36 Content Marketing Ideas That Will Inspire You

36 Content Marketing Ideas That Will Inspire You

Welcome, dear reader! You're here because you want to learn about content marketing – and I'm thrilled to have you along for the ride.

Content marketing is no walk in the park. It takes creativity, strategy, and a ton of hard work. But when done right, it can transform your business.

I'll share my best content marketing ideas in this epic guide. You'll discover proven tactics for creating compelling content that attracts and retains customers.

So please grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's dive right in!

Why Content Marketing Matters More Than Ever

In today's crowded online space, content is king. With people consuming more content than ever, you need a steady stream of fresh, valuable content to stand out.

But content marketing isn't just about volume. It's about creating content tailored to your audience that educates, entertains, inspires, and motivates them to take action.

Done right, a solid content strategy helps you:

• Build trust and credibility
• Increase brand awareness
• Attract your ideal customers
• Convert visitors into leads and sales
• Retain existing customers
• Expand your reach and grow your audience

In other words, content marketing fuels nearly every aspect of modern marketing. It's an essential ingredient for business success in the digital age.

And here's the kicker: 88% of B2B marketers say their organisations gain value from content marketing.

As today's buyers do more independent research before contacting sales, content marketing helps you stay top of mind and demonstrate value long before any transactions occur.

Let's explore some of the most effective ways to approach content marketing in 2024 and beyond.

Develop a Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Like any marketing initiative, content marketing works best with a sound strategy. Before you start pumping out content, take time to lay the groundwork.

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

Be crystal clear on what you want to achieve. Do you aim to drive more traffic to your website? Generate more leads? Increase brand awareness?

Whatever your overarching goals are, define measurable KPIs to track your progress. These could include metrics like:

• Website sessions
• Lead generation rates
• Sales numbers
• Social media reach/engagement
• SEO rankings

With specific goals to work towards, you can create content that ladders up to meet them.

Conduct Keyword Research

Thorough keyword research ensures you produce content that targets searches your audience is making.

Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs make it easy to:

• Discover new keyword opportunities
• Assess monthly search volume data
• Analyse keyword difficulty scores
• See what keywords competitors are ranking for

Look for a healthy mix of head terms, long tail keywords, and low-competition gems your brand can realistically rank for.

Map Out a Content Calendar

A content calendar helps you strategically plan and schedule content creation and distribution.

Plot all the content you intend to produce over the coming weeks and months. Think about:

• What content formats make sense for your business? (blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.)
• How often will you create and share content assets?
• Which keywords and topics will you tackle when?
• Who will be responsible for what elements and reviews?
• How will you promote and repurpose content across platforms?

Calendars bring much-needed structure to keep your content pipeline flowing smoothly.

Know Your Audience Personas

Your content only resonates when it's tailor-made for your ideal customer avatars.

Define your target audience(s) in demographics, challenges, goals and motivations. Map out detailed buyer personas to always have your customers in your mind.

When you create content to address your personas' pain points and desires, it feels like you're speaking directly to them.

Produce Magnetic Content That Attracts Your Audience

Once your strategy is set, it's time to start creating content that captivates your audience!

Follow these tips to produce content people can't get enough of.

Always Create Value for Your Audience

Your #1 job as a content marketer is to create value for your audience. Help them solve problems, answer questions, learn something new, be entertained, or see things in a new light.

Valuable content earns attention and trust. It positions your brand as a trusted partner versus a faceless company only interested in sales.

Before creating a piece, ask yourself:

• What value will this provide to my audience?
• What need does it meet, or what question does it answer?
• Why should they care about this?

When your content provides real value, your audience won't be able to resist.

Combine Data-Backed Insights with Creativity

The best content blends data with emotional appeal. Use data and original research to create fact-based, insightful content. Then, sprinkle creativity, humour, and unique storytelling to bring it to life.

Backing up your ideas with concrete stats boosts credibility. But you need an engaging delivery to hold people's attention. The right combination makes your content pop.

Infuse Personality Into Your Brand Voice

Cookie-cutter content with no distinct personality falls flat. Develop a unique brand voice that expresses your company's values and vibe.

A brand voice gives your content a specific tone and style. Are you formal and educational? Witty and sarcastic? Fun and conversational? Motivational and earnest?

Once you land on your brand voice, weave it consistently into every content you produce. It makes your content instantly recognisable.

Optimise Content for SEO

SEO and content marketing go hand-in-hand. You can create epic content, but it does little good if people can't find it in search.

