AI Search, Cookieless Ads Boost Content Marketing

AI-powered search results and the oft-postponed demise of third-party advertising cookies could lead ecommerce marketers toward alternative forms of content marketing.

Ecommerce shops depend on website visitors for sales — no shoppers, no orders. Two concerning trends have the potential to pinch stores’ site traffic.

Dual Challenges

The first challenge is familiar. Soon, web browsers will eliminate the advertising cookies that track shoppers across websites.

Cookies help advertising networks learn about consumers to show them relevant ads, i.e., ads they are likely to click. More relevant ads, in turn, lead to lower costs per click, better return on advertising spend, and more sales.

As tracking cookies disappear, advertising networks will lose signal, meaning ads may become less effective and, therefore, more expensive. The impact of this signal loss could be similar to Apple’s change in 2021 in how it tracked consumers across mobile apps, making social media ads relatively less effective. Ecommerce marketers may have to spend more to get paid traffic.

Organic traffic could also be a problem. Since May 14, 2024, Google’s AI Overview feature has been available for many web searches. Bing has a similar feature, Copilot, and some in the industry believe these search summaries will dramatically reduce organic site traffic to many websites. Research firm Gartner estimated that organic traffic could fall by 25% within two years.

Ecommerce marketers must find a way to offset reduced paid and organic visits. Alternative content marketing methods are one possible solution.

AI search summaries could reduce the amount of organic search traffic to websites.

Content Alternatives

For many marketers, content marketing is synonymous with search engine optimization. These folks think of blog posts and even product detail content as a way to rank in search engines.

However, a broad view of content marketing may open folks to benefits beyond organic search, focusing instead on three alternatives.

Editorial newsletters

For many, email newsletters are the new blogs and a significant traffic source.

Consider, for example, an online garden supply shop.

This shop could start a “Gardening This Week” newsletter. Every Thursday, it sends an email broadcast with five gardening tips, three curated from the web. The other two link back to the garden shop’s own blog — the one that once received much organic search traffic. The shop could “sponsor” its own newsletter and include a link to a product.

This newsletter would have at least three positive impacts.

• It becomes an alternative source of site traffic.
• Knowing an email address helps with abandoned cart recovery.
• Featuring a single “sponsored” product in the editorial context can drive sales.

Podcasts

In 2017, an Idaho-based farm and ranch retailer (where I was director of marketing and ecommerce) started an editorial podcast that would eventually run for 191 episodes.

The show was available on top podcasting platforms and broadcast on three local radio stations. At its peak, it reached 800,000 monthly listeners. Whenever the podcast mentioned a product, sales of that item increased.

Circa 2024, monitoring podcast performance has gotten easier, and using a podcast for content marketing could help ecommerce marketers with both traffic and sales.

Here’s how.

Imagine an online wine retailer starting a podcast interviewing sommeliers, winemakers, and industry experts.

Episodes would appear on popular podcast platforms and social media sites such as YouTube. The host would encourage listeners to visit the shop’s website and also offer a discount code for a wine mentioned in the interview.

On YouTube, the episode description would include links directly to the wine merchant’s website and the weekly offer.

Courses

Some merchants sell products that require assembly or use instructions. This presents an opportunity to teach customers via courses, a form of content marketing.

Think about an online store selling knitting supplies. The shop could launch a comprehensive knitting course, teaching the fundamentals of holding a needle and following advanced patterns. The course could reside on the shop’s website, on YouTube as a playlist, and on a dedicated portal such as Skillshare.

In each lesson, the instructor could include a materials list with links directly to the shop.

Mitigating

Marketing performance is never certain. Some of that uncertainty now concerns advertising effectiveness and organic search traffic. Marketers interested in mitigating these challenges could try alternative forms of content such as newsletters, podcasts, and courses.

The Top 10 Content Marketing Skills You Need (Plus Tips On How To Master Them) via @sejournal, @brentcsutoras

Want to reach more of your target audience, connect with them, and have meaningful interactions?

Quality content marketing may be the ideal solution for you.

But gone are the days of simply writing and releasing content.

Effective content marketing requires various skills and strategies if you want to get it right.

If you’re looking to breathe new life into your brand and generate more interest in your target audience, here are the top 10 skills and strategies you’ll need.

1. Know Your Audience And Target Them Effectively

Ask anyone about content and content marketing, and chances are that audience targeting is one of the first suggestions.

But what does audience targeting actually mean? And why is it an essential content marketing skill?

First, understand who your audience is, what their day is like, their priorities, and what they’re doing or intending to do while they consume content.

Then, use that information to craft content that counts on a platform and in a format that suits your audience.

Take the Shoe Snob Blog as an example.

The content is photo-centric. The page has few distractions, and the storytelling and text are dense and chunked.

The topics range from stories of shoemakers, care tips, and all the insider info a lover of bespoke and top-of-the-line men’s shoes, shoe designer, or shoemaker could want to know about the objects of their obsessions.

These features tell us a lot about the blog’s readers.

Shoe Snob Blog readers are likely visual, busy, and view reading the blog’s content as almost a secret pleasure they indulge in while waiting in line for an expensive coffee.

The blog doesn’t have content on saving money, getting things for less, building shoes more cheaply, or reviews of shoes you’d find in your local department store.

Why? That’s not what the blog’s target audience is interested in. In fact, those topics would likely chase readers away.

For Justin FitzPatrick, the blog’s author, it’s about the luxury, the emotional connection and passion for the brands, and the smaller details most of us wouldn’t likely notice about a man’s dress shoe – in language that matches the audience’s expertise.

You might be tempted to skip audience exploration and targeting to this degree, particularly if you’re a B2B brand or sell something non-visual like insurance.

But this could be a fatal mistake for your content marketing.

Even if you’re selling to another company, that company is driven and shaped by humans you’ll need to get attention from.

2. Understand How Brand Strategy Influences Content

Content and content marketing could do more harm than good if they fail to blend seamlessly with a brand strategy.

So, if you’re looking to build content marketing skills, ensure you understand how brand strategy influences effective content.

