5 ways to improve your content during summer downtime
Ah, summer. The sun is shining. The kids are on school vacation. And the office is virtually empty.
This is what the Dutch call komkommertijd, or “cucumber time.” It’s the time of year when farmers are busy in their fields, but there is little else going on in trade or in the media.
Despite what you may think, this can be an ideal time to work on your B2B content.
A little planning and behind-the-scenes work can prepare you for success through the end of the year. Here are five ideas for things you can do now to get ahead.
Cucumber time: The ideal time to freshen up your content.
1. Review existing content
You’ve already produced tons of content. Rather than abandoning all that good work, take some time now to review the content on your website.
What content have you got? Which content is performing best in your analytics? And which information should be updated or refreshed?
Over time, our best performing content loses traction online.
A once-favorite how-to or trend post might seem stale after one or two years.
Taking time to refresh the content so that it reflects the current market reality, and making changes to the post or page without changing the URL, is one strategy for boosting your search performance.
2. Perform a content gap analysis
If you’re not already tracking all of your content in one place, now might be a good time to start.
Create a spreadsheet to capture the breadth of your online content, with the following information:
Title of the content
Date created / published
Content format (such as blog, white paper, case study, webinar, or video)
Buyers journey stage (such as awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty)
Buyer persona / target audience
With this information recorded, you are better able to see where content gaps exist.
Do you have a full suite of content for each of your product portfolios? Do you have content available for each phase of the buyer’ journey? Is there available content for each of your buyer personas?
Identifying these gaps allows you to see where there is room for new content to be created.
3. Create evergreen content
During summer downtime, you are probably not launching any major campaigns or initiatives.
That makes this the perfect time to create evergreen content—content that’s good anytime of year, and has a long lifespan.
Get ahead of your content schedule for the rest of the year by producing a batch of content that you can publish and promote later.
Looking for evergreen content ideas? Here are a few places to go searching:
Frequently asked questions.
Your sales, technical service, or customer service teams can give you clues about the most frequent questions they hear from customers.
Address these in a blog post focusing on just one question at a time, or handle a few related questions by producing an e-book or guide.
Industry news and influencers
Trade publications and websites, as well as industry influencers, often have their finger on the pulse of the industry.
Take a look at the best-performing posts and articles relevant to your product or market, and think about how you can respond to or expand on the trend being discussed.
Online tools
AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT and HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator can be a place to get your creative juices flowing.
These AI tools may not be the best place to get publish-ready content, but they can act as a virtual sparring partner for brainstorming content ideas.
4. Plan for upcoming events
September through December is a busy season of conferences, tradeshows, and customer meetings.
Have you already given thought to your content playbook for each event?
Now is a good time to plan the content you want to publish and promote before, during, and after each high-profile opportunity.
A rich piece of content—a whitepaper, for instance—can be an excellent complement to in-person events, such as tradeshows.
Pre-event: Tease the contents of the whitepaper in your promotion, including details for how customers can get their hands on a copy.
At event: If your whitepaper contains original research, leverage this to engage trade media covering the event.
Post-event: Post a reflection on how the paper was received, which questions and comments you received, and how customers who didn’t attend can get a digital copy.
5. Learn something new
Most marketing and communications professionals I know just love learning, but they don’t often have time to make this a regular habit.
Slow summer weeks can be the perfect time to learn something new about content marketing.
HubSpot offers a range of free courses for content and digital marketing specialists.
Coursera also offers some free or low-cost options, such as the Strategy of Content Marketing.
For those with a premium LinkedIn account, there are several course options on the LinkedIn Learning platform.
Final thoughts
The slow period in the summer is a good time to get organized with your content, and get ahead of the content demand in your organization.
Make the most of this time to refresh existing content, identify content gaps, batch-create new content, create content plans for upcoming events, or take a content course.
If you’re planning a summer vacation instead, you can always delegate some of these tasks to a content writer or professional. Just saying!
Feel free to get in touch.
