I got the following email a few weeks ago from a distressed small business owner. Someone who came to one of my recent workshops…
“You told me the future of marketing is all about content. It makes sense, but I’m not creative.
I don’t even know what to write about. Where do I start? I need help coming up with ideas.”
I couldn’t help but feel the frustration. I know the feeling. I’ve been there.
‘Create content’ They say. ‘Write long blog posts’ They say. ‘Just do it!’ They say.
Obviously, THEY don’t know how busy you are and how difficult content marketing is. It’s hard work…
… and sometimes you run out of ideas.
Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.
Here are 95 creative content marketing ideas you can use to create valuable content on your website or blog.
I’ve included details, screenshots, and links when possible and when I thought it would be helpful.
There are a few ideas that I could not find executed well. (If you know of a good example of something I missed, please contact me to let me know!)
Check out the list. But don’t get overwhelmed! Just pick one and get started!
95 Creative Content Marketing Ideas for Your Website or Blog
1. Turn Your Top Posts Into A Slideshare
Use your website’s analytics to find your most popular post. This will probably work best if it’s a list post, but it doesn’t have to be.
Turn that into a PowerPoint presentation and post to Slideshare.
Here’s an example with some additional tips you can use right now.
2. Offer A List Of Benefits
Whether you’re in the legal industry, or running a gym or yoga studio, you can create a list of the benefits to doing (or not doing) something related to your business.
Rather than highlight the direct benefits of using your product or service, e.g. your gym, focus on the benefits of healthy living and working out.
Writing about your own business or practice is often difficult and time-consuming. By writing about what you know, rather than who you are and what you do, you’ll spend less time and write better content.
Massage Envy has a great list of the overall benefits of Massage Therapy.
3. Share A List Of Things To Avoid
Similar to the list of benefits, create a list of what-not-to-do or what-not-to-buy. Tip: I wouldn’t recommend making this a list of your competitors!
“10 Things to Avoid If You Want to Avoid a Law Suit”
“Top 7 Foods You Should Never Eat if You Want to Look Great at the Beach”
Or how about, “Seven Drinks You Must Avoid To Save Your Health (#2 Will Shock You)”
4. Share a “Must-Do” List
What does it take to succeed in your industry or niche? If you want a blog post to rank in Google search, there are certainly a list of critical elements that must be there. There is a list of things you Must Do to even have the slightest chance of ranking.
What are the things that people must do to succeed in your arena?
Jane Friedman has a detailed post on the things you must do if you want to get your book published.
5. Highlight A Question Of The Week
You may already have a Frequently Asked Questions section on your site, but why not expand it into several blog posts or pages.
Collect questions from your customers and highlight one of those each week.
These could be questions about your product or service, or they could be questions related to your industry.
Care.com posts a new question on their Facebook page each week.
6. A Weekly Links-Roundup
Chances are you pay attention to what’s going on in your industry or in your community related to your business.
Why not bookmark relevant and useful articles, news stories, and blog posts throughout the week.
Take a few minutes on Friday and turn those into a short blog post with the headline, link, and a few sentences hitting the highlights in your own words.
In addition to teaching and coaching via SuperSimpl, I send a weekly email newsletter with the best digital marketing content I find each week from around the web.
I give a few thoughts, links to resources and tools, and the Top 10 list of great posts, emails, podcasts, downloads, and more.
7. Predict Future Trends
You’re the expert.
You may not be used to predicting trends in your industry, but you probably know a great deal more about what’s coming down the road than your clients do.
Take some time every month or every quarter to summarize what’s going on in your industry and what you think the near future will hold.
Jeff Bullas’ post below takes a look at five digital marketing trends he believes will disrupt your business.
8. Promote A Seasonal Sale
But don’t just announce the sale, put your customers in the right mood for the season.
Is Fall just around the corner? You can certainly tell it when you take a quick look at Starbucks’ annual promotion of Pumpkin-Spice-everything.