Solid brand-driven content strategies consist of six core elements when it comes to content:

• Brand foundations – What matters to the company, such as the image it wishes to project, etc.
• Audience discovery and brand position – How the brand fits within the market.
• Keywords and language – How the company wants people to find its brand, and what language it will use.
• Authority building – Looking like an expert and a leader on a chosen topic.
• Content creation – Any content strategy must be manageable, affordable, sustainable, scalable, and effective.
• Organization – Utilizing an editorial and publishing calendar and post-publishing tracking and measurement to maintain and guide your content strategy.

3. Consider SEO, Search, And Search Engines

SEO and search are essential for getting found, gaining traffic, building authority, and overall growth.

If you want your content marketing to work, you can’t afford to avoid this content marketing skill because you’re not an expert.

• Users make 1.2 trillion searches on Google per year.
• 93% of all web traffic comes from a search engine.
• 46% of searches are made to look for something local.

In January 2023, searches for phrases that included “gifts” increased 45%, while searches that included “presents” increased 15% over 2022. This equated to $47 billion in the two weeks following Christmas.

So, search is growing and becoming more important – not declining.

If you want to take advantage of search traffic, you need to ensure you’re considering several aspects of SEO when developing your content marketing skills, including:

• Keyword research.
• AI and how to humanize your content.
• Link building.
• Building authority.
• Topic relevance and expertise.
• Site structure, website performance, and analytics.

4. Humanize Your Content

Once you get started with content marketing, you’ll realize pretty quickly that AI-generated content is highly problematic.

You need to follow basic SEO formulas to have your content rank, another formula to make it interesting and catchy for readers, and how to maximize the usability of your content.

However, you also need to ensure you stand out from the crowd and surpass your competitors.

To make your content more human-friendly, learn how to:

• Create content that supports a user journey rather than search engines or sections of a funnel.
• Utilize customer communications and social channels to understand and connect with your audience. Then, use it to market your content.
• Make use of internal experts. Not only is looking in-house a way to make excellent content more affordable, but audiences also love to see your brand’s passion for what it does.
• Take a smart angle, get personal, and have an attitude. Personality and branding are vital, but so is the information you provide. Ensure it is something of value to your readers, and don’t be afraid to tell stories to build emotional connections.
• Add personal videos to top-performing articles.

One of the best examples of all these tips for humanized content in action is the annual Christmas content campaign from WestJet.

5. Engage By Storytelling And Creative Writing

If you want to capture attention and use content to connect with your audience, you need to be able to tell a good story.

Stories make content emotionally engaging but also make it possible for readers to experience what it would be like if they purchased your product or service.

Want to strengthen your content marketing with storytelling?

• Create relatable, believable content. To do this, know your audience, understand their experiences, and create content that aligns with this knowledge.
• Have a clear message. Like an ad, every story or piece of content needs a goal and a clear message you want to convey to your audience.
• Choose the right type of story. Do you need to make an emotional connection? Compel a reader to act? Convey values, a feature, or a concept? Build community?
• Select the right platform and medium. If you want to share several statistics, video might not be the best option. Selling vacations? YouTube or TikTok might perform better than Reddit or a blog.
• Know where to start and stop. Your content needs to appear at the right point in the customer journey and push readers to the next step. What should readers do next?
• Organize and structure. Plan your content ahead of time. Make sure your stories have an arc, make sense, and take readers or views through an experience.

6. Do Your Research

The best content provides an audience with information or a look at something they normally don’t have access to.

To find this information, you must be prepared for deep research – and that means a lot more than just finding a statistic.

Find the original source or study. Ensure the number you’ve found is still relevant and accurate. Consider the source of the statistic and how they arrived at that number. What did the study not consider when finding their statistic?

To build additional authority, you may consider interviewing the source of a statistic or a subject area expert.

7. Improve Your Interviewing Skills

While it helps if you deeply understand the subject matter, it isn’t all lost if you’re new to the topic.

In fact, being a newbie to a topic can have advantages because you can see the topic with a fresh perspective.

One thing you must be knowledgeable about, however, is interviews. Interviewing is an essential content marketing skill.

Here are some tips:

Prepare

Arrive at the interview with an understanding of the topic. Know the pains and challenges individuals interested in the topic face.

Understand your priorities for your readers, the industry, and the individual you’re interviewing.

Have a list of questions that are thoughtful and organized, and work toward answering a single question or reaching a specific goal.

Set Interview Goal

Are you trying to get tips from an expert? A day in the life of? Solve or bring light to a certain issue? Make a human connection?

Choose a goal for your interview, organize it into an outline, and remove any question or information that doesn’t help you move toward that goal.

Be Personable And Make The Interviewee Comfortable

Awkward silences, a lack of rapport, nervousness, and other social aspects can interfere with an otherwise excellent interview and affect the information you collect.

You may want to consider using cognitive interview techniques, which have been adapted from criminal investigation for journalism.

Record Your Conversation

As humans, our brains prioritize stimuli to determine what is important and what we should pay attention to and remember.

This attentional filtering becomes more severe when you’re making notes, thinking about the technical aspects of an interview, and nervous. As a result, it’s easy to miss important details or implications.

So, save some time and improve your accuracy and insights into the information provided during the interview by making a recording that you can refer to as often as necessary.

Be Precise And Ask For Clarification

Some people love raisins in cinnamon buns. Others do not. And just like the raisins debate, how you define a word or concept may vary greatly from someone else.

So, if the information you collect during an interview seems vague, or you’re unsure of something the interviewee says, ask.

The worst thing you can do is assume that it isn’t true or deliberately influence the meaning of someone’s words.

8. Measure And Track Everything

Measuring something is generally easy. The difficult part of measurement and tracking is measuring and tracking the right things.

SEJ’s annual State of SEO Report reveals that SEO professionals often have a mismatch between their goals, the methods and strategies they use to reach them, and the variables they measure.

Content marketers and marketing are no exception.

Let’s say you want to use content marketing to increase conversions. So, you create a video for your hot tub company.

In this instance, tracking and analyzing traffic data to the video would be a mistake. Those numbers are only part of the story.

