It is not unusual for a marketer to come to an impasse when trying to find new content marketing ideas. Though there is limited material to work with, you are expected to constantly surprise your audience with new, interesting topics. How can you turn yourself into an inexhaustible fountain of ideas? Well, by simply knowing where to look for inspiration. Below are five places to find great content marketing ideas, which can help you get back into the blogging game.
- Social Media – Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ are some of the best places to start conversations with potential customers. Listening to your audience and understanding what your followers care about are just two things you can do to get unique blog ideas. Although you may not always like the feedback you receive, it is imperative that you accept constructive criticism if you want to improve your content marketing. You can even solicit new ideas by simply posting questions on your Facebook page or blog, such as “What is your biggest marketing challenge?” and “What are your favourite marketing tools?”
- Forums – Browsing forums is another great way to get new content marketing ideas. By identifying the right forums for your niche and spending some time contributing, you can find many interesting topics to write about. To begin with, look for people trying to find solutions to problems relating to your industry. Based on their questions, you can write blog posts explaining how to solve those problems and then post links on forums to direct them to your content. To identify problems common to your niche, you can also use Yahoo Answers. By typing adequate words in the search box and then hitting the “Search Answers” button, you can get some really good ideas for your blog.
- Previous Work – Check your old posts and choose topics that can be restructured or updated. For instance, if you have several blog posts about consumer behaviour, you could write about how new and upcoming trends, such as mobility, social integration, and artificial intelligence, will affect the perception, mindset, search methods, decision-making, and attitude of consumers. As well, you can combine different topics to create unique and interesting articles.
- AdWords Keyword Planner – Probably, you have already used AdWords Keyword Planner to develop keyword lists, to analyse how keywords perform in search results over time, and to discover the latest key phrases that prospects use to find your business. But do you know that you can use the same tool to come up with new content ideas for your blog? The Keyword Planner highlights different combinations of keywords you can choose to generate new topics.
- Other People’s Work – It is incredible how many ideas you can find by simply reading blog posts, articles, and news stories online. Whilst you do not want to copy other people’s ideas, you may want to present your own view on certain topics. You can also read blog posts, articles, and whitepapers relating to other industry segments and then create content for companies within those industries. As an example, you could write about the latest digital marketing trends for manufacturers. Not only will you educate your readers and prove your expertise in this industry sector, but you will also attract a new audience.
One last piece of advice: keep your mind wide open, and you will find inspiring content ideas every single day. Furthermore, you will be able to turn them along with your values, goals, challenges, victories, failures, and the lessons you have learned into amazing stories that people will love.