It’s hot. I just got this email from Starbucks.
9. Publicize An Upcoming Promotion
Do people love your product or service?
If you aren’t in the business of constant sales and promotions, why not take time to publicize a new promotion, product launch, or special.
In fact, you will often have stronger sales if you lead up to your promotion with an email series. Let people know in advance what you’ve got coming up. How it’s going to help them. And what they should be looking for.
Build up anticipation and educate at the same time. It’s a great way to keep people engaged and ready to buy when you finally open enrollment or launch.
10. Document A Buying Trip
Do you source local products? Do you go on scavenger hunts for rare finds? Do you look for unique deals and specials?
Why not take your phone and record some video footage of you on your “hunt” or buying trip?
This is especially a good idea if you’re in the food and beverage industry and source local products.
I bet your customers would love to see where and how you buy your ingredients.
11. Snap Your Next Conference
If you’re not on Snapchat, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Snapchat is big. Real big. And growing.
The amount of engagement brands are getting on the platform is remarkable.
Got a conference coming up? Make sure you’re starting to build your audience and following on Snapchat ASAP.
Then, use Snapchat to document your trip. The places you go. The people you meet. The Speakers. The locations. The restaurants.
Even the mishaps and wrong turns.
12. Snap Your “Behind The Scenes” Moments
Whether your business is in the kitchen, in the factory, or in the boardroom, there are behind the scenes moments that would be fascinating to your audience.
Use Snapchat to show us ‘Where It’s Made’ or ‘How it Happened’. Who you’re wheeling and dealing with. Or what it really looks like behind the scenes.
Celebrities and musicians have been doing this forever. Now you can, too.
Gary Vaynerchuck is a master at Snapchat and it’s paying off, big time.
13. Turn Your Pics and Videos Into Instagram Stories
Have you created a following on Instagram but not Snapchat? No worries. Just document your buying trips, conferences, or behind the scenes moments with pics and short videos right on your phone.
Then head over to Instagram and create a story using those same pics and videos.
You’re allowed to use anything you’ve taken in the past 24 hours. So just make sure you’re adding your content as you go. Especially if you’re covering a few days.
14. Turn Your Snapchats Into Instagram Stories
As I just mentioned, you can turn short videos or photos from the past 24-hours into Instagram Stories. What’s more is that these get featured at the top of your follower’s Instagram, AND you get to see who watches each segment.
Want to save yourself time?
You can kill two birds with one stone by recording your videos and pics with Snapchat and then import them via Instagram Stories.
This video will show you how:
15. Write A Post-Event Summary
Do you or your staff attend conferences, workshops, seminars, or other training events?
Take notes and combine those notes into a post-event summary and write-up.
Travis, from Extra Pack of Peanuts, posted a recap of his experience at the 2013 World Domination Summit.
He not only recapped the event, but posted his thoughts in a way that his readers could learn and benefit from his experience.
16. Write About A Survey & The Results
Whether it’s formal or informal, you can conduct a survey of customers, clients, or vendors, compile the results and then write about them on your blog.
Social Media Examiner produces an amazing Social Media Marketing Industry Report each year. Check it out if you haven’t already.
17. Create a Top 10 List
Of course it doesn’t have to be exactly ten, but you can probably brainstorm a dozen numbered lists related to your business.
Trends. Insights. Tips. To-do. To avoid. To visit. To eat. To see. To experience.
Here are my top 10 Ways to Earn $10,000/Month, using what you already know.
18. Use The Skyscraper Technique
Brian Dean, of Backlinko.com, is known for coming up with the idea for the Skyscraper Technique, a way to get your blog posts to rank well in Google.
The premise is to find the #1 ranking post for the keyword you want to rank for. Analyze it to determine why it’s #1. Then create something even better.
In fact, that’s exactly what I did to get this to the top of Google for the term “content marketing ideas”.
When I started, the top post for that phrase had 50 ideas and was pretty basic. I kicked things up a notch to 75. And now you’re reading the revised post, with 95 content marketing ideas.