Instead, track clicks and use traffic data to better understand who clicks through to your content and where viewers go after they consume it.

And this is vital: Don’t stop your analysis at the click.

Every visit from a viewer is only one step in a larger journey – and this journey matters.

Returning to the previous example, your video might have generated fewer clicks and conversions overall.

Dig a little deeper, however, and you might discover that those few conversions were of much higher value than average, and the viewers return to your site more often than your average site viewer.

In this instance, while traffic numbers might make it look like your video failed, analysis of the customer journey reveals that your video was actually a big success, attracting a more qualified, valuable, and engaged audience.

9. Repackage Content With Purpose

You invest a lot of resources in creating amazing content. Don’t simply publish it in one format and waste the rest of its potential.

Before creating content, consider all the different formats and ways you can share it to get attention.

By planning, you can collect images, video footage, sound bites, expert quotes, and everything you’ll need to share and market your content in various ways to maximize your return on investment (ROI).

But refrain from repackaging content with the sole purpose of spreading it everywhere. Carefully plan your content to appear when and where you need to.

As explained in the video above, Search Engine Journal uses the data gathered for its State of SEO Report to create:

• White paper reports.
• Podcast.
• Articles on data not included in the main reports.
• Infographics.
• Carousels for social media.
• Video clips.

Some of these are released before the main report is published to help spread the word and generate interest while sharing interesting insights about the SEO industry.

Then, when the report is released, it is followed by additional content to help generate interest, links, and findings.

Therefore, instead of a week of interest, the reports generate traffic and attention while informing readers for months without significantly increasing the original investment.

10. Stand Out While Blending In

One of the more common pieces of advice is to copy successful content and do what others are doing.

Makes sense, right?

After all, SEO, good writing, and other skills all have best practices you need to follow. Your audience also has preferences, expectations, and requirements.

Your content needs to look like everyone else’s to some degree.

But here’s the problem with this advice: No one stands out if everyone does things the same way.

Therefore, learning how to blend in while standing out is an essential skill for content marketing.

So, instead of mimicking or copying successful content, collect several examples that have worked on a specific platform or for a specific audience and investigate to find out why they’re effective.

Then, you can use these insights to create and test your own content that allows you to stand out, be unique, and fulfill the needs of your target audience.

Conclusion

Effective marketing is more than choosing the right topic or quality writing.

By strengthening and utilizing these 10 content marketing skills, your content will help you generate the right traffic and connect with your audience in a way that will have you dominating the competition.

More resources:

Featured Image: Viktoria Kurpas/Shutterstock

The 9 Best Content Calendar Templates For 2024 via @sejournal, @donutcaramel13

Marketers take note: If you want to execute a strong, seamless content strategy, you need a content calendar.

Content calendars aren’t just about organizing your upcoming posts; they also help ensure that your content aligns with your strategic goals and maximizes your resources efficiently.

Whether you’re managing multiple social platforms or experimenting with various content types, a content calendar provides you with the blueprint for consistent, impactful content creation.

In this article, we’ve rounded up the top 9 content calendar templates, each designed to streamline content planning and boost productivity.

From simple spreadsheets to more complex solutions, we’ve compiled a range of templates to suit your needs.

Let’s dive in.

What Is A Content Calendar?

Before jumping into the best content calendar templates, let’s start with the basics.

A content calendar is a fundamentally a time-management system tailored for content creation. It helps you organize your workflow into manageable weekly or daily blocks, enabling you to maintain a clear and structured approach to producing content.

It also gives you a bird’s-eye view of your content strategy, allowing you to understand what you have in the pipeline and when and where it will be published.

This way, you can align your content with upcoming events, marketing campaigns, product releases, etc., to ensure each piece of content meets your audience where they are and serves its intended purpose.

A content calendar is an indispensable tool for social media marketers, bloggers, freelancers, and content creators. With a content calendar, you can consistently produce high-quality content, which is key to building an engaged community.

While some people prefer to use specialized software for their content calendar needs, it’s possible to start with something as simple as an Excel sheet.

Here, we’ll highlight some existing content calendar templates that you can easily leverage and adapt to your brand’s needs to get started.

Why Should I Use A Content Calendar?

Whether you’re the only content specialist in your in-house ecommerce company or an agency social media manager, a content calendar makes you better organized with your campaigns.

It’s also a helpful tool for collaborating with multiple teammates, as it can help inform them of what’s needed and when.

Why? At a glance, it’s easy to understand what went live, along with the copy and asset used. Sort your posts by social platform and assign some color coding. Usually, each tab is marked by month.

Because you can see the bigger picture (at least a month in advance), you can map out themes and daily social posts ahead of schedule, plan well-researched infographics with your designer, and track how your posts are doing.

You’re better equipped to craft your message to your target audience, keeping their wants and needs in mind when the seasonal trends come and go.

You can plan around holidays and significant world events, from Valentine’s Day to Pride Month or any national event relevant to your brand values.

(Not to toot our own horn, but we have our own marketing calendar to help you with just that!)

Plus, by planning ahead, you’re less likely to commit a faux pas – as the content will be brainstormed, briefed, approved, and published before crunch time. It’s a protective measure.

Without further ado, here are our picks (most of them are free!).

Top 9 Content Calendar Templates For 2024

1. CoSchedule Marketing Calendar Template

Screenshot from CoSchedule.com, April 2024

If you’re running a WordPress blog, CoSchedule may be your best bet.

It truly shines in content marketing with its user-friendly interface and AI-driven features, such as the AI Social Assistant, which can help you draft social messages to enhance engagement and save time.

The intuitive calendar is easy to use. It has 15 seamless integrations, including WordPress, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Mailchimp, and more.

The Bluesky and Google Business Profile integrations can help streamline your content management across different platforms, while functionalities like the TikTok Slideshow Scheduling feature allow for dynamic content creation directly from your calendar interface.

We recommend this one if you manage your blog and social media. It’s a great choice for individual and small to medium-sized marketing teams looking for a straightforward, efficient way to manage their content.

• Cost: Free plan offers a social calendar with up to three users and two social profiles. Paid options start at $19/month for additional users, social profiles, and more advanced features.

