You should never get tired of learning about marketing your business. Big global brands spent billions on marketing. That must make you wonder. For example, since 2016, Coca-Cola has been spending, on average, US$4 billion annually on marketing. That clearly shows you how paramount marketing is. It goes beyond just pumping money into marketing, though. You have to be creative in your marketing strategies. That is why you need to explore marketing ideas from time to time. Today we shall be looking at some content marketing ideas you can use for your business in Zimbabwe. Content marketing is a marketing approach where you draw, engage, and retain an online audience by sharing with them relevant and engaging content.
Digital Publications
You can roll out effective content marketing by creating and propagating digital publications. By being digital publications, it makes it easier, faster, and wider-reaching. Some of the examples are newsletters, ebooks, reports, surveys, magazines, infographics, online course material, and so on. The idea is to develop and share something people will find useful. You can share it for free or charge for it; it depends. At the end of the day, if it is relevant and engaging, it will build your brand awareness. You may end up monetizing your digital publications by charging for ad placements.
Repurposing Your Content
This is an interesting content marketing idea that some of you may have never considered. The principle is that any form of content can be repurposed into other forms. Let us suppose you come up with an article or blog post. You can repurpose that into video, image, or audio-based content. This enables you to broaden your reach without struggling to create content. The possibilities are endless. A single blog post can be broken down into several social media posts. It can be adapted into a podcast or an infographic. Start looking into this today; take advantage of all your previous content.
Theming Based On Strategic Times Of The Year
There have been times you have seen articles based on certain times of the year. Some common examples are Valentine’s Day, festive season, winter, summer, rainy season, etc. Theming your content marketing drives based on those times lures more prospects. People are always eager to keep up with the latest trend. Whenever there are seasonal dynamics such as aforementioned, find ways to appeal to people by theming accordingly.
Leverage User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) refers to various types of content developed and propagated by random people (who are not necessarily paid to do that). Of course, in some cases, the UGC can be developed and propagated by people paid to do so. For instance, you can use influencer marketing or brand ambassadorships. The possible approaches you can employ are infinite. For example, you can request your customers to post or submit reviews of their customer experiences with your brand. You may even facilitate for them to do reviews or testimonials in videos.
Similarly, you can search for and use UGC when someone mentions your brand. For example, someone can do an explainer video on how to use your product or service. The ultimate goal is to have lots of UGC on your online platforms. Such social proofs have been proven most effective in building brand awareness.
Online Contests
This is one of the best ways to do content marketing nowadays. You must find ways to conduct engaging online contests using your online presence. For example, you can do a giveaway where the terms involve participants liking, commenting, tagging friends, and sharing a particular post. Then you can say that the winner will be chosen randomly or the comment with the most likes. These are just the basics, but you can be as creative as possible. The giveaways may not even be costly or big things. An airtime voucher can draw people in. It is also strategic to make your products or services giveaways. I have followed many online contests, and I have seen it producing results. Many unknown businesses suddenly become highly followed online simply because of online contests. If you want to build your digital footprint, regularly conduct online contests; it works!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is once again in the mix. The great thing about it is that it can be the glue that binds all other ideas. For instance, the digital publications you develop can easily propagate via email marketing. People love freebies. You can use email marketing to give them gifts through digital publications. Newsletters are typically the anchor of email marketing drives. As in, you can come up with a periodic newsletter. Email marketing is best when it is personalized. This makes the recipients feel as if you are talking to them specially. Build an email list and try this out; you will be amazed at the results. Email marketing drives more brand awareness and conversions than social media marketing.
Earlier this year, we published an article on achieving the best content marketing results in 2023. I urge you to read that article to learn more about content marketing. The content marketing ideas discussed are practical and applicable to any business or startup. There is also vast room to tweak them and develop more creative content marketing ideas. Do not limit yourself to only what we discussed.
