As a content strategist, you must often be wondering: How to cure the occasional writer’s block?
In the beginning, it’s easy to find content topics. But as your brand progresses, it gets difficult to find things you haven’t written before.
As someone who is always on a tight schedule, you cannot afford to lose hours scrambling to just find content topics.
If you pay attention to your audience, you’ll get a ton of potential topics.
Also, there are different tools and techniques to help you.
That’s what we are discussing today.
Tools and techniques to help you come up with brilliant content ideas consistently.
This method can be used to develop your blogging strategy, podcasts, email marketing, YouTube, or whatever you want to create.
So, here’s the list.
1) Yahoo and Quora Forums
Forums are created to answer questions from specific niches. Quora and yahoo forums are the go-to platforms for many B2B marketers. Simply type your niche and you’ll get all the possible queries your readers have in mind. These questions can be clubbed to form content topics.
2) Industry Magazines and Publications
Find magazines and publications from your niche that publish all the latest news from the industry. Choose content topics that are currently relevant and receive high engagement from readers.
Create content around these topics. Try to add your own twist to the tale or bring in additional points to what’s already been discussed.
3) Slide Share
SlideShare is a hugely popular site. You can find content for just about any industry. Search for topics and industry and see which slide decks have received the highest engagement. You can use the content to create content or give your unique view on the subject.
4) Industry Interviews
This is one of the brilliant ways through which you can place yourself as an expert. There are tons of interviews where industry leaders dissect their thoughts. You can surf through these videos and break down these interviews to create a concise, authoritarian, and clear content piece. A short piece that informs the audience about all the major points the leader was trying to communicate.
5) Surveys
There are tons of surveys happening in the B2B industry. These surveys can tell you a lot about consumer behavior and how it is going to shape in the near future. You can use these topics to create content. Even one simple survey can lead to many brilliant content ideas.
6) Customer Service Representatives
Customer representatives speak to customers all the time. This can be a goldmine of information. They get a lot of business-specific questions that you can create content around. The content also helps your representatives answer customer queries more satisfactorily.
7) Webinars
Webinars are currently becoming a great tool for B2B marketers. Check out the popular webinars from your niche and convert them into blog posts. Webinar content can really be helpful in creating skyscraper blogs.
8) Google Related Searches
Google is a great tool to get your content topics. Google is the primary search engine for both customers and marketers alike. So you can search for an industry-related topic in the search and google gives you a list of topics that your audience might be interested in.
9) Industry Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to gain new insights directly from the experts. It’s also a great source to gain inspiration for your content. Look for newsletters your prospects subscribe to.
10) Your Forecasts for the Future
You don’t need to always look for industry experts outside your business. You can interview your own top management and forecast your thoughts on the changes you see happening. Readers are always looking for things to help them predict the future. Your perspective could really help you place yourself as an authority figure in the industry.
11) Competitor Websites
You can research your competitor’s website and see what questions they fail to answer. This can be used as an opportunity to create content and simultaneously solve customer issues better than your competitors.
12) Behind the Scenes
This is a cool technique utilized by movie studios. Your readers are only seeing a one-dimensional version of your business. Giving a sneak peek backstage, explaining your process and the team involved can really humanize your content. You’ll also be able to gain trust as readers can see that legitimate people are running the business.
13) How it’s Made
When you place yourself as an industry expert, readers are always intrigued about your process. You could explain how you come up with the product ideas. You can document the entire process and publish it for readers to see.
14) Customer Reviews
We already mentioned how you can tap into customer representatives. But sometimes you receive customer feedback through emails or website reviews. You can see the pattern in customer problems and create content to address that issue. Also, pay attention to the language your customers use. Sometimes it might differ from what an industry person uses. You should always use terms your customer is comfortable with.
15) Before and After Transformations
Has something changed for your customer after using your product or service? This can make a compelling story for your customers. This can also help your salespeople close more leads as people can visualize the impact of associating with your business.
16) Online Groups
Facebook and LinkedIn have online groups specific to the niches. You can join in the conversation and understand what concerns they wish to be addressed. You can create content addressing these issues. Look for groups that are highly engaged in question and answers activity.
17) Competitor’s FAQ Section
If you are just starting out and your competitors are way ahead in the content strategy, they might be experienced in knowing what customers want. You can visit their website’s FAQ section and create content around it. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Utilize what’s already working for your competitors.
18) Conference Topics
Attending conferences is a great way to learn new things. But you can also draw inspiration from the topics they are discussing. Pay attention to the Q&A session. See what answers they provide and create content around it.
19) Talk to Product Experts
Talking to the product experts can give you a ton of content ideas. They can give all the latest information about their product, their plans for the future and how far they’ve come. The experts at your own company often provide very useful and interesting knowledge.
20) Topic Generator Tools
There are many topic generator tools available. Answer the public is one of the most popular ones. You just type in the industry and it suggests all the possible questions associated with the topic. You can use this to create blog posts and answer reader queries.
Conclusion
Creating content regularly is a difficult task. But content is currently the center of all B2B marketing activities. Hence marketers cannot just rely on their creativity to come up with good ideas. We hope the tools and techniques mentioned above help you create a ton of content topics in a short time.
Originally published at https://www.digitalzonein.com on June 24, 2021.