2. Airtable Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from Airtable.com, April 2024

If you’re managing a content calendar in Google Sheets, Excel, or CSV files and looking to upgrade, Airtable is an excellent choice.

Airtable simplifies content management with its robust automation features for reminders and task tracking, which are perfect for those who prefer not to juggle complex spreadsheet formulas.

The platform supports multiple data fields for important content management, such as Title, Writer, Due Date, Status, and Image, and allows for easy customization to suit your specific workflow needs.

Airtable’s straightforward content calendar template enables you to manage everything from social media content to blog posts and more, providing a clear overview of author workloads, ideas in the pipeline, and key results essential for any content strategy.

You can assign tasks, track deadlines with multiple calendar views (including a grid, kanban, or calendar format), and send reminders through built-in alerts to make sure everyone is staying on track.

• Cost: A free version is available; more advanced features are included in the paid plans, which are tailored to team size and specific needs.

3. HubSpot Social Media Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from HubSpot.com, April 2024

Excel geeks, rejoice!

HubSpot’s free Social Media Content Calendar is pretty flexible. Just insert the month + year into the Monthly Planning Calendar tab, and adjust the template to suit your brand.

The template is structured with several tabs dedicated to various platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X (Twitter), and Pinterest, ensuring you can manage updates across your social channels with precision.

Each tab is thoughtfully designed, providing examples of how to best engage with your audience on each platform.

There is also a Content Repository tab to help you track all the content you’re producing, which is invaluable for organizing and reusing your existing content.

It even comes with a comprehensive starter guide PDF that helps you understand how to make the most of the template.

It’s more for social media than blog posts, so we recommend this one for social media specialists in startups and in-house social media managers for ecommerce brands – though it could be tailored to fit a variety of needs.

• Cost: Free – just download the template.

4. Trello Editorial Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from Trello.com, April 2024

A popular project management tool, Trello is an ideal content calendar choice for massive teams already on an Agile framework and using similar products (Jira, Confluence, etc.).

The drag-and-drop functionality is easy to use. One glance, and you know what the task status is.

Trello offers a specialized free editorial content calendar template that’s ideal for seamlessly managing the entire lifecycle of blog posts and social media content.

Using the template, you can visually track each piece of content from conception to publication. You can manage drafts, coordinate illustrations, and attach necessary assets directly to each Trello card dedicated to specific content pieces.

The template enhances team collaboration by enabling you to add editors, designers, and social media managers to cards, ensuring that all stakeholders are kept up-to-date.

You’ll also find checklists to ensure all steps are completed, filterable card labels, and a calendar view to give you a clear perspective on your publishing pipeline, making it a powerful tool for large teams focused on detailed content planning and execution.

• Cost: Free – sign up and download the template.

5. Hootsuite Social Media Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from Hootsuite.com, April 2024

Similar to HubSpot’s template, Hootsuite has a downloadable, free Google Sheet spreadsheet with five tabs: Instructions, Strategy, Monthly View, Weekly View, and Evergreen Content Library – for Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and any other platform you might want to add.

The weekly view is a fairly unique feature that you don’t see in every template.

The Instructions tab provides tips on using the template, while the Strategy tab helps you plan your overall strategy – including your business goals, social goals, content pillars, pieces, and tactics. Like HubSpot’s template, Hootsuite’s evergreen content tab enables you to build a library of content to revisit when needed.

It even lists key dates of interest available throughout the year for each month – such as events like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday (USA) – to help you stay on top of important marketing moments.

The simple-to-use template is customizable yet ideal for Excel pros who don’t want to use a paid tool and the extra features that come with it. It’s ideal for businesses of all sizes and is a practical choice for teams looking to optimize their workflows without investing in premium tools.

• Cost: Free to download by filling out a lead generation form.

6. Adobe Express Content Scheduler

Screenshot from Adobe.com, April 2024

Adobe Express’s free content scheduler is a great free tool for taking control of your social media planning and publishing process.

It provides a visually oriented interface where posts are prominently displayed in a large format for easy readability of captions and clear viewing of images.

It also has color-coding and labeling rows to help you stay organized, allowing you to categorize posts and note important campaign details or team communications.

You can connect your social accounts directly to the content scheduler and schedule them in advance or publish them with the click of a button. Users can also save ideas as unscheduled posts, create draft posts, and easily rearrange content using the drag-and-drop functionality.

Adobe Express also offers a plethora of templates and materials to help you create and edit content in-platform.

• Cost: Free to use, with more advanced features available for those who sign up for Adobe’s Premium and Teams paid tiers.

7. Small Business Trends Social Media Calendar Template

Screenshot from SmallBizTrends.com, April 2024

The content calendar template from Small Business Trends is tailored specifically for – you guessed it – small businesses!

It draws from the company’s effective marketing strategies to help you streamline your social media and marketing efforts. It is available for download in various formats, including Word, Excel, and PDF, making it customizable for your business’s needs.

The template itself is fairly straightforward. It features a Monday to Friday overview of content across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok, as well as a section for “All Platforms.”

It’s plug-and-play, meaning you would simply enter your plans for each channel, each day (and duplicate them week over week).

What we love about this template is that Small Business Trends offers suggestions throughout for what you might do that day. For example, “Share posts from satisfied customers” on Instagram on Wednesday, or “Have an unveiling of your latest product or service” on TikTok on Monday.

While not exhaustive, it’s a nice touch to help provide inspiration, especially for individuals and small businesses just getting started. We like this template for its simplicity and low learning curve.

• Cost: Free.

8. Backlinko Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from Backlinko.com, April 2024

Backlinko offers a versatile, free content calendar template that’s a practical tool for both individuals and small teams looking to enhance their content production efforts.

Available as an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet, the template features two main components: a basic monthly calendar view and a more detailed content list and workflow sheet.

The monthly view offers a clean slate for basic scheduling, while the workflow tab is meticulously designed to guide users through the various stages of content creation (from drafting to publishing), making it particularly useful for managing multiple pieces simultaneously.