Hopefully, you won’t have to come up with that many ideas for your post!
19. Prepare A Tip Of The Day
Need creative marketing ideas for Twitter?
Why not jot down a long list of quick tips and schedule them in advance to post each day throughout a month.
For example, @ittotd posts an IT tip of the day each day.
20. Interview Industry Experts
You can do the interview in person, over the phone, or even by email. Consider doing a few long interviews as well as a series of shorter interviews.
You can also send out a list of questions to several experts and compile all of their answers in one post or over a period of time.
Mary Fernandez executed this very well with her post, 13 Seasoned Entrepreneurs Give Their Best Beginner Advice.
21. Follow Up On Future Trend Prediction
Have you written a post of future trends?
If it’s been six months or a year, take time to revisit what you wrote and write a follow up post.
What was accurate? Where were you wrong? Why?
Rand Fishkin, SEO expert and co-founder of Moz, started off his 2016 SEO and marketing predictions by first looking back at his 2015 predictions. You could do these as two separate posts.
22. Get Guest Bloggers
Find other experts or business owners in tangential businesses or industries and invite them to write posts to publish on your blog.
They’ll appreciate the exposure to your audience and you’ll get exposure when they promote their post to their audience.
Once you achieve a certain amount of success, you’ll most likely end up with people requesting to guest post on your blog.
Michael Hyatt features guest bloggers quite a bit.
23. Show A Step-By-Step Demonstration
Whether you’re a baker icing a cake, or a bookkeeper organizing receipts, think about areas of your business that your customers could learn from.
Could they benefit from seeing you show a step-by-step demo in a short video?
Gretchen Price, of Gretchen’s Bakery, has a ton of great How To baking videos.
24. Detail The Life Cycle Of A Product
Are you in the business of creating products?
Take time either in video or written form to show the development process from start to finish.
How It’s Made is built on this type of content.
25. Record A Guided Tour Of Your Business
People love seeing behind the scenes and going places where they aren’t typically allowed to go. If you can’t open your doors for tours (think brewery), why not take time to create a video tour to post on your site.
Victory Brewing Company put together a virtual tour of their brewery.
26. Write A Product Review
If you own a restaurant, why not review beer and wine.
A bakery? You can review cheese and chocolate. A fitness center? Fitness equipment. A CPA? Expense tracking mobile apps.
The possibilities are endless. And profitable.
FYI A young kid named Evan earns over $1 million pr year reviewing toys on YouTube.
27. Combine Old, Outdated Posts
Check out your Google Analytics and find a handful of related posts that aren’t getting any traffic and that are old, outdated, or irrelevant.
Combine them into a new post with more details or helpful info, add a few updated examples, and repost.
Redirect the old urls to the new one, so Google knows what’s going on, and you’re golden.
Here’s a short guide to fixing your old, neglected, and broken content.
28. Start an Interview-based Podcasts
Podcasting has been booming for the past few years. It’s only going to get bigger. Think about the dominance of on-demand TV, from Netflix to Amazon Prime and everything in between.
On-demand is coming to your radio. And I’ve got several ideas for how to take advantage of it.
For one, start an interview-based podcast. I did.
In January of 2016 I launched the Remarkable podcast, where I interview successful podcasters, marketers, and experts.
I’m trying to find out what makes a podcast remarkable, and how do you build a committed audience of listeners and fans.
A few of my recommendations for interview-based podcasts are Starve the Doubts with Jared Easley, Hack the Entrepreneur with Jon Nastor, and the Side Hustle Show with Nick Loper.
I also really enjoy The Tim Ferriss Show and Self-Made Man from Mike Dillard.
29. Start a Daily or Weekly Tip Podcast
Your podcast doesn’t have to be long or a big production. You can start a short 10-15 minute, weekly podcast where you share a tip, tell a short story, or teach a lesson.
The $100 MBA Show is a daily podcast about all things business.
