If it’s your job to come up with content ideas for your company’s blog, you may run into frustrating roadblocks. After all, how many ways can you cover the “benefits” of using a certain product or highlight some other aspect of your business?
Ask any content creator, and they’ll be quick to tell you that writer’s block is common. But there are plenty of strategies to overcome it. And these aren’t just limited to blog posts. You can also use them for social media, video marketing, emails, etc.
Here are eight ways your business can develop new content ideas to increase engagement, drive traffic, and produce results.
Ideally, the content you post should address your audience’s pain points. What problems are they trying to solve, or what are their interests? One of the best ways to get the answers to these questions is to use your analytics.
Your website and social media analytics will tell you what customers are searching for as well as what is working best on your site.
Another strategy to come up with content ideas is to just ask your audience what they’d like to know more about. You can create a poll on social media with a variety of options or simply ask an open-ended question. You’ll be surprised at the number of responses you’re likely to receive.
You can also troll your own comments section to see what people are talking about. Generally, people are going to speak up about the topics that resonate with them the most. These are the ones you can drill down further on for additional content.
When you stay connected to your industry peers, you’ll find that you have an endless source of content ideas. There’s a good chance that your group has a similar target audience, so what is working for one of your peers might work for you as well.
Aside from spying on your competitors, you can also stay up to date with what other brands you admire are covering. Topics like workplace diversity, the customer experience, and managing supply chains cut across many industries, so there is plenty of opportunity for ideas.
There’s nothing wrong with leveraging a few tools to get the digital marketing help you need. The front page of Google is the perfect place to start. Enter any search term in Google, and “related searches” will appear at the bottom of your screen. You can also take a look at some of those featured snippet questions for topic ideas.
Another useful tool for ideas is Buzzsumo, which is like a search engine for shared content. You can enter any keyword phrase, such as “chatbot marketing,” and the site will give you the most shared content relevant to that term. The results are also broken down by social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
If you’re really stuck, you can use a tool like the HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator. Simply enter a series of related search terms, and the website will deliver blog post titles to cover you for a week.
Today’s consumers have shorter and shorter attention spans, so they are more likely to click on a piece if it will solve their problem or if it contains timely information. You can let people know about the latest updates in your industry, including new product and service developments.
To find out what’s going on, check out Google Trends. You can also set up an alert with Google Alerts. It’s free, and you’ll get email alerts when new stories are posted that align with your search terms. You can use these stories as a basis for new content ideas.
Who hasn’t spent some of their time reading consumer reviews? They help us find trustworthy brands as well as ones we want to avoid. But, reviews can also be incredibly educational. It can be frustrating when customers have to turn to reviews to get their questions answered about a company and its products or services.
Pay close attention to your reviews and those of your competitors. Is there a common theme in any of the feedback? Do people need additional guidance with product assembly? What about getting specific information before the sale? Use what you learn to create additional content for your business.
Piggybacking off of the review discussion, people are interested in the real-world experiences of others with a company’s products or services. You can hand them these on a silver platter with a variety of case studies.
Document how your business helped a customer or another company solve its pain points. Make sure you include plenty of images and quotes in your case studies to boost engagement.
Some of your brand’s top-performing content can be a rich source of new topics. This is another opportunity to dig into your website analytics to see what has been performing the best. Once you have that list, see if you can write additional content that approaches the topics from different angles.
Let’s assume you are a CPA and your top-performing piece was about business tax deductions. You can write additional pieces that deal with specific business tax deductions, the most common and uncommon business tax deductions, and the ones that are most likely to get you flagged for an audit.
These content marketing primers might help you come up with some ideas for your digital marketing strategy, but you don’t have to approach this on your own. As a business owner and manager, you have enough on your plate and might welcome some help.
Connection Model specializes in delivering results-based digital marketing solutions to its clients, including website design, SEO, and content marketing. Contact us today to learn more about our services or to schedule a free assessment.