Growing an audience is no easy feat!
The constant demand for new and engaging content is tiring, especially if you're winging it. If that sounds like you, it's time to form a proper strategy.
So, how do you form a proper strategy for generating content ideas? Well, you can start by creating a list of content marketing ideas that will attract the right audience.
Luckily, I’ve already done that for you! This is my treasure trove of proven digital content marketing ideas.
Let’s dive right in and you can pick your favourite ones to build content from!
Sound good? Great, let's get cracking.
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Keep in mind...
In this post we’re tackling a strategy for generating content ideas. That is one part of a larger​ content marketing strategy, which encompasses planning, research, creation, scheduling, management and analysis of your digital content. That larger strategy is something you should absolutely have in place.
Ideally, your digital content marketing strategy is a well-oiled machine. But, it's only useful to you when in constant motion, never at a standstill.
Great content ideas are the fuel your overall strategy needs to keep going. The strategy laid out for you here will help you generate those ideas consistently, so your content marketing machine can keep running sustainably.
Developing High-Quality Ideas for Your Content
Good content marketing will do 3 very important things for you: garner the loyalty of your audience, build trust and bolster your following. Lousy content marketing has the complete opposite effect.
Garner, build, bolster. These words indicate the cumulative nature of the rewards that come from good content. One great blog post won’t do it, but consistent good content will.
If the consistent part seems hard right now, that’s normal. Consistency is less of a skill and more of a habit. Good news is, it’s not hard to acquire in this case. All you need are some techniques to follow and you’ll be coming up with good content ideas all the time.
To kick things off, we've listed some of the best habits to adopt for generating quality content ideas:
Use these idea-generating habits as a guide to help you fuel your content marketing strategy consistently, with content ideas that place the values and objectives of your brand at its core.
This guide will help ensure all new content complements your brand, meets your audience’s needs and has a better chance of providing fruitful results.
Top Tip
A huge source of frustration and stagnation when brainstorming ideas is trying to come up with something completely original and new. To be clear, this is a great thing to do! Original and new is the stuff of masterpieces. But those ideas aren’t gonna happen every day. And they’re probably not going to happen out of thin air.
The key to coming up with new ideas is to sometimes discard the notion of originality.
Even the best artists use references to inspire their greatest works - nothing exists in a vacuum! So if you’re out of ideas, don’t hesitate to browse your competition and learn from other content creators on the web.
Just DON'T outright copy them.
With all that in mind, we’re about to give you a headstart on collecting inspiration - so let’s dive into some of our favourite digital content marketing ideas to attract your audience.
Digital Content Marketing Ideas
Content ideas come in many different forms and can be executed on various platforms. Truly great content doesn’t always have to be a blog post, nor should it. Variety is the spice of life.
You can (and should) create blog posts, but it's also worth considering the following kinds of content:
The possibilities are seemingly endless. Never limit yourself to one form of content! Just make sure the quality of whatever you’re publishing is top notch.
So, do your research on how to draw the reader in with great subheadings, use the right keywords and formulate a compelling call to action. These are just a few of the things you can do to ensure your content stands out from the crowd!
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some specific examples of great content ideas.
Helpful Content
As we’ve mentioned before, great content marketers know how to prioritise and hone in on their audience’s informational needs. Helpful content is a staple piece in content marketing. Providing answers they’re looking for will showcase your value. Here are some ideas to achieve that.
Printable Checklists
Ideally printable, or downloadable, checklists are a great way to actively help your audience prepare for a task in your niche and get it right. This takes a lot of stress away and helps them feel organised. They're also fun to tick off and helpful to read!
Beginner Guides
Newcomers to the industry are likely overwhelmed with all the information. If you remember what it was like to get started in your niche, you have everything you need to write a beginner’s guide with crucial tips and information.
Write a detailed step-by-step guide, reveal a list of essential tips or even explain industry jargon.
Templates
Everyone loves a nice-looking layout to help them organise their activities or information. If this applies to your field (and you can probably make it apply), a template is a great way to provide helpful content to your audience.
Examples include day planner templates, email marketing templates or event planners.
