10 Content Marketing Ideas Your Business’ Blog Can Use Today
From wishing Julie in PR a happy birthday to covering breaking industry news, your business blog can be utilised for a myriad of different purposes. It can drive traffic to your website and services, and help shape the perception of your company.
Here we explore 10 content marketing ideas to help your blog speak out to a wider, more engaged audience.
Offer Greater Insight
The huge popularity of Reddit’s Ask Me Anything demonstrates the thirst amongst the public for expert knowledge of industries. Members of the public are invited to ask professionals, from all fields and expertise, questions about their industry. Opening up your blog to questioning about your business and industry can help generate genuine interest and correspondence.
Break the News
Breaking news or reporting on newsworthy topics within your industry can instantly generate more traffic due to the increased search engine searches which will be made. Additionally, offering an insider’s point of view on a subject close to your industry could result in news outlets approaching you for an authority quote when they cover the subject. This can easily lead to a bit of free publicity.
Appeal to your Audience’s Emotions
Many people’s web surfing habits are fuelled largely by emotions. Articles that appeal to their sense of nostalgia, wonder or awe can generate a lot of interest, clicks and visits. Producing posts related to your industry and target audience’s emotional range can inspire a lot of visits. Student website, Student Beans, have utilised this to produce this post appealing to the nostalgia of their target audience.
Personalise your Business
Smaller businesses can exploit the advantage they have over large companies by creating a more personal online presence. Creating a space for a director or manager to converse directly with the audience can help to cultivate an atmosphere of trust.
Post Videos/Podcasts
Adding extra value to a blog by incorporating videos and recordings can help to make the audience’s visits more worthwhile. Videos and podcasts can be a preferable medium for many audience members who do not want to read reams and reams of text. Additionally, some concepts can be given added clarity with visualisation.
Share your Wisdom
User manuals are quickly becoming a thing of the past, with the majority of people solving their problems by turning to Google. Offer helpful tutorials and advice videos and instructions to lure visitors to your blog. Demonstrate your value by sharing your wisdom to increase brand awareness and recognition.
Hop on the Listicle Bandwagon
An article in the form of a list, listicles have long been a popular form of information sharing, creating a bitesize format for longer copy. Now more popular than ever due to the hunger for instant gratification with minimal effort, listicles have become a cornerstone of clickbait websites.
Buzzfeed are perhaps the master of this discipline, with a high percentage of their articles structured in the listicle format.
Having clicked on this article and read to number 7 demonstrates the efficacy of the listicle.
Target Long-Tail Search Terms
Long-tail search terms are the lengthy phrases people enter in Google, and can be utilised to generate an increase in traffic. ‘How do I replace a lost passport’ is just one example of a long-tail search term and can be used to targeting your potential customers who have a very specific need.
If there is a question you believe your customers will ask themselves before looking for your services, phrase this into the title of a blog post. This direct match can drive your audience to your blog and subsequently your services and/or products.
Banc Media Content Marketing Manager, Nadia Latif, explained: “I use long-tail search terms to drive extremely relevant traffic to our clients’ websites and use the blogs to demonstrate relevancy and expertise.”
Engage with Other Brands
Engaging with brands from related industries can help extend your visibility. This can be effectively performed on Twitter where followers will be able to watch correspondence between brands. Tesco Mobile’s social media team are perhaps the most skilled current example of this, drawing Yorkshire Tea, Jaffa Cakes, Cadbury and more into a huge Twitter conversation that quickly went viral.
Simplify Sharing
Let your audience do the hard work of sharing your content for you by making it easier for them to post throughout their social media channels and avenues. Create Twitter, Facebook and G+ buttons that post your blogs direct to their social media accounts and place them conveniently at the start or end of your article. Your blog and site could soon be exposed to a much wide audience.