Have you run out of content marketing steam? When you feel like you are publishing the same blog post over and over again, it’s time to take a step back and refuel your creative spark. Content should be exciting! After all, every time you create, publish, and distribute content you are putting a piece of your business into the hands of your existing and potential new customers.
And they deserve more than just another boring blog post.
To keep you inspired in your content marketing efforts, here are 50 (that’s right, 50!) ideas you can implement today to help you create the best content possible in 2022.
2022’s Best Content Marketing Ideas to Freshen Up Your Game
1. Publish on Other Platforms
Rather than saving all of your content for your own website, leverage the power of existing audiences to get more exposure for your brand by pitching and publishing content on other platforms. Write thought-leadership articles for big-name publications or pitch a story idea to a local magazine. Not only can you get more eyeballs on your content, you may also be able to include a do-follow link to your site in your article or author bio.
2. Animated GIFs
Spice up your content with animated GIFs, a methodology that works smashingly well for Buzzfeed. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a GIF is worth 10,000.” - Joe Puglisi, Senior Creative Strategist, Buzzfeed
3. Ask Customers What they Want
This may sound like a no-brainer, but the most effective content addresses what your customers want, not what you think they want. Ask your customers what they enjoy and what they’d like to see more of using polls, surveys, and your customer service team to collect their answers.
4. Niche Down
A niche is nice, but a micro-niche will help your content really hit its mark. Look at your audience personas and see if there is a way to niche your content down even further. Instead of focusing on insurance policies in general, write content specifically for the insurance needs of roofers and electricians, for example. A micro-niche allows you to solve the specific problems for your most desired customer base.
“You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be something great for someone.” - Matt Cheuvront
5. Be Different
Content is everywhere. If you want your content to truly be noticed in a sea of infographics, blog posts, and videos, you’re going to have to stand apart from the crowd. If you can’t figure out what makes your content different from the competitors, you may need to scrap it and start over.
6. Calculators
Create a calculator tool that will help visitors to your site see the value of your product or service. Calculators can determine everything from mortgage payments, ROI, to how much insurance protection they need.
7. Case Studies
Case studies can be a highly effective marketing tool. 62% of US marketing agency executives say they are effective for lead generation. Tip: Case studies shouldn’t be boring, bland collections of statistics. They should tell personal stories of triumph that your customers can connect to.
8. Celebrate a Holiday
Did you know that January 3rd is Fruitcake Toss Day, May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day, and October 29th is National Frankenstein Day? Determine what interests your customers, and create content around a holiday that will delight them – no matter how wacky or silly it may be.
9. Charts and Graphs
Visual content is not just a content trend, it’s the future. Use graphs, charts, and other visual diagrams in your content, and your readers will retain more of what they read, and remember it longer, too.
10. Checklists
There is something very satisfying about a checklist. Provide a resource for your customers and offer them content in checklist form, such as downloadable shopping lists or vacation packing lists, to name a few.
11. Collaborate on Content
If you’ve run out of content ideas (which should be next-to-impossible with this list), it may be time to team up and collaborate. Reach out to shoulder niches or brands in complementary spaces to create something new that highlights both of your products or services.
12. Mine Your Social Media Comments
Do you regularly engage with professional social media groups or platforms? Look at the comments you make regularly and see what advice you tend to give online. Maybe you have a difference of opinion compared to other experts or see the same questions asked again and again. Write a blog post to answer these questions and you can drop a link to it the next time that question comes up in a group discussion.
13. Contests and Giveaways
Contests can be great lead generation tools to help you grow your social following, email list, brand awareness, and website visitors. Keep it simple, too many rules or hoops to enter and you may end up frustrating your users.
14. Consider Your CTAs
You know not to neglect a clear call-to-action (CTA) in your content, no matter what form it takes. Consider crafting your content around your CTA, rather than choosing the right CTA to fit the content.
15. Customer Spotlights
Interview a customer and spotlight them in a blog post, email newsletter, or video. Share their success story and demonstrate the way your product helped them overcome a pain point.
16. Daily Tips
Want to be a thought leader in your industry? Try sharing a daily tip on Twitter. You can even engage employees in this practice: start a Daily Tip calendar and have everyone take a turn.
17. Decision Tree
A decision tree can be a useful tool for your customers or fun and zany piece of content that delights and entertains. These charts start a customer off with one question and then sends them across the diagram with a series of “Yes/No” questions that leads them to their ultimate answer. Decision trees are great visual content to share on Pinterest and Instagram.
18. Digital Tools
Can you create a digital tool that will help your customers improve their efficiency or increase their market share? At GROW, we specialize in native application development to create one-of-a-kind business solutions for our clients that address their specific industry pain points. In other words, we build digital tools to help you grow your business.
19. Downloads
There is a reason that a downloadable book or guide is the gold standard of content offers. You can exchange information that your customers want for emails and other data. Downloads are a solid lead generation tool that won’t be going out of style anytime soon.
20. Engaging Emails
You’ve worked hard to grow your email list. Don’t sabotage the effort and chase customers away by sending out boring emails. Your emails should be entertaining, educational, and should offer something of value to your customers to keep them hooked and waiting for your next offer.
21. Emojis
Emojis can be polarizing in the marketing world. While some brands embrace these fun, expressive, and eloquent images as a way to humanize their brands and connect with their audience, others feel like using emojis in marketing is tacky and overutilized. Should emojis have a place in marketing emails, social posts, and ad creative? It depends. Emojis have been shown to increase email open rates and click rates. As long as emojis resonate with your audience and align with your brand messaging, then go for it! (Smiley face, winky smiley face, thumbs up!)