This is where the real strength of Backlinko’s template lies. The step-by-step guide to content development in the workflow tab covers everything from meta descriptions to design, email marketing, and more, ensuring everyone on your team stays on track with each piece of content.

• Cost: Free.

9. Monday.com Content Calendar Template

Screenshot from Monday.com, April 2024

The Monday.com content calendar template is a nice option for teams that want to consolidate their content creation and distribution pipeline.

Simply dive into its versatile dashboard, and customize the template to align perfectly with your team’s operational flow.

Designed to support a ton of content types and phases – from the initial brainstorming to the final publishing stages – Monday.com’s template ensures every piece of content is tracked and managed efficiently across platforms.

It features a centralized content management system that allows users to assign tasks to essential team members such as writers, designers, and editors.

You have multiple viewing options, such as Gantt, calendar, Kanban, and form views. It also allows you to integrate with tools like Google Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Dropbox.

In addition, you can access built-in automation for reminders and notifications to keep everyone on track.

This one is ideal for both small-scale projects and larger content operations, with its focus on efficiency and scalability.

• Cost: Free – just sign up and get started.

How A Content Calendar Can Improve Your Content Planning

Effective content planning is crucial for elevating your marketing strategy.

If you want to take control of your marketing strategy and create impactful content that resonates with its target audience, a content calendar is for you.

As this article highlights, creating a content calendar doesn’t have to be complicated or arduous – especially when plenty of intuitive and powerful templates are already in place to get you started.

Explore our top picks, find your match, and set the stage for a year of impactful content creation. Happy planning!

More resources:

Featured Image: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock

Lessons from John Deere’s ‘The Furrow’

Content marketing as a method of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers pre-dates the term itself. And even now, emerging technologies could change it again.

The most cited example of early content marketing is John Deere’s “The Furrow” magazine, launched in 1895. This “Journal for the American Farmer” published actionable agricultural articles, offering farmers practical advice on farming techniques, crop management, and machinery maintenance.

Reciprocity

For John Deere, “The Furrow” was better than advertising in a sense because the company owned it and thus the relationship with readers.

John Deere delivered real value thanks to the useful, informative, and entertaining articles. So much so that by 1912, the magazine had 4 million subscribers.

In turn, real value produces a sense of reciprocity. The reader recognized the John Deere company as an expert and felt obligated to the brand. This obligation extended to buying John Deere products marketed in “The Furrow.”

This is content marketing’s aim: attract, engage, and retain customers. And by the way, “The Furrow” is still published in print and online in 2024.

“The Furrow” is a prominent early example of content marketing.

Another example of content marketing comes from the consumer package goods industry. Cereal boxes and candy often include comic strips, stories, historical or scientific anecdotes, and prizes.

A child might like General Mills Lucky Charms cereal for its rainbow colors and the entertaining box.

Youtility

Content marketing advanced after 2013 when marketing guru Jay Baer released his book, “Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help, Not Hype.”

The book’s guiding principle prioritized creating useful content, not exclusively promotional.

The result was many marketers focused on being helpful rather than selling. As the distance between content and revenue increased, these marketers sought new performance metrics.

Fortunately, they found those metrics in organic search traffic and social media attention. Both needed engaging content.

Sales

Content marketers circa 2024 are again looking for ways to drive sales from content. This renewed effort manifests in many ways, including live streams, voice and video, generative artificial intelligence, and augmented and virtual reality.

Each has the potential to attract, engage, and retain customers.

Take, for example, ecommerce live streaming. It engages potential customers with real-time product showcases and permits the host to answer questions and assist with buying decisions.

Amazon Live is one of many platforms that allows merchants or creators to live stream shoppable videos.

The live stream itself may be recorded and edited into social media posts. The shoppers’ questions are potential on-site FAQs. One could even say that ecommerce live streaming is a more complete version of content marketing.

Thus ecommerce marketers should seek ways to integrate emerging content types. Don’t leave articles behind. Instead, add to them.

5 Content Marketing Ideas for June 2024

Content marketers who feel like hamsters on a wheel might get a respite in June 2024, thanks to Best Friends Day, shoppable videos, Juneteenth, Independence Day, and a flood of AI-generated dad jokes.

Content marketing involves creating, publishing, and promoting content to attract, engage, and retain customers. 

Content is vital to search engine optimization and social media marketing. But a challenge for many creators is choosing a topic. So here are five content marketing ideas your company can use in June 2024.

1. Best Friends Day

Best Friends Day could be an emerging retail opportunity. Content marketers could promote gift guides, leading to sales.

June 8, 2024, is Best Friends Day. The U.S. Congress established the occasion in 1935 to honor friendships. Best Friends Day was not much acknowledged until websites such as National Day Calendar, National Today, and Calendarr emerged.

Since about 2021, Best Friends Day has become a trend on social sites, and this year, it could be a good content marketing and sales opportunity for merchants.

Consider publishing content that encourages gift-giving for besties. This could be a gift guide or list article, such as “Top 10 Gifts for your BFF.”

And don’t limit best friends to humans. Best Friends Day could also apply to pets.

2. Livestream Product Demos

Livestreamed product videos are an emerging part of content marketing.

In ecommerce, content marketing is evolving to include product live streaming. 

Product demonstrations can be at once entertaining and a sales opportunity. A retailer or DTC brand could host the livestream on its own website or any number of platforms, including:

• Amazon Live,
• YouTube,
• Facebook, 
• Instagram,
• TikTok,
• Twitch.

In June 2024, aim for product demonstration livestreams. 

Plan each one. Know the features to demonstrate and prepare stories about the item, manufacturing, process, or anything else that could lead to a sale. 

Make the presentation interactive with viewers, and look for ways to connect with viewing shoppers.

3. Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebrations frequently include a cookout.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the freedom of all enslaved people, over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. 

Thus, it celebrates the end of slavery in the United States.

Content marketers can focus on the holiday’s history or how it is celebrated. Here are some article ideas.

• Kitchen supply shop: “How to Host the Perfect Juneteenth Cookout: Tips and Tools.”
• Classic record shop: “15 Vintage Vinyls to Commemorate Juneteenth.”
• Home decor store: “Celebrate History and Culture with 25 Juneteenth-inspired Decorations.”
• Online bookseller: “35 Books for Juneteenth, from Historical Accounts to Modern Reflection.”