30. Turn Your Blog Posts Into a Podcast
Find a decent mic and record a reading of some of your best posts.
Post the recordings to iTunes as a podcast or simply post the audio files on your blog for readers to listen to or download.
Side note: I use the Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB
It’s one of the most popular microphones in the podcasting space because you get a tone of quality for not a lot of money.
31. Turn Your Podcast Into Blog Posts or a Book
Or you can go the other direction. Have your podcast episodes transcribed and turned into blog posts. I’m all about reusing content.
You can either publish the exact transcript, which is what I do for the Remarkable podcast. Or, you can write a blog post based on the transcript.
Harry Duran over at Podcast Junkies has even gone so far as to turn some of his podcast episodes into a book. It’s called, Around the Podcast Campfire: Conversations With 25 Of The Most Interesting Podcasters In The Known Podverse
32. Start a Geography-based Podcast
A buddy of mine, Mark Bologna, who I met at Podcast Movement 2016, grew up in New Orleans, LA, and lives there now.
He has a podcast all about New Orleans. It’s called Beyond Bourbon Street – an Insider’s Guide to New Orleans.
You could do a podcast about your region or state. Your city or your urban neighborhood.
Or, you could even interview local leaders, local business leaders, or just about any group of people you think others would want to hear from.
33. Host a Q&A Podcast
One of the biggest benefits of podcasting is that you get to speak directly to your audience. As the expert.
It’s an awesome way to build your authority and a strong following.
You could even take questions from your podcast and just record your answers to publish. Pat Flynn and Gary Vaynerchuck have popularized this.
There are also some niche areas, like competitive shooting. Lucas Apps hosts the podcast Triangle Tactical, where he answers his audience’s questions about guns, gear, and competitive shooting.
34. Turn Your Podcast Into Video to Publish on YouTube
Yes! More ways to repurpose your content. #winning
You can take the audio and convert it into a video file. Then upload to YouTube. You can use a service like TunesToTube to make this quick and easy.
For the image, you can use a title graphic, image, or a text description of your episode.
Are you thinking ‘no one will listen’? Don’t think that. In fact, many of our U.S. service men and women overseas listen to audio via YouTube because there are not a lot of options available to them.
35. Turn Your YouTube Videos Into Podcasts
Yes, this is the flip-side of the above. You’ve already got your video. Which has audio, right? Just strip the audio and publish it as a podcast.
Lots of online courses make their video tutorials available as audio. Not everyone has time to sit and watch your videos, but they can listen to the audio while doing any number of different things.
36. Recommend Your Top Products or Services
Not everyone buys everything you offer. There are some people who may be interested in your products or services that they’re not currently aware of.
Take time to highlight your best-rated products, your most-sold products, or your most popular services.
We all have a hard time making buying decisions. Knowing what other people do often impacts our final selection.
Business consultant David Baker does a great job of listing his services with details.
He describes his Total Business Review as “our flagship service and where most firms begin“, which is very helpful to new customers.
37. Write A “Did You Know” Feature
Don’t take for granted what people do or don’t know.
Look for interesting or often unknown facts, events, or people who have made an impact on your industry or your business.
38. Clarify Industry Misconceptions
Write about the top myths and misconceptions in your industry.
This could easily lead to additional FAQ’s and may even help convert new customers.
For example, a quick search for “car care myths” has a post by Chandler Auto Repair on page 1 of my Google results.
39. Relate Content To A News Event
Pay attention to the news and find ways to relate what’s happening to what you do.
Just be careful to be sensitive and not go too far in trying to make a connection that just doesn’t work.
You should also be careful when dealing with controversial issues.
I’m not suggesting you be someone you’re not, but if you’re going to take a public stance on a divisive issue, be prepared to deal with backlash or unhappy customers on the other side.
A good example is how the marketing community rallies every time Google makes an update to how it determines search results.
Here’s a post from Search Engine Land on April’s “Mobilegeddon“.
