are some marketing blog content ideas to inspire and get you started writing.
FAQs
You can never go wrong with writing about Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
As its name suggests, FAQs provide answers to the most common questions and queries your audience and customers might have for you, or anything that concerns your brand, products, services, etc., such as your target audience’s interests and needs. By providing valuable and helpful answers, you establish yourself as an authority and expert in your field that people should listen to.
Depending on the market and industry you are in, you will likely answer the same questions from different customers on a daily basis. Collect these questions and use them for content. Not only will this blog post target your audience’s interest, but you will also capitalize the topic for search engines.
Guest Posts
Gone are the days when everyone is your competition when it comes to attention and traffic online. Today, the collab is the name of the game. More and more businesses and brands do collaborative work to expand their reach and get their names out there. The same thing can be done with your blog by doing and accepting guest posts.
Getting the services of an expert in your field (or related niche) with a blog post is a great way to provide something valuable for your target audience. This content can share accurate, helpful, and relevant information. For example, if your brand (and blog) is about nutrition, you can ask a fitness studio (or fitness expert) for a guest post regarding workout plans or specific exercises for certain fitness goals.
Interview an Expert
There will be times when you will feel your own voice (writing style) is becoming stale. When this happens, you can ask for an expert’s help.
Interviewing an expert in your field is one of the best ways you can do to add value to your content. Industry experts usually have insider tips or advanced strategies that they can share with your audience. Moreover, their expert opinions can help reinforce the things you previously said with their fact-based information. All these things can help you build a wider repertoire of authority in your blog. You can share snippets of your interview in your social media posts and include links for people to click and reach your full interview/blog.
Experts can also do guest posts for your blog. This is an excellent way for you to get more traffic since the expert will more likely let their audience know about their post in your blog. The more prominent (and popular) the expert is in your field, the higher the eyes and ears for your blog.
Interview an Industry Leader
Much like experts, industry leaders have the knowledge and the most valuable insights in your industry. Often, leaders can give you the most inspiring stories that you and your audience can relate to. These can be about how they solved difficult problems, how they managed to succeed in their chosen field, or how they become the leader that they are now, their inspirations, their motivations, etc.
As a business owner, you don’t only need to market your brand, you also have to reach out and network with experts, influencers, and leaders to grow your connection.
Share Success Stories and Customer Testimonials
Another great way to showcase your brand, especially your products and/or services, is to relay the success stories of some of your customers. Customer testimonials allow people to associate stories to your brands. This promotes a strong feeling of connection and trust. Moreover, this appeals to your audience to enlist your services (or purchase your products) in the future.
You can do it in a case study format, interview format, narration, story-telling style, or general description of the customer’s experience to convey the message that you want people to read/know about.
Share How-To’s and Tutorials
How-to blogs are incredibly popular, for a simple reason – people like to get the answers to their problems on a simple, easy-to-read post.
How-to post on topics or things specific or related to your niche relays practical and accessible information to anyone looking for them. It doesn’t only set you as the expert in your field, but also provides something of value for the audience and funnels them to become potential customers in the near future.
When writing a how-to post, make sure it really answers people’s questions and help them with their problem. Be specific when providing an actionable guide or insights. If your blog is about how to improve photo editing for specific effects, then teach them how to use the different tools in Photoshop or Lightroom. If your topic is about how to improve lap time for runners, then you should add specific exercises for explosiveness, core strength, etc. If you want to share a recipe for a really good risotto, then you should teach people how to make the risotto, step by step.
Make a list
The beauty of blog posts is their accessibility to readers. People want easy-to-read and easily digestible information. One good way to do it is to make a list.
The list can be anything, so long as it relates to your niche and industry and is geared towards a specific theme or target in your blog post. For example, if you are doing show reviews for basketball, you can make a list of the best basketball shoes for explosive players that provides ample amount of cushion and impact absorption. For nutrition blogs, you can make a list of the best low-calorie snacks or best whey protein in the market. For fashion, you can make a list of the top 10 trends this fall season.
Seasonal and Holiday Posts
Whether it’s spring, summer, fall, or winter, a seasonal spin on your blog posts can create timely and relevant content for your customers to relate to. For restaurant owners, you can share your special menu for the season, a limited-time-only item on your menu, or a special ingredient that is only available for a particular season or time of the year. For pest control businesses, you can offer special discounts for the season (usually summer) and stay ahead of your competitors.
The same goes for holiday posts. People love to avail discounts and special offers on holidays. You don’t even have to wait for the popular holidays to offer these deals, as you can write content for the most obscure holidays, such as national Pancake Day, national sibling day, Super Mario day, Star Wars Day, etc. These tips of posts can help you generate buzz for your blog.
Awareness Month, Week, and Day Posts
Each month is dedicated to a special cause, and a good way to freshen up your blog is to share things that may not be related to your niche from time to time. For example, January is Family Fit Lifestyle Month, February is National Cancer Prevention Month, March is National Nutrition Month, etc.
The same goes for inclusion and heritage months, awareness weeks, festivals, religious celebrations, etc. Strategizing your blog content for these unique events will help keep your name out there by appealing to a wide breadth of audiences.
Repurpose Your Contents
Indeed, it can be tough to always come up with new ideas and topics to write about. You don’t always need to do that, you can just repurpose your old content.
Scroll through your blog and find the most successful posts you have in the past and brainstorm a way to reinvent it a new, fresh, and exciting content that will appeal to a wider range of readers. If you wrote about something that instigated a notable response, break it down further and add specifics or details. You can even add data and stories to back up your opinions.
Additionally, you can mix and match old blog posts and create a new post altogether that is related and relevant to those topics.
Showcase new features
Part of running a business is to keep your customers updated about the new features or services you offer. Your blog is one of the best places for that – you can use your blog to showcase new features in your brand, website, app, products, etc., and let people know how they can use and benefit from it.
Event Wrap Up
Conventions, expos, and industry events related to your market and industry are good topics for content as well. You can take photos and videos and include these things in your blog. Also, include news and features in these events and find a way how these things can stir interest for your readers. Car and motorcycle manufacturers, for example, release new models of their products in car and motorcycle expos.
Instead of summarizing an entire event, you can focus on certain highlights and your main takeaways from certain aspects of the event. This way, you can break down the event and have multiple posts about it.
Meet our staff
Another way to highlight your brand is to show your audience the people behind your business. This type of post allows people to see the brand as “humans” to who they can relate on a personal level and trust. Moreover, it’s a great way to highlight your best and top-performing team members, by giving them a chance in the spotlight. Starbucks for example features its baristas on its blog and Instagram.
The Takeaway
There are countless things to blog about, regardless of the nature of your business, niche, and industry. You just have to be creative and think outside the box from time to time. Vary your posts and make things interesting and fresh. More importantly, offer something of value, inform, entertain, and of course, connect to your readers.