4. July Fourth Promotional Content

Publish Independence Day content in June.

June is the time to publish content for the Fourth of July. In the U.S., Independence Day is a huge shopping opportunity. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans collectively spent $9.5 billion on the holiday in 2023. 

Most of that went toward barbecue, picnic items, fireworks, decorations, and flag-themed clothes. Hence retailers and DTC brands could benefit from patriotic content.

Here are some ideas.

• Shopping guides: Publish a list of products for hosting a barbecue, decorating the backyard, or traveling.
• Sustainable products: Describe ways to include sustainable products.
• Party planners: Publish articles or videos listing recipes, family game ideas, or fireworks safety.

In each case, marketers should offer real editorial value while highlighting their products.

5. Dad Jokes for Father’s Day

Content for merchants should be helpful and informative — except for dad jokes.

Typical content marketing should be helpful, informative, or entertaining. Most of the time, merchants should focus on the first two: helpful and informative.

However, Father’s Day, June 16, 2024, could be an exception thanks to ChatGPT and similar. Here are a half-dozen ChatGPT responses to my prompt for dad jokes.

• Why don’t eggs tell jokes? They’d crack each other up.
• What do you call fake spaghetti? An impasta.
• How do you organize a space party? You planet.
• Why don’t scientists trust atoms anymore? Because they make up everything!
• What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese.
• Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two tired.

Dad jokes should be short and wholesome, with groan-inducing punchlines. 

So my suggestion for Father’s Day content is lists of AI-generated dad jokes related to your company’s products.  

How to Track ROI from Content Marketing

Ecommerce marketers can close the loop on content marketing performance with specific goals and diligent measurement.

Even in the age of AI, content comes at a cost. It is not free. It should generate a positive return on investment for any business — retail, direct-to-consumer, B2B. 

Done well, content marketing attracts, engages, and retains customers.

• Attract. Content is a foundation for search engine optimization and social media marketing.
• Engage. Content builds a relationship between a prospect and the business, often positioning the company as a trusted expert.
• Retain. Content via a blog, email newsletter, or social channel helps a business stay in touch with customers between purchases.

Content Goals

Setting goals is the first step toward generating an ROI from content marketing. We might have two for a month.

• Attract 1,000 visits from search engines.
• Get 100 new email subscribers.

The number of site visits leads to our ultimate aim of obtaining email subscriptions.

Applying these goals to individual posts, we could publish four articles monthly, each earning 250 visits and 25 newsletter subscriptions.

• Average 250 visits per post.
• 25 visitors (10%) subscribe to email.

Next, we can set a value for each action. Let’s assume:

• 5% of email subscribers purchase monthly.
• The average order is $125.

Thus 100 new email subscribers should lead to five purchases, which would generate $625 in revenue. We can now assign a value to each action.

• A site visit is worth $0.63 — 62.5 cents.
  • $625 revenue / 1,000 visits = $0.63

• An email subscription is worth $6.25.
  • $625 revenue / 100 subscriptions = $6.25

Measure Content

Whether via spreadsheets or a full-blown business intelligence suite, we will track the same basic information about the content.

• Title. 
• URL.
• Topic. Keyword phrase or concept.
• Author. The actual creator, not necessarily the byline.
• Publication or refresh date.
• Content type. Blog post, podcast, video.

These might be columns in a sheet or fields in a database.

Next, we’ll capture key performance indicators that align with our goals. 

• Total visits. The number of visits to the new content.
• Total email subscriptions. Cumulative email subscriptions since the content was published.
• Revenue. Purchases by shoppers who visited the content and subscribed to the email.

The metrics vary depending on the goals. Some take more time to measure, such as a shopper who subscribed on April 15 and purchased on May 20.

Finally, we will track how much the content costs.

• Creation. How much we paid for a writer, including a refresh.
• Editing. The cost of an editor.
• Graphics. Photography and custom and AI-generated images.
• SEO. The expense of an SEO platform or consultant for keyword phrases and gaps.
• Promotion. Advertising outlay. 

Calculate ROI

Measuring KPIs and costs enables a basic ROI calculation.

ROI = Net Return ÷ Cost of Investment

Wherein:

Net Return = Gross Sales – Cost of Investment

ROI = (Gross Sales – Cost of Investment) ÷ Cost of Investment

Assume four blog posts cost $400 and drive 1,000 site visits, 100 email subscriptions, and $625 in ecommerce sales. The ROI would be 56.2% or $0.56 (56 cents) in the first month for every $1.00 invested.

($625 – $400) ÷ $400 = 56.2%

Don’t get too excited. This is an example. It leaves out the cost of goods sold, the expense of the email platform, and conversion optimization. 

Optimize

Nonetheless, the example is a framework for measuring performance and optimizing over time. Certain content topics might lead to more visits, subscriptions, and sales. One writer could outproduce another. Analyze results, tweak, and improve. 

5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2024

What do families, the military, Eurovision, holidays, and how-to videos have in common? They all provide content marketing ideas for May 2024.

Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and promoting articles, videos, and similar to attract, engage, and retain customers. Content is the foundation for search engine optimization, social media marketing, and email newsletters.

Content marketing relies on reciprocity. Folks appreciate receiving helpful info and often respond positively to businesses that provide it. The trouble is coming up with a nonstop stream of worthwhile content.

What follows are five content marketing ideas you can use for May 2024.

International Day of Families

The International Day of Families could inspire a lot of family-related content.

In 1993, the United Nations established the International Day of Families to recognize that families are the foundation of stable societies.  

The occasion is observed annually on May 15. It’s an opportunity for marketers to create family-related articles, videos, or podcasts.

The content could be a nod to the day itself or connect your company’s products with a family activity. Here are three example article titles of the former:

• “10 Habits to Start on the International Day of Families,”
• “How to Celebrate the International Day of Families,”
• “10 Bonding Activities for International Day of Families.”

