Useful, informative, and entertaining content is a good way to attract customers. It is the foundation for content marketing.
When your business creates or curates helpful content such as articles, videos, or podcasts, it can attract, engage, and retain an audience that is likely to become loyal to your store and the products it sells.
For some businesses, the challenge is not understanding how content marketing is supposed to work, but rather knowing what to write about or what to make a video about.
Thus, this article offers five content marketing ideas for October 2019. You are welcome to use these ideas for your business.
1. Start a Class
October is National Learning and Development Month and a good opportunity to engage with potential customers, teaching them some valuable skills online or in-person.
National Learning and Development Month is meant to encourage folks to learn something new. For the purpose of content marketing, your company could teach just about any valuable skill.
Take an example from kitchen supply retailer Sur La Table. The company hosts daily, paid cooking classes in each of its brick-and-mortar stores. Interested shoppers can pay $69 per person to learn to cut and roll sushi or $59 to learn how to make fall stews and soups.
Sur La Table offers quality cooking classes at its brick-and-mortar stores. Your business, be it online or physical, could also offer classes.
Consider developing a short, hour-long training course. If you sell baby clothes via an online store, as an example, you may offer courses such as:
- “The Power of Positive Parenting,”
- “The Science of Parenting,”
- “Travel Safety for Babies and Toddlers,”
- “Understanding Life Insurance for Your Family.”
You could publish classes on your site or on a learning platform.
2. Celebrate the Navy’s Birthday
The U.S. Navy was founded on October 13, 1775, and its birthday can be an important date for many service members.
To honor these folks, your company could produce at least three kinds of related content, including editorial, personal profiles, or product profiles.
Editorial content is when your business acts as a publisher, releasing articles to engage potential customers around a particular topic.
Recently, a direct-to-consumer electric bike company received a message from one of its customers regarding this sort of content.
“Just wanted to express my appreciation for the terrific content that you routinely put out in the blog/newsletter. It is well written…and educates about biking and e-bikes. Exactly the right approach for a sophisticated audience. Nice job,” the customer wrote.
In this vein, your October content marketing could tell the story of how the Navy was created or discuss some of its important contributions.
Personal profiles. The vice-president of information technology at a farm-and-ranch retail chain in Idaho served as the first officer on a nuclear submarine in the 1990s. If this fellow worked for your company, you could interview him on a podcast or video, putting a personal face on your company. The interview could connect with potential customers.
Product profiles could link the products you sell to the U.S. Navy. Here are two examples.
Duke Cannon Supply Co. could publish an article describing the inspiration for its limited-edition “Naval Supremacy” soap.
“Naval Supremacy” soap will get you clean, and it could also be the topic of a Navy-inspired article.
Sunglass Hunt might describe how the products it sells are related to new technology, such as Fast-Tint Protective Eyewear for Navy SEALs.
3. National Mammography Day
Held on October 18, 2019, National Mammography Day is part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of this day, many medical facilities in the U.S. offer free mammograms and diagnostic breast care services.
For your content marketing, aim to make your audience aware of these free services, point them to a directory of facilities offering free services, and remind them how important it is to detect breast cancer early.
Your content could describe National Mammography Day, or it might be a profile of someone in your industry or your company who has experience with breast cancer.
National Mammography Day is an important reminder. Photo: Dean Moriarty.
4. Back to the Future Day
In the 1989 film “Back to the Future Part II,” teenager Marty McFly travels forward in time 30 years to October 21, 2015, to save his family.
When the film was made, 2015 must have seemed far off, since the movie is filled with flying cars, hoverboards that really hover, and other far-out tech.
In “Back to the Future Part II,” Marty McFly time travels from 1985 to October 21, 2015.
Some science fiction and pop-culture fans still celebrate Back to the Future Day each October 21.
While Back to the Future content won’t make sense for every business, others can publish articles, videos, or podcasts around this pseudo-holiday. If your business is one of these, consider writing articles that compare “Back to the Future Part II” products to the items your company sells. Here are a few ideas from other sites.
5. National Checklist Day
The website Hackernoon published a good article about the sad origin of National Checklist Day, which is commemorated each October 30.
In 1935, “Boeing was set to revolutionize the U.S. military, and the entire airline industry, by introducing the brand new Model 299, also known as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. This flying marvel of technology was in development for 5 years. It had 4 engines, a central bomb bay, and gunner stations throughout the fuselage. It was the most sophisticated airplane in aviation history,” the author wrote.
During an October 30, 1935 test flight, “the aircraft sped down the runway, achieved perfect lift, began to climb, and within seconds, stalled, banked, and crashed into the field, as onlookers watched in horror. Two people were killed on board, including the pilot, Major Ployer P. Hill. The co-pilot and two others on board were pulled from the burning wreckage, thus saving their lives.”
The remains of a Boeing Model 299 after its October 30, 1935, crash.
And investigation determined “the flight crew had simply forgotten to release the flight control gust locks, thus causing the plane to nose dive into the ground, immediately after takeoff…It was further determined that the airplane was ‘too complex’ for man to fly. Technology and the sheer amount of tasks required to safely take off in a modern-day airplane had surpassed the limitations of human memory.”
The story did not end there. Boeing introduced the checklist as a mandatory pre-flight tool. The seemingly simple process of checking off items on a list made it possible for the B-17 to become a staple of U.S. airpower.
For your October 2019 content marketing, consider creating checklists for your audience. Here are examples.
- Clothing store: “2019 Fall Fashion Checklist”
- Hardware store: “Get Ready for Winter, DIY Checklist”
- Auto accessory shop: “Your Car’s Winterizing Checklist”