40. Conduct A Case Study
Interview a client or customer that had a great experience and turn that into a case study that you can use to help close the deal with future prospects.
Shopify recently posted a business case study entitled “How We Built an Ecommerce Business from Scratch and Generated $922.16 in Revenue in 3 Days“.
It already has 3,000 shares on social media.
41. Write a Live Case Study
Are you helping a client tackle a problem? Are you trying new marketing activities? Working on a new menu item for your catering business?
Why document the process? Rather than waiting til the end to write a short blog post about it. Tell you audience about the whole process. As it’s happening.
Use Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Or any combination of those. Give us a daily or weekly update.
I can assure you people will be dying to know how it turns out.
42. Highlight A Customer or Client
Interview a customer, client, or vendor and take time to highlight them on your blog.
Tell us their history. Their story. What makes them unique and why do they stand out?
Make them shine. People like to read about themselves. They also like to share the links with their own friends, family, and clients. It’s a win-win.
43. Create A Massive Links Roundup
This is similar to a weekly links roundup, but you’re not going to grab a handful of links each week.
Instead, you’re going to create a massive lists of articles or resources about a specific topic.
People love to share and link to massively useful posts. That’s good for traffic.
44. Report On A Facebook Poll
Ask your Facebook audience what they think or how they feel about a particular topic.
Keep it going by staying in the conversation and commenting.
After it dies down you can take time to write about the results.
45. Compare & Contrast Multiple Products and Services
People like charts and comparisons.
Take time to review and compare a variety of products and services that would be interesting to your audience.
Here’s a recent comparison I came across on quality hosting options for small business websites and blogs.
In addition to charts and graphs, they also turned the entire review into an infographic.
46. Respond To A Blog Post or Article
After reading an interesting or controversial blog post or article, why not take time to write up your own response and publish that on your site.
Don’t be afraid to take a strong opposing stance.
Just be sure to present your post in such a way that you don’t burn bridges or make your customers think twice about working with you.
47. Create A Weekly Video Tip
Take out your smartphone. Turn on the camera. Set it to video and hit the button to switch the camera so you’re looking at yourself.
Now, take 3-5 minutes to tell your audience one helpful tip or insight.
Post it on YouTube and grab the embed code to post in on your site.
The point is this, don’t think you have to have the best of the best equipment.
If you have great content and your equipment is as good as a what most smartphones have today, you’re good to go.
Here’s a long list of knitting videos.
48. Provide An Opinion On Recent Legislation
Do you keep up with the news?
Are local, regional, or national laws impacting your business?
Write down your thoughts and provide information that your customers and clients will find helpful.
49. Feature A Local or Regional Celebrity
Nearly every city and town has at least a handful of celebrities, either local or regional.
These could range from sports heroes, world-record setters, or Olympic athletes.
They could be politicians, business leaders, or directors of non-profits.
Reach out to them for an interview, record it, and then post it on your site.
50. Feature a Major Celebrity or Athlete
This may take a little time and effort, but don’t be hesitant to go after Big Names.
A great way to do this is to check Amazon for new release books. Books written by famous people you’d like to interview.
When people are in the middle of launching a new book, they’re looking for all the publicity they can get. They more willing to work with you on something then than just about any other time.
51. Answer A Popular Question
You may think that most common questions have already been answered.
But, there’s a good chance you have a different answer to even the most common questions.
Your answers are based on your own unique experience and history, and they’re valuable.
Every single day people search for answers to how to boil eggs, bake potatoes, start a business, and build a professional website.
What common things do people search for in your industry?
52. Delve Into Your Company Archives
Take time to write about your history, the twists and turns, and the ups and downs.
This is an especially good topic if you’re a local business that’s been around for decades. Or, if you’re business has been on a wild ride that most people would find hard to believe.
Here’s a comprehensive archive of the Ford Motor Company.
55. Use Search Trends For Inspiration
Look at trending topics on Twitter or other social media sites.
