A new year brings opportunities to attract, engage, and retain customers with helpful, informative, and entertaining content. So in January 2023, invigorate your company’s content marketing with renewed effort and new channels.
Content marketing is meant to develop and strengthen relationships with customers. And often, the final step in content engagement is when the shopper anticipates reading, listening, or watching your info.
What follows are five content marketing ideas your business can use in January 2023.
1. Double Down on a Blog
Content marketing develops a sense of reciprocity. Your business provides valuable content such as a how-to article and readers are appreciative and inclined to buy your products.
For ecommerce companies, a blog is foundational for content marketing. Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters.
If your business has a languishing blog or has never started one, January 2023 is your opportunity. Here are some steps to get started.
- Identify the person responsible. Designate someone to be in charge of the blog.
- Have a goal. Your blog should be a search-engine-optimization workhorse. So set goals around organic search traffic and rankings for queries related to your brand or products.
- Develop an editorial calendar. You will need a plan.
- Start writing. Commit to publishing a blog post at least once each week in January 2023. Consider writing about holidays (even obscure ones) related to the products you sell.
- Improve. Work to get better at writing.
2. Launch an Editorial Newsletter
An editorial newsletter is a regular email message focusing mostly on non-promotional content.
Email newsletters are among the most powerful content marketing formats. Photo: Stephen Phillips.
Imagine you have an online store selling kombucha brewing supplies — jars, teas, and even starter kits. It could make sense to publish a weekly newsletter on gut health or healthy living. The newsletter would provide fresh content, including links to your website, and could occasionally mention your products.
Regardless, choose a newsletter topic and a format that aligns with your business. Reuse blog or social media posts occasionally but also create newsletter-only content. Here are some hypothetical newsletter examples.
- Travel gear retailer. Profile amazing Airbnb and Vrbo rentals.
- Cosmetics store. Feature successful women and career advice.
- Craft supply shop. Publish a list of crafting tutorials.
3. Engage with Your Podcast
Justin Moore is a content and sponsorship practitioner. His business, Creator Wizard, shows creators and influencers how to earn a living with the content they create. In 2023, Moore is launching a new podcast called “Creator Debates.”
Justin Moore is starting a new podcast in 2023; perhaps, your business should too.
Moore is getting into podcasting because it deepens his relationship with professional creators. He will format his podcast like a political debate with prominent content creators talking about hot topics in their industry.
For your January 2023 content marketing efforts, find a format that puts an interesting spin on podcasting.
An online shop selling power tools might interview leading contractors, asking them how projects are changing. An apparel shop could develop a podcast around fashion trends we all love or hate.
4. Commit to Video
We all know the cliche: A picture is worth a thousand words. But a video can be worth millions.
In January 2023, make videos an important part of your business’s content marketing strategy. Americans reportedly watch between 80 and 120 minutes of online video daily, on average.
January 2023 could be the time to start producing videos. Photo: Jakob Owens.
HubSpot recently reported that those viewers want to be entertained and taught and are increasingly learning from brand videos — i.e., content marketing videos.
Commit to a few simple video strategies in January 2023.
- Make your podcast a video. Record your podcast in both video and audio. Many podcasting tools will do this by default.
- Make videos from your best blog posts. Use your analytics and conversion tracking tools to identify your company’s top-performing blog posts, and make a video version of each one.
- Publish videos on your website. You will most certainly want to distribute your video content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, but don’t forget about your company’s own website too. Embed your videos directly on relevant pages.
5. Teach a Class
If useful info is the ultimate of content marketing, then teaching a class — as opposed to an article, newsletter, podcast, or video — is the ultimate format.
This final content marketing idea for January 2023 is to develop a class that teaches something of real value to customers. Almost any business can teach.
Here is an example. A company that sells workwear to construction workers might offer a free blueprint-reading class and certification. This is helpful because many construction workers don’t have formal training, only what they learned on the job.
If a framer, for example, wanted to start a business, the inability to read a complete blueprint could be a barrier to success. And the same company he buys his Carhart pants and Wolverine boots from could be the solution.
Almost any business can teach. For example, a workwear store could offer classes that advance a construction worker’s career. Photo: Baptiste Buisson.
