Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your small business, but it’s not always easy to come up with new content marketing ideas. This article gives you 9 ideas to help develop lots of content to effectively market your small business. This is by no means a complete list of content marketing ideas, but it should get you thinking, and more importantly, get creating.

1. Share what you’ve learned about running a business.

If you’re a small business owner, you probably have a lot of valuable lessons to share. To get started, think about what you’ve learned from running your business. Share your most important marketing tips. Share how you overcame challenges. Share what has made the biggest difference in your productivity at work, and how others can apply it in their own lives or businesses. Share what you love about your customers and how you have connected with them, how you have solved their problems and how they have changed your approach to your business.

You don’t need to be an expert on everything—just share what you know! People like to see authenticity so this is a great content marketing idea for small businesses.

2. Repurpose old content and share it in new ways.

You can repurpose old content in a variety of ways.

• Repurpose content for new formats. Content can be repurposed into different formats, like video or Twitter threads. For example, your blog post about how to paint a ceiling could easily be turned into a video tutorial with step-by-step instructions and photos or even an Instagram story with tips on how to mask the edges!
• Repurpose content for new purposes. You can also reuse older content for entirely different purposes than it was originally intended—for example, you might use an article about healthy food options as part of a campaign to promote healthy eating at work or school.
• Repurpose old content for new audiences. If you have any existing pieces that have proven popular with certain groups but not others, consider sharing them with another group that would appreciate them just as much (or more!). This is especially effective if your audience changes drastically over time; you might start out targeting millennials and then end up focusing on baby boomers several years later, so having relevant articles available will help keep things moving along smoothly as people age in and out of your business’ target market over time!

3. Crowdsource your content marketing ideas.

You may have a great product or service, but if you can’t communicate it effectively to your audience then it doesn’t matter.

One of the best ways to get more content is to ask people what they want to read about. Ask them questions like: How could we improve our blog? What kind of articles would you like us to write? How could we make our email marketing more effective? Crowdsourcing content from your audience will not only help develop an online community around your business and products but also give customers who are loyal enough to share their opinion on topics related to what you do.

What if you don’t yet have an audience? – Then you can use the AnswerThePublic Search listening tool. The tool listens to autocomplete data from search engines like Google and then shows you useful phrases and questions people are asking.

4. Interview experts in your field (and partner with them on the content).

• Interview experts in your field.
• Partner with them on the content.

You can ask them questions about their business, their industry and their experience. You can also ask them questions about their personal experiences, as well as what they think about something in particular that relates to your business or industry.

This can help you to get a better idea of what people are thinking, as well as give you insight into what they’re looking for. It’s also a great way to create content that your audience will find useful and relevant.

5. Make a weekly roundup post with links to other people’s great content.

You can post this on your blog, or create it as a newsletter, emailed to your subscribers, but if you find interesting things related to your industry, chances are your customers will find them interesting too. If you are the one sharing, you will quickly become known as a trusted person in your niche, a step closer to being considered an authority or thought leader.

• Include a brief description of the content, this shows you read it, and why you found it interesting.
• Include a link back to the original source and give credit where it is due
• Use social media to share links to other people’s content that you found useful or interesting. Do this throughout the week and make a note of what you shared, then include these in your weekly post.

6. Share do-it-yourself tips for maintaining products or services.

Share do-it-yourself tips for maintaining products or services.

This is a great way to create content that your audience wants to read, and it’s an excellent way of building trust with customers. Do you offer any products or services that need maintenance? If so, consider sharing do-it-yourself tips on how to maintain them. For example: “How To Maintain Your Carpets” or “4 Ways To Spot A Bad Plumber Before They Spot You!” These kinds of articles can be written about anything as long as they are relevant to your business and the needs of your target audience.

7. Create in-depth guides that will really help your audience learn something new or solve problems they have.

• Explain the problem. What’s the challenge your reader is facing?
• Give a step-by-step solution to that problem and then explain why this solution works or how it can help their business.
• Link to other resources if they are needed to get full value from your guide.
• Link to your own content, especially if it relates directly to what you’re teaching in the guide (and why).
• Link out as much as possible so readers can learn more about the topic, even before they buy from you!

8. Craft a blog post around an event.

If you attend an industry or local business event, you can easily make some content out of it. It helps if you take some photos and if you can write about your key takeaways, or what you learnt from attending the event.

• Write a blog post around an event that you were involved in.
• Include your favourite moments, what you learned, and how you would improve it next time.
• Share pictures and videos.

9. Answer common questions (FAQs)

What is the easiest way to make sure you are creating content that people want to read? Answer their questions.
Since people are asking these questions, they are curious, which probably means other people are too.

When you speak to customers, listen to what they are asking you. Are there questions that come up often?

You can write articles based on these questions, where you explain your answer in detail, or you can compile a list of FAQs, write your answers and make this a page on your website.

If your business gets a lot of questions, you could turn it into a regular feature on your blog, newsletter, podcast or youtube channel.

Conclusion

Developing quality content is the most important part of marketing, and it can include anything from a blog post to a video. Content should be useful, engaging, and shareable. It should also be appropriate for your audience—if you’re selling mattresses, don’t make a video about how to fix your car’s engine. Finally, you need to create content with a purpose in mind: what do you want your audience to do after they’ve read or watched? Hopefully, their response is “share this awesome thing I just read/watched!” or subscribe to your blog updates, find out more about your business, or buy your product or services.

Small businesses are just as capable of producing quality content as large companies. They have the same potential to make an impact on their industry and come up with creative ways to market themselves through content marketing. In fact, small businesses are easier to relate to. The key is taking the time to develop a strategy, identify what type of audience you want to reach, and then create something that will interest them. These ideas should help get you started!