Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on PR Newswire’s Beyond PR blog

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Generating a stream of interesting and engaging ways to reach your audience through content marketing can be a pain. You use up so much brain power coming up with ideas that you have little left to actually put toward the work!

Next year, don’t let it come to that. Plan ahead of time. Use these 12 ideas over the next 12 months to continually appeal to your audience in unique ways.

January: Rethink Your Email Signup Offer

How do you entice subscribers to your email newsletter? If you’ve currently got nothing more than “sign up!” as an offer, use this month to brainstorm the kinds of content — like an ebook, whitepaper, special report or discount — that people will gladly trade their email to get.

February: Strategize Your Blog Content for the Future

A lot of businesses come up with blog topics in the moment rather than planning in advance. But a better strategy is to plan out your content several weeks or months — even quarters — ahead. This way you can better align it with whatever else you’re doing marketing-wise. For example, if you have a big charity event in December, you could schedule a few posts in the weeks beforehand to tackle a related topic and promote the event.

March: Revisit Your Best Content

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Looking at your blog’s analytics, you can easily see which posts were the most popular. This is great fodder for future content. You could write a “10 More X Tips” post, or expand upon points in a list post to generate several additional articles. You already know the topics are winners, so the new posts should do well.

April: Think About Holidays

Holidays are great to fuel content at particular times of the year. By mapping out your content calendar to include holidays, you can boost reads of your posts simply because people tend to look for content having to do with those holidays.

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May: Automate Shares of Older Content

There’s a fantastic WordPress plugin called Revive Old Posts that will automatically share your older blog content to your social media channels. It’s a great tool to make sure that a valuable post doesn’t just sit on the shelf. 

June: Plan Around Product Launches

The launch of a new product should have a certain degree of fanfare surrounding it, and your content marketing should play a big role in that. One launch could spur posts like a video review of the product, a tutorial on how to use it, or even the story behind its creation.

July: Leverage What You Learn

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If you attend industry trade shows or conferences, don’t keep what you learn under wraps. Instead, use it to fuel your content. You never know which notes you take from the event can become blog posts, videos, infographics or ebooks.

August: Tell Your Brand’s Story

Your brand’s story should be woven into all the content you create. Place your attention this month on making sure that your brand ethos is obvious in all content you produce, blog posts, social media updates and ebooks.

September: Involve New Partners

If you’re struggling for fresh content or just need a different perspective, try adding new and interesting voices to your content through expert interviews and Q&A.

Bonus: if your experts are share-happy, your content’s network will greatly expand.

October: Examine Outside Content

Read content not related to your brand or business and incorporate rhetorical skills you pick up into your marketing.

November: Brainstorm a Mega List of Topics

Beyond having your content calendar laid out, it’s imperative to have a spreadsheet full of evergreen topics you can use when your Idea River runs dry. Whenever a new subject springs to mind, put it in the spreadsheet. You’ll be glad you did during the fallow months of content.

December: Break Out of the Box

This is the month to try new things. If you always publish 600-word blog posts, mix it up with a video post. Or start a new podcast. Test out your new content and see how it resonates with your audience.

This list of ideas should continually inspire you to make your content marketing better and more engaging throughout the year!

When it comes to content marketing a calendar is your best ally. Click here to access our free content calendar planning template. 

(Images: Pixabay 123)

About

Susan Guillory is the president of Egg Marketing & Communications, a marketing firm specializing in content writing and social media management. She frequently blogs about small business and marketing on sites including Cision, Forbes, AllBusiness, Small Business Trends, The Marketing Eggspert Blog and Tweak Your Biz. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.