Fresh content ideas without extra time or money
Everyone wants more time or money. Business owners want more customers. Puppies want more treats and room to run. What do marketers want more of? Content! And a lot of times, you need more time and sometimes more money to produce all the content you’d need to get more customers. See…it all ties back to the intro, except the puppies…I just like puppies and wanted to talk about them.
I’m here with some ways you can start creating fresh content without too much extra and hopefully no extra money.
Low-hanging fruit
Before we get into the three new ways to find content ideas and how to implement them, I wanted to talk about some low-hanging fruit that all businesses have, but not everyone takes advantage of.
FAQs
Most businesses have websites and most of those websites also have FAQ pages. They were populated several years ago when you built a new website, and you haven’t looked at them since. Each one of those FAQs can and should be a full-fledged blog. If they made the list when you launched your website, they’re probably still relevant today. Start at the top of the list and flesh out the question and answer in a quick blog. Once all of your FAQs have full blogs written, you could create an FAQ series on your social media where you post FAQs and their answers weekly – think photo carousels, simple text posts, links to the blogs, and short-form videos.
Competitors
Everyone has them. Everyone knows who they are. But not everyone checks in to see what their competitors are doing. But you should! What blogs are they writing? What are they posting on their social media? What videos are they making? If they can do it…you can too!
Rewrites
You know those blogs that intern you had three years ago wrote? Rewrite them. Update them. Add new information or update stats or industry trends. If most of it is still the same…rewrite the angle or simplify the content into a list instead of a narrative.
3 New Places to Get Content Ideas
- Ask your sales team – Your sales (and/or service) team is talking to your customers daily. They know the questions everyone is asking. They know the problems customers are facing. We bet if you ask them the question, they get the most…all of them will have an answer and some of them will be different from the FAQs you’ve already posted. For even better content, ask those sales team members to make short-form videos answering the questions they gave you.
- Read – Read newsletters, publications, and studies about your industry…and then write content responding to what you read. This is a great way to build valuable content for LinkedIn that could generate engagement. If you read an article that says customers in an industry you work with are looking for pink poodles, but you’ve noticed they’re looking for white poodles…write a blog or long-form post on LinkedIn with your insights.
- Head to Google – Another great way to get ideas for content topics is heading to Google. Start typing in a keyword or topic and see what Google starts to auto-populate below it while you’re typing. Those are trending topics. Those are topics you should be making content about.
Creating content takes time, but coming up with content topics doesn’t have to! It’s all about taking a step back and making note of the questions your customers are asking and the problems they need solved. Sometimes it’s hard to take that step back, especially when you’re super involved in the day-to-day of your business. If that’s you…give us a call at Signalfire and we can help put together a content plan with you.