Be intentional about optimising every piece of content for SEO with tactics like:

• Including target keywords in headers, page titles, URLs, image names
• Crafting meta descriptions that compel clicks
• Using keywords naturally throughout the content
• Adding internal links to related content
• Publishing regularly to boost site authority

These best practices will get your content ranking higher in search.

Make Scannability a Top Priority

With short attention spans online, people skim before they commit to reading. Structure your content for easy skimming:

• Break content into short paragraphs, just 2-4 sentences long
• Use descriptive headers and subheaders liberally
• Include bulleted lists and call-out elements
• Add relevant images, charts, or other visuals
• Embed video content
• Use bolding and italics to highlight key points
• Include quotes to draw the eye

With bite-sized paragraphs and ample visual variety, you lower the barrier to entry.

Feature Influencer Collaborations

Partnering with influencers taps into their existing follower base. It exposes your brand to new, qualified audiences hungry for content.

Work with relevant influencers to produce co-branded content like:

• Guest posts published on their blog
• Social media takeovers
• Joint live streams or webinars
• Podcast interviews
• Sponsored social posts
• Brand ambassadorships

Splash your brand across an influencer's popular platforms for significant awareness wins.

Spread Your Content Far and Wide

Creating magnetic content is only half the battle. It would help if you also had an effective content distribution plan to get it in front of the right eyeballs.

Commit to Content Consistency

Sporadic content doesn't cut it anymore. With RSS feeds, social media feeds and email inboxes flooding with new content around the clock, you need a steady stream of fresh assets to stay visible.

Figure out a content cadence you can stick to, whether daily, a few times a week, or once a month. Then, commit to maintaining that pace. Consistency keeps you top of mind with your audience.

Repurpose Content Across All Your Platforms

Don't just publish an article on your blog and call it done. Each piece of content is a valuable asset that can be reimagined and reused in multiple ways.

Maximise your content investment by repurposing it across:

• Your website
• Blog
• Email newsletters
• YouTube
• Social media channels
• Paid ads
• Live events
• Slide decks
• Webinars

The more places it appears, the farther your content reaches.

Interlink Related Content

Add internal links within your content, pointing users to other relevant pages on your site. These related content links boost time on the site, organic traffic, and SEO rankings.

Link to:

• Other blog posts expanding on ideas discussed
• Product or service pages
• Your contact/pricing pages
• Recent, popular, or foundational content

Guiding readers deeper into your content universe pays dividends.

Promote New Content Everywhere

Whenever you publish something new, shout it from the rooftops! Promote it:

• In your email newsletter
• On your social media feeds
• In targeted paid ads
• Via your sales team/outreach
• Through influencer partnerships
• On your home page/blog
• In your email signature

The more promotions, the faster content gains visibility. Please don't leave it to languish on your blog with zero spotlights.

Craft Content That Converts

Beyond attracting and engaging your audience, your ultimate goal is to convert those eyeballs into leads and customers.

These strategies will help you create converting content assets.

Spotlight Specific Products or Services

Publish content centred on your top-selling or high-profit offerings. Showcase their benefits and actual customer use cases through:

• Product release blog posts
• “Guide to…” articles
• Product teardowns
• Customer success stories
• Product demos and tutorials

These pieces speak directly to prospects interested in your offerings, priming them to convert.

Create Content Chunked Into a Funnel

Map out a content journey that moves prospects logically through your sales funnel. Create content that caters to readers at each stage:

• Awareness: High-level articles, listicles, and guides establishing you as an authority
• Consideration: Comparison articles, pros v. cons, ROI calculators, demos
• Decision: Testimonials, case studies, free trials, product consultations

Your content progression should ultimately nudge prospects closer to a purchase.

Gate More Advanced Content Behind Opt-ins

Offering exclusive content in exchange for opt-ins lets you collect leads while increasing content depth.

For example, a blog post teaches the basics while alluding to more advanced tactics in your paid ebook or email course (available in exchange for their contact info).

Gated premium content allows people to convert from anonymous visitors into known prospects.

Include Clear Calls-to-Action

Every content should direct your audience toward the next step that advances them to conversion.

Insert relevant, prominent calls-to-action inviting people to:

• Download your latest ebook
• Sign up for a free trial
• Book a demo
• Start a free project
• Subscribe to receive deals

Clear CTAs turn intrigue into action.

