42 Content Marketing Ideas for 2013

Just about every marketer I've run into over the past month has been working on 2013 planning and budgeting. In many cases, they are searching for innovative content ideas. In that spirit, below is a pretty diverse list of content marketing ideas you may want to consider executing for next year.

1. Develop and refine your content marketing mission statement.
2. Find one or multiple partners and launch a content marketing project together (read Brandscaping for more insight).
3. Consider that maybe less content will mean more impact.
4. Find at least three thought leaders in your organization and build them into your content plan.
5. Send each of those thought leaders to Toastmasters to work on their public speaking skills.
6. Define your most valuable audience and consider a targeted print publication.
7. Assign one employee to SlideShare and figure out how to leverage this tool as part of your content marketing.
8. Develop a series of stories for your industry on an aspect that has never been covered before.
9. Make sure that every content landing page for 2013 has only one call to action.
10. Spend 30 minutes dissecting Coca-Cola Journey.
11. Stop one content initiative in 2013.
12. Write your book.
13. Update your social media influencer list before the end of the year.
14. Compile a substantial piece of influencer content (i.e., an eBook of influencer insights) in 2013.
15. Get at least five employees who are not in marketing involved in your weekly content plan.
16. Make it a priority to personalize your content by persona in 2013.
17. Start a podcast series for executives.
18. Sit down with every salesperson and ask them what their customers' biggest pain points are.
19. Develop a list of the top 100 questions coming from your customer base.
20. Commission a piece of art from a local artist to use in your next content piece.
21. Target one traditional marketing initiative that can be enhanced with content marketing.
22. Set a goal for 2013 to double the number of email subscribers to your content.
23. Attend Content Marketing World 2013 (sorry, blatant sales pitch).
24. Read one non-marketing book each month during the year (it will open up new content marketing ideas).
25. Develop a content marketing metrics plan for your CEO or supervisor that includes only those metrics that will make the case for company business objectives.
26. Stop doing the same old press releases and create them as engaging stories.
27. Find a way to work with the leading trade magazine in your niche on a joint content effort.
28. Commission a piece of research that is important to your customers.
29. Take research findings and use them to build a six-month campaign with at least 20 independent content pieces.
30. Commit to smarter usage of images in your content in 2013.
31. Do an audit of all your blog posts and determine which types of titles lead to the right reader behaviors.
32. If you have the budget, start identifying media companies in your industry that may be ripe for acquisition.
33. Make sure your content is easy to read on both smartphones and tablets.
34. Set up an editorial leader in each of your silos and plan to meet at least once per week.
35. Develop a customer event that doesn't talk about your projects, but rather educates them on where the industry is going.
36. Create a piece of content in 2013 that would be completely unexpected and see what happens.
37. For every story idea you have for next year, plan on developing 10 pieces of content from it.
38. Send a videographer and journalist to the next industry event and cover it.
39. Give out quarterly awards to all internal content creators based on number of content shares. Make it public.
40. Choose 10 of the top bloggers in your industry and sponsor a one-day brainstorming session on how you can all help each other.
41. Ask whoever is in charge of customer service what their top 10 complaints were in 2012. Build a content program to help with answers.
42. Whatever you do in 2013, make sure you are telling a different story than everyone else in your industry ' not just the same story told incrementally better.

Good luck!