Find something related to your industry or business and write a post about it.
Be sure to post about it on the relevant social media platform, link back to your site, and include the related hashtag.
54. Post Guides As PDFs
Is your product complicated? Does it require maintenance?
Be sure to provide all relevant documents on your site for customers to download.
Mailchimp.com has quite a few guides on their site.
55. Create An Archive Of Old Newsletters
If you’ve been sending out newsletters for a while, you can easily take time to pull the most popular articles and post them for new customers who may have never seen them.
Charged, a weekly email newsletter about the tech and startup scene, does a good job of making the previous newsletters available in the archives.
56. Track Statistics To Share
Keep up with trends and stats and turn them into an infographic or series of charts and graphs.
Include your company logo and information at the bottom and encourage people to share across the internet and social media channels.
eMarketer does a great job of publishing charts and graphs related to marketing.
57. Create A Calendar Of Events
Do you attend or participate in a lot of events. Are you an avid networker? Are you in the hospitality, event planning, or catering business?
Why not take time to create a community calendar.
58. Request Videos From Customers
Invite your customers to record themselves using your product and ask them to submit them to you to post online.
This could easily be turned into a contest or giveaway.
59. Write An A-To-Z Guide
Choose a topic related to your business and literally create an A to Z guide. Go through each letter of the alphabet and create a related paragraph or short post.
Here’s Neil Patel’s A to Z guide for creating a memorable brand.
60. Write Book Reviews
Are you an avid reader? Get a webcam and record yourself doing a book review. Record it with a mic and post it as a podcast. Or write it out and post it on your blog.
Brainpickings.org is an enormously successful blog built almost entirely on book reviews and essays.
61. Share Industry Best Practices
Your customers and clients can always do things better, safer, less risky, or more efficiently.
Take some time to outline and highlight industry best practices that will truly help your customers improve in any of these areas.
Here are 21 SEO techniques you can use right now from Brian Dean at Backlinko.com.
62. Ask Customers What They Want
Running low on creative marketing ideas? Just ask your customers what they’d like to hear from you about.
You can do this via email, social media, or online survey. If you have a lot of face-time with your customers, just ask them in person.
63. Write A Buyer’s Guide
What would you recommend your customers or clients buy? Tell them about it and introduce them to new items or services they may not be familiar with.
For example, Wine Folly has a beginner’s guide to buying wine.
64. Collaborate On A Blog Post
Work with experts or owners of complementary businesses to create a blog post or comprehensive guide together.
Put each of your names and logos on it and then distribute it to all of your networks.
65. List of Social Media Influencers
Find the biggest influencers in your industry on social media and compile a list of each of them.
Include a brief description or why you chose to include them and a link back to their profile.
Here’s a list of the Top 50 most valuable social media influencers for 2015.
Who are the influencers in your industry?
66. List Essential Tools and Products
What else do your customers need? What products would help them improve their lives or their business?
What would make them better at what they do, or help them be more efficient, safer, or profitable?
Dollar Shave Club leads with razors, but they have a variety of personal care products. Each has it’s own page with the facts and ingredients as well as tips and additional info.
67. Put Together A Checklist
Consumers love checklists. Packing. Buying. Shopping. Cooking.
Checklists help us solve problems, diagnose issues, and ensure we don’t make mistakes.
You can add a lot of value to your customers via checklists.
Like TravelSmith’s printable packing checklist.
68. List Your Favorite Writers
Do you follow interesting bloggers, authors, or journalists?
Write a post about who you follow, why, and what your clients might get out of following them as well.
69. Show Products In Unusual Situations or Places
There’s an entire website and movement about Ikea hacks – using Ikea products in ways that were not originally intended by the manufacturer.
Do your products get used in odd or unique ways?
Do they end up in random places?
Why not write about it or encourage your customers to send in photos and posts?
This concept was made popular by Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome.
70. Write A Beginner’s Guide
Again, don’t assume you know what your customers know.