Measure What Matters Most

How do you know if your content marketing hits the mark without measuring results?

Put these tracking methods in place pronto:

Use Google Analytics Goals

Google Analytics makes it easy to track online conversions with goals. Goals let you see:

• Which blog posts or landing pages convert best
• Where is your traffic coming from
• Who are your highest converting audience segments are

With goals set up, GA crunches the numbers on how your content drives actions that matter.

Track Real Business Impact

Tie your content directly to revenue. Track how many:

• Email signups come from content and what their conversion rate is
• Trials come from content downloads and what their conversion rate is
• Direct sales come via site traffic from each content piece

Connecting content to sales data reveals your true commercial content MVPs.

Monitor SEO Performance

Watch how your target keywords trend regarding ranking and organic traffic driven. Use tools like SEMrush to monitor:

• Which pieces of content ranking for your keywords
• Keyword ranking improvements over time
• Changes in monthly organic traffic from keywords

Knowing which content delivers high SEO impact informs future optimisation.

Stay On Top of Reader Feedback

Pay attention to comments, shares, and reader feedback around your content. This qualitative data gives insight into what your audience loves versus what falls flat.

Make reader surveys part of your content promotion. Ask for input on what content they want more of or what questions they have.

Then, continue optimising based directly on your audience's needs.

Tap Trends to Inspire Cutting-Edge Content

Do you need help with content ideas? Look to emerging trends as fuel for fresh content angles.

Here are some top trends shaping content marketing right now:

The Rise of Video Content

It's official – video content has gone mainstream. LAI Video states that over 80% of online content is in video form.

Now's the time to ramp up your video content across platforms like YouTube, Instagram Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn Video.

Experiment with formats like:

• Product demo videos
• Customer testimonials
• Behind-the-scenes company culture videos
• Educational how-to videos
• Expert explainers/talking head videos
• Live Q&As or AMAs

Video engages viewers on a much deeper level. Get your brand in on the action.

The Audio Content Explosion

Podcasting has entered the mainstream, with over 164 million monthly podcast listeners in the U.S. alone. People want more audio content than ever.

Join this fast-growing trend by launching:

• Your own branded podcast
• A podcast series with B2B media or influencers
• Audio content to share on social platforms
• A text-to-speech audio version of your blog posts

The opportunities here keep growing as audio explodes.

Ephemeral Social Content

Platforms like Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and TikTok thrive on ephemeral, “in the moment” content that disappears after 24 hours.

This authentic, unpolished content has a natural appeal to young audiences. Give them a raw insider look at your brand by:

• Posting office culture Stories on Snapchat
• Sharing user-generated content from customers
• Live-streaming behind-the-scenes company events

Raw ephemeral content makes your brand feel more authentic and approachable.

Maintain Momentum With Evergreen Content Updates

Creating evergreen content allows you to rank in search and attract new visitors long after publishing.

Make your content eternally useful with tactics like:

Regular Content Refreshes

Revisit old blog posts and infographics once a quarter. Update outdated details, improve formatting, and add new data or trends.

Updates rejuvenate existing assets, keeping them timely and credible.

Ongoing Curations

Maintain curated content pages like “The Ultimate Guide To…” that you update continuously as a go-to resource centre.

Add relevant news articles, stats, tools, or other resources to make it more comprehensive over time.

Versioned Guides

Release updated versions of popular guides regularly. Give existing assets new life by releasing “2024 Guide” and then “2025 Guide” editions with revised info.

New iterations bring old content back to the forefront.

Consistent Follow-Up Commenting

Stay active in your content's comment sections long after publishing. Respond to new comments and answer reader questions as they arise.

Your ongoing involvement keeps content active, driving ongoing engagement.

Regular tune-ups turn your content into an evergreen asset that has attracted visitors for years.

Concluding Content Marketing Ideas

There you have it – a complete guide covering everything from crafting compelling content to distributing it far and wide for maximum impact.

Use it as a handbook to build a thriving content marketing machine. Refer back anytime you need fresh inspiration or ideas.

Remember: Quality over quantity. Valuable over viral. Substance over flash. Put your audience's needs front and centre.

The rest will fall into place as you grow, test, and refine an agile content strategy optimised for conversions.

Soon, you'll reap the many rewards: growing awareness, high-quality leads, and attributed sales.

Now, go out there, create some remarkable content, and help improve lives. I'll be right here cheering you on.

Ready to chat about how we can fuel your content marketing success? Get in touch!