Six content marketing ideas for sustainable businesses
I believe content marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and connect with your customers. Furthermore, as a sustainable or ethical business, it’s possible to see big results with only a modest investment in content production.
Before we launch into some ideas to get started with your content marketing, it’s important to highlight the fact that all content should be strategic. Each content piece you produce should be tailored to a target audience, have marketing goals attached to it and ideally some KPIs to help you figure out if your content was successful.
For example, perhaps you are a small business which produces sustainable outdoor gear. You decide to write a blog post about the benefits of spending time outdoors. Here’s a sample of the types of goals and KPIs you might consider.
Your goals can be as broad or specific as you like, as long as you have something to help guide you forward with your content marketing efforts. It’s helpful to get into the habit of doing this exercise during your content planning.
Now we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s look at some easily-implemented content ideas that you’ll find useful as a sustainable or ethical business.
Guest-blogging
As a sustainable business owner you’re likely juggling many responsibilities. One of the easiest ways to boost your content marketing and engage with your audience is to ask bloggers and influencers from the sustainability space to guest write on your blog. Reach out to smaller influencers who will be looking for exposure and make sure they are active in your niche (e.g. an influencer who’s niche is slow fashion or zero waste). Cross promotion of the guest post will boost your web traffic and social following, while providing your guest blogger with highly coveted backlinks.
Founder or employee stories
It’s story time. One of the most unique things about sustainable and ethical businesses is that the founder and founding employees often have a truly meaningful story to tell. This is important to your target audience too, who want to connect with brands who share the same values and vision for the future. Sharing your story can be done in a variety of formats. Why not record a video, post it on social media and then transcribe it to generate a blog post? Congratulations, you just repurposed one piece of content into three entirely different formats.
User generated content
One of the most successful ethical fashion businesses of the last few years is Organic Basics. In the early-stages, Organic Basics spread the word about their brand by investing heavily in affiliate marketing and user-generated content. There was a period of time where you couldn’t go on Instagram without seeing Organic Basics being promoted by every single influencer in the conscious living space. While you might not have the resources to send out masses of free clothes, you can still take inspiration from this strategy. Influencers were creating content for Organic Basics and spreading the word about their brand without them having to do much at all in terms of content production. How can you encourage your audience to share content that includes your brand? Can you feature users wearing your items, for example? Come up with a hashtag or offer a discount if they help spread the word.
Industry deep-dive
There’s always room for longer-form content on your website, especially if you’re keen to boost your SEO ranking. As a passionate purpose-driven business employee or founder, what unique insight can you provide into the workings of your industry? Perhaps you’re a bioplastics provider and can educate your audience about the importance of compostable plastics vs eradicating them completely. Or maybe you’re a slow fashion brand who’s an expert on the ethical treatment of garment workers. You’re talking to an audience who have gone out of their way to learn about the negative impacts of the status quo and adjusted their behaviour as a result, so they’ll appreciate learning even more from you. Most importantly, this type of content positions you as a thought leader and builds trust. If you’re time poor, consider asking a freelancer to help you with the actual writing (yes, I can help!).
Impact statistics
What positive impact does your business have on the environment, people or animals? Is it quantifiable? Think about the types of content which can stem from your impact. Conscious consumers are keen to reduce their negative impact on the world and will value seeing, in real numbers, what impact your business has and how it can help them on their mission. This type of content could be presented in a series of social media posts, altogether in a branded infographic, listed in a blog post, or even displayed permanently on a page of your website.
Shareable social checklist
This is a type of content that is highly shareable and more likely to go viral. It could also be classed as a type of user-generated content, since it requires users to engage with and amend the content before sharing it. While it might not be your most highly converting content, it’s a great format to utilise in order to build brand awareness and increase your social following. Depending which industry you’re in, you can create and share a checklist in instagram story format which the user can fill in and then ask their followers to do the same. For example, if you’re a business selling plastic-free products, you might generate a zero waste essentials bingo card, where users can cross off the items they already have. Other ideas include; checklists, weekly planners or completable tables. Be sure to brand your content and include your social handles before sharing, so users know it’s associated with your brand.
There you have it, six easy-to-implement content ideas to get you started on your content marketing journey. If you need help with your content planning or strategising, or would just like to bounce more creative ideas around, feel free to contact me to set up a virtual coffee.