Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and promoting articles, podcasts, and videos with the intent of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. Producing such content in September 2020 is difficult, however, without recognizing the worldwide pandemic.
Fortunately, there are still many opportunities to generate productive content around back-to-school, dating, hobbies, shopping, and reading.
Here are five content marketing ideas your business can try in September 2020.
1. Back-to-school Tips
Although many schools will start in August, there is plenty of time to offer back-to-school content in September due to the on-going coronavirus pandemic.
This year, many schools will likely hold some combination of online and in-person classes. What’s more, the balance of homeschooling and physical classes will probably be fluctuating throughout the month and beyond. Your business could help with this uncertainty.
September content could offer tips and suggestions to help parents manage work and homeschooling. Photo: Jessica Lewis.
For September, consider publishing how-to and informational articles, podcasts, or videos that will help parents deal with these challenges.
Here are a few possible examples.
- Woodworking supply store. Publish articles showing how to build a folding desk for homeschooling or how to transform a table into a stand-up workspace.
- Office supply retailer. Create a “how-to-find-a-tutor guide” for professionals who might be working from home and homeschooling, too. Include a list of homeschooling supplies.
- Children’s apparel shop. Produce a series on how to save money on clothing during the school year, since so many classes may be online.
- Kitchen supply merchant. Produce nutritious recipes that kids can make at home.
2. Stay-at-home Date Nights
The global pandemic has altered the habits of consumers. This includes how couples date. For your business’s September 2020 content marketing, consider creating content around enjoying a fun stay-at-home date night.
Consider content around a fun stay-at-home dating activity, such as painting. Photo: Ali Ridho.
Try to integrate your company’s products into the stay-at-home ideas. For example, date-night tips from an art supply retailer might include:
- Complete a paint-by-numbers project,
- Watch a Bob Ross training episode on YouTube,
- Trace old photos, transforming them into sketches.
Similarly, an online shop that sells teas and coffees could compose articles around tea tastings, coffee cake making, and the like.
3. New Hobbies
The pandemic is prompting consumers to pick up new hobbies, as described in these example articles:
If this trend continues in September, you could create a series of new hobby suggestions that are related to the products your business sells.
- Craft shop. Suggest, as examples, crocheting, knitting, sewing, cross-stitch, painting, and scrapbooking.
- Kitchen supply store. Recommend cooking, baking, coffee-making, or similar.
- An outfitter. Discuss fly tying, photography, and map collecting.
A craft shop that sold yarn, needles, and patterns could suggest knitting. Photo: Margarida Afonso.
As a bonus, try to suggest three kinds of hobbies:
- Hobbies that make money,
- Hobbies that keep participants physically fit,
- Hobbies that are creative.
4. Pandemic Holiday Shopping
Starting a new hobby is not the only Covid-induced behavioral change. Shopping habits have changed, too. Holiday shopping in 2020 will be unlike any other year.
Thus, how online stores promote holiday sales may need to change, as well. For example, some consumers may be nervous about product availability and could start shopping much sooner this year.
Consider publishing holiday gift guides in the form of articles, podcasts, and videos as soon as possible.
As inspiration, here are several gift-giving guides (Christmas and otherwise) with a dad-theme.
5. Read a Book Day: September 6
September 6, 2020, is “National Read a Book Day” in the United States. It’s an opportunity to pull out your company’s list of favorite novels and nonfiction works. Book recommendations may not seem exciting, but they can be useful evergreen content.
Book recommendations may not seem too exciting, but they can be useful evergreen content. Photo: Hu Chen.
As with all content marketing ideas, look for ways to connect your read-a-book listicles to the products your company sells.
For example, an omnichannel farm and ranch supply retailer might choose to recommend novels from Laura Ingalls Wilder, Zane Grey, and Louis L’Amour.
An online retailer selling hiking and camping gear could recommend books such as “Into the Wild, Between a Rock and a Hard Place” by Aron Ralston, who amputated his arm while mountain climbing. Or, “Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival” by Joe Simpson, who fell from a vertical mountain face in the Andes.