Why not take time to write a guide that can be used by those who are brand new to your product or service?
71. Recap Popular Posts From The Year
Find the most commented, shared, or talked about posts and write up a end-of-year recap.
72. Create An Online Course
How to Launch a Business. How to Incorporate. How to Hire a CPA. How to Find a Marketing Expert.
How to Check Your Home for Pests.
How to Sharpen a Lawnmower Blade.
The ideas are endless.
The folks over at Copyblogger Media produce some of the best training resources for content marketing on the web.
73. Write About Inspiration
What inspires you to do what you do? What motivates you and keeps going every day?
What will inspire your customers and encourage them? Share.
74. Feature A Slideshow
If you do presentations, seminars or workshops, convert your PowerPoint into Slideshare presentations.
Then post them online and in your LinkedIn profile.
Here’s some more info on Slideshare along with some great examples for inspiration.
75. Create A Decision Tree
Help people decide if, when, what, or how they should make a decision by creating a visual decision tree graph.
You know, the ones where if you pick “Yes” you go to the right and down, “No” and you go left to the next decision.
For example, will you survive the undead apocalypse?
76. Fascinating History
Certainly there is something fascinating about the history of your industry, your business, or your product.
People love history. Especially oddities, twists, and turns.
Give us all the juicy, random, and weird details.
77. Surprising Facts
Do your services save customers thousands of dollars, headaches, or hours every week/month/year?
Is your product made with imported, organic materials from far, far away?
The Discovery Channel is full of shows with surprising facts.
Write a post about yours.
Here are 10 Surprising Facts About American Muscle Cars.
78. Create a List of Famous Quotes
People love quotes. Quotes get attention. Want to see for yourself? Just do a Twitter search for #quotes.
Take some time to research and find a few dozen quotes from historic figures, leaders, and thinkers in your industry or field.
Put them together in a list post.
79. Create Image Quotes for Social Media
Now that you have a list of great quotes, let’s repurpose them.
Take the quotes, one at a time, and turn them into image quotes to post on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
I use Wordswag and Adobe Spark. It only takes just a few minutes to create one. And you don’t have to know a thing about design.
80. Cultural Differences
Perhaps you do business globally. Or maybe people around the world do what you do, only differently.
The world is shrinking and chances are your site gets traffic from around the world.
Why not write a post about some of those differences.
81. Create a Topical Infographic
Like coffee, beer, walking dogs, or sleep?
There’s an infographic for that. Or, at least, there could be. If you’re passionate about something that others are also passionate about, you can turn that into an infographic.
82. Create an Informational Infographic
Take the data from a previous poll, survey, or data you’ve collected and put it into a well-designed infographic.
If Photoshop isn’t your sweet spot, consider outsourcing it. You could also use Piktochart to create an infographic for free using their prefab templates.
Infographics get more shares on social media than just about any other type of content. It’s probably worth the cost.
Check out the Daily Infographic for examples and inspiration.
83. List Your Best Content of All Time
Head back over to your website analytics. Sort to see your posts with the most visits at the top.
Make a list of your top 10, 25 or even 50 posts of all time.
Here’s the best of the best from farnamstreetblog.com.
84. What’s In A Name
Where did your name come from? No, not YOUR name, your business name.
Was it the name of your great, great grandfather? Did your 24 month-old use a phrase that made you smile?
Like history and interesting facts, people are often intrigued by how companies decide on names. Tell us how you decided on yours.
85. Tell Secrets
Every industry has its secrets. Things that insiders know, that outsiders don’t.
The best time to buy. How to get the best deal. When to shop. How to avoid long lines and traffic.
What are your industry secrets?
Here are 13 Things Your Mall Salesperson Won’t Tell You.
86. Lessons Learned
Think about how you were when you first started your career or business. What was it like when you were new?
How are you different today? What lessons have you learned? We all learn lessons. Sometimes the hard way.
