You’re posting on social media for your small business. You’re writing educational blog posts. You’re making entertaining videos. You’re checking all the boxes and churning out content left and right.
But maybe you’re finding yourself stuck in a rut and wondering if your current content marketing strategy is actually helping grow your business.
If you’re looking for some fun ideas to rejuvenate your creative juices and create engaging content again, here are 3 creative content marketing strategies to breathe new life into your efforts.
Strategy 1: Ask Your Audience Questions
You’re probably already posting content to your social media channels and emailing your list, but are you encouraging your audience to join the conversation?
If not, it’s time for you to embrace the “social” aspect of social media. There are two major benefits to incorporating audience questions into your content:
1. You feed the algorithms what they want.
Facebook made changes to its algorithm to promote “meaningful interactions.” This means posts that prompt comments, shares, engagement, and conversation are more likely to be seen than posts that people simply click or ignore.
2. You learn what your customers truly need.
Let’s say you own a cat sitting business, and you ask your online audience this simple question: “What are your top concerns about leaving your cat home alone?”
The answers they provide can help you understand their pain points and solve their problems. If a potential customer says, “I’m afraid my cat will be lonely,” you can create a blog post called “3 Purrfect Ways to Prevent Your Cat from Being Lonely” to address their concern.
By genuinely listening to your audience, rather than just assuming you already know what they want, you can generate fresh ideas that take your content to the next level.
Strategy 2: Share Behind the Scenes
Consumers are tired of the pre-packaged marketing of the past. Rather than recycling the same stock photos, consider humanizing your brand by sharing real-life images, stories, and videos from behind the scenes of your company.
The Texas grocery chain H-E-B launched a memorable campaign that serves as a great example of this strategy. To promote their Bella Mandarins, the company created a TV commercial that showcased the family farm where these mandarins are grown. By using storytelling to highlight the people and land where these mandarins come from, H-E-B created a memorable marketing experience for their customers.
Think about the interesting quirks of your business that your audience might enjoy. Maybe it’s your accountant who moonlights as a jazz musician, candid snapshots of your office in the middle of a floor renovation project, or your unfiltered thoughts on what really goes into making the perfect BLT.
Fun and relatable content will help you stand out from the endless stream of filler that brands post online every day.
Strategy 3: Repurpose
You wear a lot of hats as a small business owner, and creating content may not be your absolute top priority. The good news is that you likely have enough past content on your blog and social media profiles to sustain your audience for a long time.
There is no hard-and-fast rule that says your company must create new images and marketing copy every day. Rather than creating every post from scratch, you can save your business massive time by repurposing your existing content.
Here are some examples of how to repurpose your content:
- Split 1 longer blog post into 3 smaller posts that dive deeper into detail.
- Repost a photo on Instagram that performed well with your audience a few months ago.
- Turn the full video of your signature speech into 20 bite-sized videos to share on social media.
It’s important to remember that content is a long game: you don’t need to try a ton of new content marketing strategies at once.
Just have a little fun with it, commit to trying one of these content marketing strategies in your business over the next two weeks, and see what happens – you may find that your content marketing starts to feel fun, expansive, and effective once again!
About the Author: Kady Sandel is the CEO of Aventive Studio. Kady has designed visual identities for a wide range of companies, and she now helps businesses scale through strategic brand development.
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