22. Event Summary
Recap a summit, festival, or popular event with a series of blog posts or Instagram images. Event summaries can recapture a moment of excitement for those who attended and allow those who missed it to feel like they were there.
23. Expose Industry Inner-workings
Someone somewhere wants to know exactly how your business works. So help them out. Pull back the curtain and let them in, give them a guide or tips on what makes your business tick. Reveal industry practices or shocking secrets and your audience will be rapt.
24. FAQs
Don’t relegate FAQs to a distant corner of your website. Frequently asked questions are real concerns that your clients have, so address them in a series of blog posts or videos.
25. Video Content
By 2022, online videos will make up to 82% of all consumer internet traffic. Consumers look to video content to help them learn about products and services. Whether it’s social media posts, digital ad content, or how-to videos on your website, video is an essential component of marketing for 2022.
26. Generators
Blog title generators. Business name generators. AI-powered logo building generators. Meme generators. The internet loves a fun generator, and you can get in on this trend by creating your own. (Or let us create one for you.)
27. Get Guest Bloggers
Guest blogging for inbound links is far from dead, but the game has changed. A guest blogger can add a valuable twist to your content, offering a different point of view for your audience.
28. Glimpse Behind the Scenes
What’s happening in your warehouse right now? Are your employees product testing? Do you have an office dog? Photos, videos, and blogs that lift the veil of your business can show off your human side and reinforce your brand image.
29. Guides
A downloadable guide can offer a lot of value to the right person, which is why a guide is still the go-to premium content choice for many content marketers.
30. Hacks
It may sound like an overplayed buzzword, but hacks are still a hot content trend. Can your products be repurposed to appeal to the DIY crowd? Show your audience in a video or blog.
31. Highlight Your Top Performers
Turn to your analytics and sales team to uncover your top-performing products/ services. Highlight what makes them so popular in a post or video.
32. Interview Experts
Want to be thought of as an industry expert or thought leader? Interview others who have paved the way and leverage their built-in trust factor to reinforce your position.
33. Influencers to Follow
Compile a list of industry influencers to follow on Twitter, Instagram, or whatever social platforms are relevant to your audience.
34. Infographics & Gifographics
Infographics may have reached a saturation point, but there is still value in providing visual content to your audience. To stand apart in a sea of infographics, try an interactive or animated version, such as a gifographic, instead.
35. Installment Story
Storytelling is at the heart of marketing and brand building. Our brains crave stories, which is why storytelling has been an effective marketing technique since, well, the stone age. Create a storyline and present it in installments and you’ll have your audience looking forward to your next blog post like it’s a long-awaited Harry Potter book.
36. List Posts
There’s a reason that the list post is so darn popular. List posts get results. List posts make a promise to readers, and then they deliver. And the brain loves that. So keep listing - your readers will appreciate it.
37. Multi-Part Series
Have a post that’s an all-star performer? Make it part 1 of a series and dive even deeper into the subject for your readers.
38. Myth-Breakers
What are some of the common objectives your sales team hears when it comes to your service or product? Address them in a “myth buster” post and counter any inaccurate information about your industry, company, or products.
39. Newsjacking
The term may sound a bit unsavory, kind of like “ambulance chasing.” But the fact is you can get a lot of traction by joining in on a trending topic that’s relevant to your customer. Set up Google alerts and when you find something relevant in the news, cover it.
40. Optimize for Intent
User intent is becoming more and more relevant to SEO. And content marketing and SEO are two sides of the same coin. What are visitors to your website trying to accomplish? Identify intent and then create content that supports it.
41. Online Courses
Can you teach your audience something new? Create an online course with videos and downloadable materials and offer it as a way to capture new leads.
42. Podcasts & Audio Posts
Podcasting is one of the fastest-growing forms of content. If it aligns with your customer base, try integrating audio into your content offerings.
43. Profile Your Team
Shannon in sales. Liz the warehouse manager. Dominic the all-star copywriter. Your business can’t run without your amazing team, so let your audience know who is taking their calls or fulfilling their orders. Your team is your brand, so spotlight them!
44. Product Comparison Guides
Sometimes all it takes to convert a lead to a sale is a clear picture of how your product or service compares to the competition.
45. #Quotes
People love quotes. Quotes get pinned on Pinterest, retweeted on Twitter, liked on Instagram, and shared on Facebook. All you need to get your audience engaged is an image and a relevant quote to overlay on top.
46. Quizzes
Interactive content reigns supreme in 2016, so offer your audience a quiz to keep them entertained, or to collect information to improve your content or product offerings
47. Recap Popular Posts
Every day you have new visitors who may never delve deep into your blog archives. So recap your most popular posts and update them on what they’ve been missing.
48. Start with a Strategy
If you’re one of the ⅔ of content marketers producing content without developing a strategy first, you may not be thrilled with the results of your efforts. If you want to actually achieve your content marketing goals, start with a strategy first.
49. User Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is a marketing dream come true - who wouldn’t want an engaged audience providing relevant content? Try a contest or giveaway to encourage your audience to join you in content creation.
50. Update Older Content
Google loves it when you refresh and update existing content. Start with the most popular blogs in your archive and comb through them for broken links or outdated information. When your post has been updated and refreshed, share it with an entirely new audience to experience for the first time. The blog you’re reading right now has been updated to reflect current marketing trends and relevancy.
Did you make it all the way to the end of this list? Then you’ve armed yourself with a multitude of content ideas that can shake up your game, get you refocused, and help you achieve your business objectives. Let us know if you have any ideas that we’ve missed, and we’ll be sure to update our post with your amazing idea!
This blog was updated for 2022.
