One of the greatest challenges for any marketer is creating fresh, dynamic and interest-generating content consistently. When done well, marketing content can attract the attention of new audiences, support lead generation, engage existing customers and move prospects through the sales funnel. Additionally, fresh website content is essential for search engine optimization. Marketing content can take the form of blogs, emails, newsletters, articles, white papers, case studies, eBooks, testimonials and social media posts. But it can be difficult to come up with new topics on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. Here are six tips for breathing fresh air into your content creation:1. Discover what your audience really wants to know.
Tap into the minds of your audiences to see what they are interested in, what they value about you and what problems they need to solve. This can be accomplished through focus groups, surveys or informal interviews. In addition to gleaning new topics, the information you gather can generate material for testimonials, case studies and customer success stories.
2. Find out what users are searching for online.
There are a variety of tools available to help you uncover the keywords and key phrases your audiences are searching for online. Google Analytics helps marketers discover the most popular topics and pages on their websites. Google Trends is another free tool that helps marketers learn about trending topics in their industries. Use tracking tools such as Social Mention, Buzzsumo and Google Alerts to uncover and alert you to what content is popular across various social media and news sites. If you are running paid ad campaigns, ask the paid search team for a list of top-performing keywords. The highest click-through rates typically correlate with user interest.
3. Check out the competition.
Take a look at what your competitors are writing about to spur new ideas for content. Sign up for their newsletters and review blogs and other website content. Be sure you don’t cover the same topics with an identical perspective. Instead, leverage your company’s expertise, specialties and unique selling proposition to put a new spin on topics of interest.
4. Maintain an ideas file.
Ideas are hard to come by, especially when you need them most. Borrow a technique used by writers and maintain a “stash” or “spark” file. Create and maintain a physical or digital folder of articles, blogs, newsletters, industry research and ideas for new blogs, social media posts and other forms of content. Every few months, review the file and look for new connections or concepts that may emerge based on industry developments.
5. Bring in different viewpoints.
Enlist the help of new writers, guest bloggers, freelancers or people from other departments to write content that offers differing perspectives and opinions. For example, a salesperson who talks to clients and prospects directly has valuable insight into their concerns, challenges and interests.
6. Interview company stakeholders.
Take a page from our process and interview company stakeholders about what is driving the industry and impacting your customers. Here are some of the questions we use to generate fresh topics for our clients:
- What keeps your prospects and customers up at night?
- Identify three trends in the marketplace that support the demand for your products/services.
- What are your company’s greatest successes and accomplishments?
- How can the use of your products/services impact a company’s performance, productivity or profitability?
- What mistakes do companies make that prevent them from achieving full success?
- Where do you see your industry going over the next five years?
- What innovative or controversial opinions do you hold?
Freshness matters
In the world where content is king, the value of interesting, relevant and engaging content cannot be understated. Today’s B2B customers prefer to frequent sites that feature up-to-date information about the topics that matter most. Generating new content consistently builds a loyal audience of readers, attracts new followers, has a positive impact on search engine rankings and establishes your company as an authority in its marketplace. All of this leads to a stronger bottom line. To learn more about how to keep your content fresh and engaging, contact Trade Press Services today.