Product Reviews
Outline the benefits and drawbacks of a service/product your audience might be interested in. Especially services you're already using and can recommend to others in your niche. Who knows? You might be able to profit from affiliate marketing, too!
Interviews​
Have a chat with someone from your industry that your audience might find interesting! You can then distribute the interview several different ways - as audio or video with a transcript, a blog post or a podcast episode.
Debunking Industry Myths
Every industry has common misconceptions. Create content that explains to newcomers in your niche that these are worth ignoring! Make a list of these, look at how they came about and provide more accurate information.
Reports and Whitepapers
If you or your company do research regularly, why not publish your findings and draw some interesting points from it? These make great downloadables for your audience as well.
Try This Tool
Many of the content examples listed can be offered as downloadable PDFs. Turning any piece of content into a PDF is actually really easy. Designrr is a content repurposing tool that can turn your post, checklist, template, etc. into a slick PDF in minutes. All you need to do is provide the URL.
Visual Content
Visual content is a great way to expand to new channels like Instagram and YouTube and nicely breaks up the flow of written content ideas. Visual content increases your brand awareness and customer engagement. Examples of this kind of content include GIFs, memes, slideshows and videos.​
Slideshows
Make a slideshow of images associated with smaller pieces of content. Maybe you can share your favourite recipes with pictures or different outfit combinations. Slideshows a great way to highlight visual content in a different way and get people clicking through for a final pay off.
Just make sure you're using images that you either own the copyright for or that are allowed in the public domain. There are plenty of good stock photo sources out there. Depositphotos is a good one to check out. They have a pretty big collection of high-quality stock images.
Unpackings
Product reviews in the form of Unpackings are a great way to walk your audience through the entire buying experience and let them experience it with you! You can show off new purchases or merchandise and comment on it as you go.
A Day in the Life...
This is great for both written and visual content. Walk your audience through your schedule via video and show them your workspace, factory or store. This is an excellent way to establish a personal connection and share some tips from your experience.
Infographics
It’s strange how much more fun and engaging information becomes the moment you put it into a jazzy graphical format! Infographics make it easy to grasp information quickly and help elevate your content from lengthy papers and reports. They’re also really easy to make once you get the hang of it. Canva is a great tool to start off with.
Try This Tool
For beginners to graphic art, Canva is a great place to start. They have design templates for almost any kind of visual content you can think of or you can make your own eye-catching visuals from scratch.
Quick Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Content Ideas
Sometimes an old idea can be as good as a new one, and often one thought leads to several pieces of content! Here are some ways to get the most out of your newly generated content ideas and your previously published content.
Top Tens
If you’ve already written a few reviews or have provided extensive lists of ideas and tips, curate them down to a top ten list of the best you could find. People love lists and superlatives. Top 10 Best .
Guest Posts
You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting! Take on guest writers from your industry to let their content shine. It might feel like an imposition, but this a great value to them too. Plus, a lot of people are more than willing to spread their knowledge. Perhaps you can write an article for their blog in return!
Host a Competition
Competitions are great content ideas because they come with a clear and engaging call to action, a payoff and lots of audience members sending in more content ideas.
As entries filter in, you can create bits of content that highlight those suggestions. This not only makes your audience feel appreciated, but will keep advertising your brand and your competition.
Improve on Old Posts
Sometimes the easiest way to get something new is to take something old and update it.
If you’ve been producing online content for a while, chances are some old posts could use a dust-off and make-over. Pick pieces that transcend time and still ring relevant.
There’s a super fast and easy way to find your most popular piece of content using Google Analytics. Read that. Once you know what post your audience really took to, you can spruce it up to make it fresh and relevant again. Change whatever necessary to make sure it’s up-to-date.
Top Tip
Use These Digital Content Marketing Ideas to Attract the Right Audience
Figuring out a digital content marketing strategy is no simple task, but you're not alone on this journey. You can lean on the know-how from people who have gone through this before. Even look to your competitors for some content marketing inspiration.
Use these ideas to get you going. I promise you, once good content ideas are flowing, the rest of your digital content marketing strategy will be a lot less daunting.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the pressure to generate fresh ideas, send us a quick message and we’ll get back to you right away. Together we can sort through your questions and figure out the best digital marketing strategy for your business!