And here are three examples of connecting products to families:

• Outfitter: “Top 50 Day Hikes for Families.”
• Garden supply shop: “How to Make Flower Gardening Fun for Families.”
• Kitchen Store: “Tips for Including the Entire Family in Meal Planning.”

Armed Forces Day

Lance Cpl. John Allen with the U.S. Marines, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, on Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, April 5, 2024.

Armed Forces Day in the U.S. occurs on the third Saturday in May, the 16th in 2024.

President Harry S Truman established Armed Forces Day in 1950, consolidating three other observances. The event typically features parades, displays, and various community celebrations to demonstrate support for the military and its members.

Armed Forces Day can be a respectful and thoughtful vehicle to connect with customers, especially those in military families or with ties to the armed services.

Content ideas include:

• Profiling service members and their families,
• Recognizing veteran-owned businesses in your supply chain,
• Thanking service members,
• Connecting products to military history.

Eurovision Song Contest

Most Americans learned about the Eurovision Song Contest in 2020 when Netflix released a Will Ferrell comedy about it. But the inspirational event has been around since 1956.

The European Broadcasting Union created Eurovision to encourage unity and post-war rebuilding efforts through music.  

Swedish performer Loreen won the 2023 Eurovision contest. Photo by Sarah Louise Bennett.

Each participating country contributes an original song. The performances are notable for their broad range of styles, elaborate staging, and sometimes quirky acts, reflecting each nation’s unique culture. 

The competition has launched the careers of numerous artists, including ABBA and Celine Dion.

Over the years, Eurovision has grown in scale and spectacle, becoming a beloved, flamboyant celebration of culture and pop music. This year’s Eurovision will be held from May 7 to 11 in Malmo, Sweden.

Eurovision-inspired content could address culture, fashion, music, or history. 

May’s Top 3 Holidays

Mother’s Day is among the most important holidays for retailers.

Three holidays dominate the May U.S. calendar in terms of popularity and familiarity: Mother’s Day (May 12, 2024), Memorial Day (May 27, 2024), and Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2024).

These dates are key for content marketers — for promotion and helpful info.

First, all three dates are important for retail sales. Americans spent more than $35 billion on Mother’s Day purchases in 2023 and typically spend about $500 per household on Memorial Day weekend. Cinco de Mayo is the longstanding celebration of Latino culture. 

Second, the holidays are excellent opportunities for articles, videos, and podcasts.

Mother’s Day:

• “Ultimate 2024 Mother’s Day Gift Guide,”
• “17 Homemade Mother’s Day Gifts,”
• “23 Affordable Mother’s Day Gift Ideas,”
• “Better-than-flowers Mother’s Day Gifts,”
• “Gifts for the DIY Mom.”

Memorial Day:

• “10 Ways to Celebrate Memorial Day,”
• “Ultimate Memorial Day BBQ Guide,”
• “The True Significance of Memorial Day,”
• “50 Playlists to Commemorate Memorial Day,”
• “Decorating Tips for a Patriotic Memorial Day.”

Cinco de Mayo:

• “Recipes to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo,”
• “5 Must-visit Sites on Cinco de Mayo,”
• “The Story behind Cinco de Mayo,”
• “Cinco de Mayo Decorating Tips and Trends,”
• “Cinco de Mayo Ultimate Shopping Guide.”

Summertime Videos

A film crew makes a how-to gardening video.

This month’s final content marketing suggestion focuses on search engine optimization and content distribution.

Summer begins June 20, 2024. Yet publishing summertime content in May gives Google and other search engines time to crawl and index it.

Consider producing groups of videos that help folks achieve a summer-related task. Each video package should include several parts.

• Full-length video instruction.
• Several shorts from the full-length version.
• An overall guide to all components.
• Text-based social posts from the video transcriptions.

For example, an online seed retailer could publish a video package about planting a kid-friendly flower garden. The retailer could:

• Embed the full video in a comprehensive blog post. This would be the hub.
• Release the full video on YouTube, Rumble, and Facebook. Each points to the retailer’s blog.
• Deploy video shorts on YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram, again linking to the blog.
• Publish tips on Facebook and X with links.

35 Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know via @sejournal, @JRiddall

Content continues to sit atop the list of priorities in most marketing strategies, and there is plenty of evidence to support the reasoning.

Simply put, content marketing is crucial to any digital marketing strategy, whether running a small local business or a large multinational corporation.

After all, content in its many and evolving forms is indisputably the very lifeblood upon which the web and social media are based.

Modern SEO has effectively become optimized content marketing for all intents and purposes.

This is when Google demands and rewards businesses that create content demonstrating experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) for their customers – content that answers all of the questions consumers may have about their services, products, or business in general.

Content marketing involves creating and sharing helpful, relevant, entertaining, and consistent content in various text, image, video, and audio-based formats to the plethora of traditional and online channels available to modern marketers.

The primary focus should be on attracting and retaining a clearly defined audience, with the ultimate goal of driving profitable customer action.

Different types of content can and should be created for each stage of a customer’s journey.

Some content, like blogs or how-to videos, are informative or educational. Meanwhile, other content, like promotional campaign landing pages, gets to the point of enticing prospective customers to buy.

But with so much content being produced and shared every day, it’s important to stay updated on the latest trends and best practices in content marketing to keep pace and understand what strategies may be most effective.

Never has this been more true than in 2024, when we’re in the midst of a content revolution led by generative AI, which some feel represents both an opportunity and a threat to marketers.

To help you keep up, here are 35 content marketing statistics I think you should know:

Content Marketing Usage

How many businesses are leveraging content marketing, and how are they planning to find success?

1. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 73% of B2B marketers, and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
2. 97% of marketers surveyed by Semrush achieved success with their content marketing in 2023.
3. A B2B Content Marketing Study conducted by CMI found that 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy; 33% have a strategy, but it’s not documented, and 27% have no strategy.
4. Half of the surveyed marketers by CMI said they outsource at least one content marketing activity.

Content Marketing Strategy

What strategies are content marketers using or finding to be most effective?

