5 Quick Content Marketing Ideas for the Holidays
Most marketers agree that consistently creating content great content is the best way to guarantee results, which is why 6 in 10 marketers create at least one new piece of content every single day. Of course, content marketing is the perfect example of why it's crucial to balance both quantity and quality.
The key to great content is relevancy, timeliness, and value. So, as we head into the holiday season, it's really important that you're keeping all of these things in mind to make sure that you get the most out of your content marketing efforts. To help, here are five unique ideas you can put to work this season to boost your engagement.
Shift Your Focus From Evergreen Pieces to Timely Content
While you may strive to produce a good deal of "evergreen" content throughout the year (that is, content that will attract readers in the long-term), timeliness tends to be more important during the holidays. After all, just about every consumer will be in a certain mindset, whether they're preparing for snow, shopping for Christmas, or traveling for a get-together.
The fact is, consumers in your niche are most likely looking for specific information and/or have changing priorities and behaviors during the holiday season, and your content should shift accordingly during this time of the year. All of this means that you should be putting an equal amount of effort into creating these timely pieces, even if it means shifting your focus away from evergreen content for a little while. This is a strategy that's sure to get you results by keeping your brand more relevant and valuable to consumers' changing mindsets.
See Also: The 9 Life Stages of an Evergreen Blog Post
1. Help Your Social Following Get Into The Holiday Spirit
One of the simplest and quickest ways to kick off the holiday season is to help your social media following get into the mood. This is a great opportunity to give your followers an exclusive look into the "behind-the-scenes" aspect of your brand, whether you're posting pictures of your employees' ugliest Christmas sweater (like chain restaurant Tasty Burger did) or letting your staff share their silliest holiday traditions with the masses.
It's also a great opportunity to encourage UGC (User-Generated Content) by encouraging your followers to get involved with various activities. You can even create a custom, branded hashtag, thereby building brand awareness as you engage your customers in your holiday fun. Think: Holiday-themed caption contest, a themed countdown of content throughout December, or even a giveaway.
2. Interesting Facts & Historical Posts
Just about anyone will bite if presented with a quirky and intriguing headline like, "How The World's Most Famous Reindeer Originated from Content Marketing," as is the concept behind LinkedIn's holiday-themed article that explores the concept of Rudolph and his unexpected origin story. Mental Floss offers another great example where they breakdown the lesser-known holidays of December, including the celebrations and traditions of "Festivus" (a fake holiday founded by Seinfield writer Daniel O'Keefe's father on which an episode of the show was based).
The fact is, people love learning about new, especially obscure, tidbits from around the world and throughout time. So, the holidays are a great time to branch out a bit with your content ideas and come up with some titles that are sure to earn shares across social networks. Plus, if you get creative, you can most certainly tie these themes into your business' offerings. For instance, those in the food, recipe, or service industry can most certainly come up with ideas regarding the origin of popular holiday dishes, as many have done with eggnog.
3. Create a Themed Guide
Not only can creating a guide lead to some major cornerstone content or even a lead magnet to help you capture prospects' emails, but making it timely and holiday themed will keep it that much more exciting for your readers. In 2017, Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand, Goop, put out a great example of this, creating not one, but multiple Gift Guides that catered to various personas.
"The Host Gift Guide," "The Under-18 Gift Guide," "The Health Nut Gift Guide," and others made the list of Goop's collection, each one featuring unique ideas and incorporating Goop's own products wherever helpful. Of course, even if you don't sell products that can be wrapped up in a gift guide, you can surely come up with other themed guides to help fill your calendar.
For instance, a home inspection company could release a "Winter Maintenance Guide" detailing all the little things homeowners may overlook as the seasons change (like cleaning the lint out of the outside dryer vent and using a dehumidifier in the basement). Meanwhile, a florist could share a guide highlighting the prettiest and hardiest winter blooms. Regardless of what your niche is, guide-style content can definitely be worked in some how.
4. Wrap Up The Year With a Cheerful Roundup
The end of the year is all about looking back and celebrating achievements while also making plans for what's to come. As a brand, you can help relate to consumers while taking the chance to showcase some of your best milestones, accomplishments, and accolades you received throughout the year. Not only does this "wrap up" help you put a cap on the year, it also provides a unique opportunity to revisit things you might want to highlight once more (like that incredible magazine feature or industry award you earned).
These roundup-style posts can be as short or long as you wish, and they're also pretty quick to create since they're just pulling from the various content and accomplishments you've already shared. That makes them an easy yet relevant and interesting addition to your holiday content calendar, and brands like Walgreens regularly utilize this form of content for all of these reasons.
5. Look Ahead With Predictions for The New Year
An excellent complement to a year-end wrap up, countless companies also use the holiday season as an opportunity to look ahead to the new year and offer their own insights and predictions. If you happen to be a key industry player or able to extrapolate trends based on data that's available to you, like Hubspot, these predictions might even score you some citations and references amongst other blogs and brands who are offering information to their readers.
Alternatively, you may choose to quote industry experts to help you assemble your predictions, or you might go the humorous route and keep your predictions light-hearted. In any case, look ahead posts are a proven end-of-year format for engaging and even authoritative content that your readers will surely indulge in.
See Also: A Review of Content Marketing Trends in 2020
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