Three Everyday Sources of Online Content Ideas
Everyone is telling you to produce more content, but you’re flat-out finding ideas on what to create. The good news is that online content ideas are around you every day. You just need to know where to look.
When you’re busy with your day-to-day job, it’s hard to come up with online content ideas – let alone act on them. By the time you get to the end of the day, your creative juices probably aren’t flowing.
However, what most people don’t realise is that content is already happening all around them. Every time a team member shows someone else how they approach a task, you could find a content idea. Every single customer service call could contain multiple blog content ideas.
The thing is, one of the main aims of producing online content is to highlight your business’ point of difference. You’re honing in on a customer pain point and showing how you can solve it. That means that content ideas are just sitting there, waiting for you to find them in the work that you are already doing, every single day.
So, where can you look out for online content ideas?
1. Conversations with your customers and clients.
2. Internal presentations and training sessions.
3. Industry research.
CONVERSATIONS WITH CUSTOMERS AND CLIENTS
Are there questions that your customers are always asking? Are there elements of your pitches and proposals that always seem to win people over? Are there aspects of your onboarding process that clients often get stuck on?
All of these everyday moments are content ideas.
If customers have a pain point and are constantly asking for you to solve it for them, then use that as content inspiration. There are so many golden insights about how your business approaches different challenges in your sales pitches. If you’re willing to share that knowledge with prospects, then you might be able to consider sharing elements of it more widely on the internet to drive interest in your brand.
You’re already doing the work when you’re having these conversations with customers, so why not repurpose them and make your intel work harder?
For example, my clients often come to me with the same problem. They can’t produce enough content and they don’t know what to talk about online.
One of the first things I’ll ask them is, what do you talk to your customers about? What conversations are always coming up? What are you advising people to do in response to those challenges?
Then, I’ll generate blog content ideas from those points and find out what relevant Google searches we can target without giving all of their IP away. Suddenly, those one-to-one conversations become opportunities to be discovered online.
INTERNAL MEETINGS AND TRAINING SESSIONS
Let’s imagine that a software company is getting ready to release a new product feature. They’re about to launch it to their customers and all of their customer success managers are being trained in how to use it.
What do you think might be discussed in that training session?
The team will probably talk about why that feature has been created, what types of customers requested it, what problems it can solve, and how to use it.
So again, why not talk about those problems and use cases in your online content?
Let’s say it’s an AI tool that improves people’s grammar. Of course, you will need to create support documentation and showcase that feature on one of your landing pages.
But, you could also write an article called, “10 Grammar Mistakes That You Don’t Know You’re Making”. That could be broken into a number of different social media posts. The call to action at the end of the article is a demo of the tool. If the content is valuable and engaging, then it could encourage people to reach out or sign up.
INDUSTRY NEWS AND EVENTS
When you attend conferences, webinars, or networking events, pay close attention to the topics that are being discussed. What are the big issues that your industry is facing? What are the consumer trends that you are trying to respond to?
If you read the trade press frequently, you are probably aware of a few different themes or movements that are hot topics in your industry.
Take a second to think about what your brand’s response to that challenge might be. What’s your take or your unique approach that the market might not be aware of?
You are probably already subscribed to a few different newsletters and know that there is always something happening in the news. Contributing to the conversation from your organisation’s unique perspective is a great way to build your brand identity and positioning.
content marketing is knowledge sharing
Your business already holds a lot of knowledge. You’re sharing insights and ideas with your customers and team members every day. Positioned the right way, these small pieces of advice can be used to position your brand online and be discovered by more people.
It might feel unnatural to give your knowledge away. However, you can be discerning and you might just find that you get a lot more back. People might start wondering what it’s like to be your customer when you’re already adding so much value to their lives freely.
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