5. 83% of marketers believe it’s more effective to create higher quality content less often. (Source: Hubspot)
6. In a 2022 Statista Research Study of marketers worldwide, 62% of respondents emphasized the importance of being “always on” for their customers, while 23% viewed content-led communications as the most effective method for personalized targeting efforts.
7. With the increased focus on AI-generated search engine results, 31% of B2B marketers say they are sharpening their focus on user intent/answering questions, 27% are creating more thought leadership content, and 22% are creating more conversational content. (Source: CMI)

Types Of Content

Content marketing was synonymous with posting blogs, but the web and content have evolved into audio, video, interactive, and meta formats.

Here are a few stats on how the various types of content are trending and performing.

8. Short-form video content, like TikTok and Instagram Reel, is the No. 1 content marketing format, offering the highest return on investment (ROI).
9. 43% of marketers reported that original graphics (like infographics and illustrations) were the most effective type of visual content. (Source: Venngage)
10. 72% of B2C marketers expected their organization to invest in video marketing in 2022. (Source: Content Marketing Institute – CMI)
11. The State of Content Marketing: 2023 Global Report by Semrush reveals that articles containing at least one video tend to attract 70% more organic traffic than those without.
12. Interactive content generates 52.6% more engagement compared to static content. On average, buyers spend 8.5 minutes viewing static content items and 13 minutes on interactive content items. (Source: Mediafly)

Content Creation

Creating helpful, unique, engaging content can be one of a marketer’s greatest challenges. However, innovative marketers are looking at generative AI as a tool to help ideate, create, edit, and analyze content quicker and more cost-effectively.

Here are some stats around content creation and just how quickly AI is changing the game.

13. Generative AI reached over 100 million users just two months after ChatGPT’s launch. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
14. A recent Ahrefs poll found that almost 80% of respondents had already adopted AI tools in their content marketing strategies.
15. Marketers who are using AI said it helps most with brainstorming new topics (51%), researching headlines and keywords (45%), and writing drafts (45%). (Source: CMI)
16. Further, marketers polled by Hubspot said they save 2.5 hours per day using AI for content.

Content Distribution

It is not simply enough to create and publish content.

For a content strategy to be successful, it must include distributing content via the channels frequented by a business’s target audience.

17. Facebook is still the dominant social channel for content distribution, but video-centric channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are growing the fastest.  (Source: Hubspot)
18. B2B marketers reported to CMI that LinkedIn was the most common and top-performing organic social media distribution channel at 84% by a healthy margin. All other channels came in under 30%.
19. 80% of B2B marketers who use paid distribution use paid social media advertising. (Source: CMI)

Content Consumption

Once content reaches an audience, it’s important to understand how an audience consumes the content or takes action as a result.

20. A 2023 Content Preferences Study by Demand Gen reveals that 62% of B2B buyers prefer practical content like case studies to inform their purchasing decisions, citing “a need for valid sources.”
21. The same study also found that buyers tend to rely heavily on content when researching potential business solutions, with 46% reporting that they increased the amount of content they consumed during this time.
22. In a recent post, blogger Ryan Robinson reports the average reader spends 37 seconds reading a blog.
23. DemandGen’s survey participants also said they rely most on demos (62%) and user reviews (55%) to gain valuable insights into how a solution will meet their needs.

Content Marketing Performance

One of the primary reasons content marketing has taken off is its ability to be measured, optimized, and tied to a return on investment.

24. B2C marketers reported to CMI that the top three goals content marketing helps them to achieve are creating brand awareness, building trust, and educating their target audience.
25. 87% of B2B marketers surveyed use content marketing successfully to generate leads.
26. 56% of marketers who leverage blogging say it’s an effective tactic, and 10% say it generates the greatest return on investment (ROI).
27. 94% of marketers said personalization boosts sales.

Content Marketing Budgets

Budget changes and the willingness to invest in specific marketing strategies are good indicators of how popular and effective these strategies are at a macro level.

The following stats certainly seem to indicate marketers have bought into the value of content.

28. 61% of B2C marketers said their 2022 content marketing budget would exceed their 2021 budget.
29. 22% of B2B marketers said they spent 50% or more of their total marketing budget on content marketing. Furthermore, 43% saw their content marketing budgets grow from 2020 to 2021, and 66% expected them to grow again in 2022.

Content Challenges

All forms of marketing come with challenges related to time, resources, expertise, and competition.

Recognizing and addressing these challenges head-on with well-thought-out strategies is the best way to overcome them and realize success.

30. Top 3 content challenges included “attracting quality leads with content” (45%), “creating more content faster” (38%), and “generating content ideas” (35%). (Source: Semrush’s The State of Content Marketing: 2023 Global Report)
31. 44% of marketers polled for CMI’s 2022 B2B report highlighted the challenge of creating the right content for multi-level roles as their top concern. This replaced internal communication as the top challenge from the previous year.
32. Changes to SEO/search algorithms (64%), changes to social media algorithms (53%), and data management/analytics (48%) are also among the top concerns for B2C marketers.
33. 47% of people are seeking downtime from internet-enabled devices due to digital fatigue.
34. While generative AI has noted benefits, it also presents challenges for some marketers who fear it may replace them. In Hubspot’s study, 23% said they felt we should avoid using generative AI.
35. Another challenge with AI is how quickly it has come onto the scene without giving organizations time to provide training or to create policies and procedures for its appropriate and legal use. According to CMI, when asked if their organizations have guidelines for using generative AI tools, 31% of marketers said yes, 61% said no, and 8% were unsure.

Time To Get Started

As you can clearly see and perhaps have already realized, content marketing can be a highly effective and cost-efficient way to generate leads, build brand awareness, and drive sales. Content, in its many formats, powers virtually all online interactions.

Generative AI is effectively helping to solve some of the time and resource challenges by acting as a turbo-powered marketing assistant, while also raising a few procedural concerns.

However, the demand for content remains strong.

Those willing to put in the work of building a documented content strategy and executing it – by producing, optimizing, distributing, and monitoring high-value, relevant, customer-centric content, with the help of AI or not – can reap significant business rewards.

More resources:

Featured Image: Deemak Daksina/Shutterstock