Whether your business launches a new video series, composes a post about filmmaker Wes Anderson, or features any of the month’s many holidays, there is no shortage of content marketing possibilities for May 2018.
Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and distributing content with the specific aim of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. When a business is able to build a relationship with a shopper, it may be able to keep that shopper long term, increasing conversions and lifetime value.
What follows are five content marketing ideas your business can use in May.
1. Start a Video Series
This year, video will account for about 77 percent of all consumer internet traffic, according to a 2016 Cisco estimate. In just three years, video, including the videos content marketers use to engage shoppers, will account for some 81 percent of consumer internet traffic, given an expected compound annual growth rate of 31 percent.
In other words, video content dominates engagement.
This is at once an opportunity and a challenge. Your company has the opportunity to begin developing video content for distribution on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and similar services. Your videos have the potential to build shopper relationships and drive sales.
Your company’s competitors have this same opportunity. And what is now a good way to reach prospects may at some point become almost a requirement to compete. That is the challenge.
So start producing simple, helpful, or entertaining videos today.
As an example of the sort of content your business might produce, look at Canadian Tire’s “How to Choose a Car Seat” video, which was released on YouTube in March of this year.
The company is among Canada’s leading retailers, selling everything from automobile parts to home decor and even car seats, via its extensive online shop and more than 500 brick-and-mortar stores.
The short and engaging video on Best Made’s retail website doesn’t feature products, but it does entertain and thereby connect with potential customers.
Also, check out Best Made’s short video about stuntmen. It features notable stunt actors, and it seeks to entertain rather than directly sell products. Odds are it will resonate with Best Made’s shoppers.
2. Celebrate Wes Anderson’s Birthday, May 1
Wes Anderson is one of America’s most distinctive filmmakers. He is known for controlling seemingly every aspect of the movies he makes, resulting in a very recognizable style.
In fact, his movies are so distinctive that online movie magazine Screen Junkies recently published an “Honest Trailer” for all of Anderson’s films.
“Before you see the whimsical new animated feature (Isle of Dogs) from your baristas’ favorite director,” the Screen Junkies video says, “revisit all of his meticulously crafted awkward family fables that make you kind of happy, kind of sad, and kind of unsure when you are supposed to laugh.”
In fact, “his style is so specific, he is basically is own genre.”
Anderson’s particulars make him interesting as a subject for content marketing. For example:
- An online clothing store might describe the nostalgic fashion in Anderson’s films.
- An auto parts store could describe the vehicles featured in “Moonrise Kingdom” or “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
- A bridal shop could publish, “What If Wes Anderson Planned Your Wedding?”
For May, find a creative way to feature Wes Anderson in your content marketing, or feature similarly distinctive folks related to the segment your business serves.
3. Write an Information-rich Product Page
Very often content marketing seeks to share useful information with an interested audience. While this sharing might happen on a blog page, a social media channel, or in a video, there is nothing to stop content marketers from inserting a lot of engaging content into an ecommerce product page.
Consider this suggestion a challenge. Take one of your store’s products and load its page with the following:
- Three or more compelling product photographs;
- At least 150 words of useful copy;
- A video that describes how to use the item;
- A graphic that explains how the product could benefit the shopper;
- At least three customer reviews.
4. Create Content around a May Holiday
May has more holidays than a porcupine has quills. Each one of these celebrations is an opportunity for your business to produce engaging content.
Porcupines have a lot of quills.
Here a few possibilities.
- Pet supply retailers could feature National Pet Week, May 6 – 12.
- A movie memorabilia shop might write about Star Wars Day (“May the 4th Be with You”) or Twilight Zone Day on May 11.
- An art supply merchant could produce content for Cartoonists Day on May 5.
- Workwear stores could celebrate Military Appreciation Month or Firefighter’s Day on May 4, 2018.
There are many other May holidays to consider.
- May 1, May Day and Lei Day
- May 2, World Play Your Ukulele Day
- May 3, Paranormal Day
- May 5, Cinco de Mayo
- May 6, National Teacher Day and No Diet Day
- May 7, Roast Leg of Lamb Day
- May 8, Victory in Europe Day and No Socks Day
- May 9, National Receptionists’ Day
- May 10, Windmill Day
- May 12, Train Day
- May 13, Top Gun Day
- May 14, Accounting Day
- May 15, Straw Hat Day
- May 16, Armed Forces Day and Sea Monkey Day
- May 17, Pack Rat Day
- May 18, Bike to Work Day
- May 19, May Ray Day
- May 20, Pick Strawberries Day
- May 21, National American Red Cross Founder’s Day
- May 22, Goth Day
- May 23, Turtle Day
- May 24, Tiara Day
- May 25, Memorial Day and Towel Day
- May 26, Blueberry Cheesecake Day
- May 27, Sun Screen Day
- May 28, Hamburger Day
- May 29, End of the Middle Ages Day
- May 30, National Mint Julep Day
- May 31, No Tobacco Day
5. Publish a Mother’s Day Gift Guide
Sunday, May 13, is Mother’s Day. It is the month’s standout holiday for retail. In fact, the National Retail Federation has estimated that 2017 Mother’s Day spending reached about $23 billion in the United States.
Consider creating a Mother’s Day gift guide that both displays the products your business has to sell and explains why your curated list of items would make a welcome gift for mom.