Write a post or record a video of yourself and tell your readers a major lesson you’ve learned and what impact it’s had on you.
I’ve been a following Jeff Goins for a while now and was one of the first people to buy his new book, The Art of Work.
While his book launch was a big success, he didn’t make the NYT Best Sellers List. Here’s Jeff’s post on the lessons learned.
87. Share A Hack
Everybody seems to be hacking everything these days. We’ve got growth hacks, marketing hacks, life hacks, cake decorating hacks and the list goes on.
People like hacks. Tricks. Shortcuts. Ways to get quick results to get ahead of the competition, without wasting time.
The folks over at ahrefs.com have put together an entire list of Growth Hacking Tactics That Every Startup Needs To Know.
88. Who or What Are Your Biggest Influences
If you’re in an industry where your customers look up to you, they’re probably also interested in who or what influenced you.
Was there a book you read? A successful relative? A teacher or former manager?
What influenced you and inspired you to do what you’re doing?
Check out Tim Ferriss’ list of The Unusual Books That Shaped Billionaires, Mega-Bestselling Authors, and Other Prodigies
89. Piggyback On Social Media Trends
Buzzsumo is one of my favorite tools. It allows you to search for a topic and find the most shared posts on social media that are related to that topic.
Go ahead, head on over and type in a few keywords for your industry. Check out the results. It’s free.
Once you see what’s popular, write your own related post.
Here are the top three results from a search on “growth hacking”.
90. Define Your Industry’s Technical Jargon
Every industry has terms and acronyms that outsiders, often customers and clients, don’t understand.
Take time to write these out and explain in laymen’s terms.
Investopedia has a long, A to Z list of over 13,000 financial terms.
91. Create An Email Series
Signup for a email marketing service like Mailchimp or ConvertKit. You can then create an email series that automatically goes out to your subscribers over a period of time.
For example, if you have a long, instructive blog post or presentation you’ve given, you can break that down into 5-7 separate emails, depending on your content.
The introduction can go out on day one. Point #1 can go out 3 days later. Point #2 a few days after the previous point, and so forth.
Also known as “dripping” content, an email series is also a great way to entice visitors to subscribe to your newsletter.
I do this using ConvertKit (affiliate) as my email marketing solution. I highly recommend you check it out.
Ramit Sethi is a master of the email series.
92. Write About Your Charitable Activities
Do you support children with special needs? Orphans and adoption? A local hospital? Animal rescue?
Why not write a tasteful post about what you do and why? In addition to letting your audience know a little bit more about you, you’ll also bring more attention to the things you care about. Outside of work.
93. Answer Questions on Quora Using Your Existing Blog Posts
If you’re not familiar with Quora, it’s a popular site to get answers to anything. Literally, anything.
You can set up notifications to get an alert when someone posts a question related to your area of expertise.
But instead of answering with an original response, which you could do. You can grab an existing blog post, and use part of that in your answer.
Make sure it adds value and actually answers the question. Then link from within your answer back to your original post. Let the readers know they can go there to get more details.
94. Repost an Older Blog Post on LinkedIn
Similar to using existing content on Quora, you can also reuse content on LinkedIn. Once a podcast has been on your site a while, you can head over to LinkedIn and repost it there.
By posting on your site first, you get credit with Google for search. But then posting on LinkedIn gets you additional exposure.
It also gives you the chance to add a call-to-action at the bottom to send people to your website.
95. Start With Why
Make it personal and take time to write a post about why you do what you do. How did you get here? What are you passionate about? What problem did you want to solve and what result were you looking for? What have been your biggest challenges and what’s been the most rewarding aspect of what you do? Like Simon Sinek suggested in his powerful TED Talk, “Start With Why”!
Conclusion
That’s it. 95 creative content marketing ideas and tips to help you get started creating valuable content for your website or blog.
While it’s not an exhaustive list, I trust that it will offer some helpful suggestions. And I hope it will trigger even more possibilities as you read and think through what I’ve listed here.