As a business owner you have a lot on your plate when it comes to running your business. Your content strategy is important, but it can sometimes get overlooked compared to other tasks and decisions you have to make. My goal today with this post is to share the different types of content ideas that are available to you. I’ll also be explaining why each type of content works well. Let’s get into it!
9 Content Ideas
Blog Posts
Blog posts can help your business in many different ways, depending on how you use them. Think of them as extensions to your website. It gives your potential customers more information about your company, the products you sell, and more.
A few purposes you can use a blog for are:
- Sharing a behind the scenes peek at your business
- Demonstrating how to use your products
- Sharing more information about you and your employees so that your customers can get to know you better
- Sharing exciting news and updates in your business, and even your industry
- Educate your audience to build trust
The second content idea your business should consider is email. Email can also serve several different purposes for your business. You can use it to update your customers on things like changes to your business, new products, and more. You can even use email to spotlight your employees, products, and even customers. Other things you can add to your email strategy are promotional codes, a call for testimonials, and fun announcements.
Ebooks
If you have a wealth of information about a certain topic, product, etc. ebooks are a great way to educate your potential customers. Ebooks are created to further break down information that may be too much for a blog post.These are great for opt-ins to get people on your mailing list. In this post Jenna Kutcher talks about the importance of making great free products for your potential customers. It all comes down to building trust. If your potential customers trust you they are more willing to become customers.
Presentations
Do you have a waiting area where customers hang out while waiting to be served? If so this would be a great piece of content to create and throw up on a TV screen. You can loop it so that it plays throughout the day. Here are some ideas that you can display on your presentations.
- Announcements
- Special offers
- More information about the business
- Seasonal information
Sales Page
Sales pages are an important content piece if you are an ecommerce business. The right language can make or break a sale. Not having one is even worse. Without product information, specifications, and why the potential customer should buy the particular product, how will they know they need it? When creating a sales page always remember what problem this product solves. By focusing on what the product can do for the potential customer, they are more likely to listen, and then buy.
Video
Video is a very important type of content. Many of the marketing and social media trends today involve video. It works so well because it easily captures the person’s attention, and if you do it well, entertains them. You can use video in many different ways. Some of the top ones that come to mind are to advertise your business, social media content, showcasing products, and even showcasing your employees.
Testimonials
Nothing drives people to buy from you more than hearing someone else’s experience with your products. In the same way,if you don’t have very great reviews odds are you won’t have many customers. Testimonials can be obtained directly or indirectly. You can ask your customers about their satisfaction with your products or services. The customers themselves may also decide to shout you out themselves through word of mouth or social media. You can share any testimonials on your social media channels, on your website,and even in your store.
Webinars
Another great opt-in that can work for your business is a webinar. These are like online meetings about a certain topic that helps customers better understand your products, business, or even your industry. For example, A beauty salon may do a free webinar on how to best upkeep their customer’s hair in between appointments. A software company may do a webinar to educate customers on how to use their software.
Social Media
I’ve saved one of the biggest types of content for last. In this time social media is a must for any business. It’s not just used to promote your products and services directly, although that is important too. A good social media strategy helps create community with the company and its audience. When you show that you care, your potential customers take notice of that. There are a lot more points to cover about social media, so lookout for future blog posts about that.
How To Create Your Content Strategy
Now that you’ve seen some of the content that is available to you to create, you may be wondering how to fit it to your business. Like your business goals, you’ll need to create a content strategy.
To start your content strategy you need to ask what your goal is. Are you trying to gain more sales? Increase brand awareness? Figure out your goal,and then figure out who you are trying to target. If you are targeting an older generation you may want to focus on presentations and blog posts. If you are targeting the younger generation a big part of your content strategy needs to be video and social media. Find what works best for your target audience and go from there.
Once you have an idea of what content to use it’s time to plan and make the content. After it is published make sure you do a content audit to see the hits and misses of the content strategy. This will help you develop an even stronger content strategy next time.
Next Steps
Now that you know what types of content is available to you it’s time to take some action. If you would like help creating your content strategy, and the content that goes along with it, check out my Content Machine package.
