Content Gold Mines

Most companies these days post on various social media, or keep a blog as a part of their website. And it can be hard to decide what to write about. Last year I wrote a post about great places to find inspiration for your content.  That article mentions sources like

• Talking to your sales team
• Talking to customer service
• Talking to other employees in your company

But there are other places to seek inspiration.

Senior Management. Interview senior management at your company and find out if it would add value to write content about something they know will be of interest later in the month/quarter/year.

Press Releases. Check press releases from your company and from your competition to see if there’s anything that would make a good topic for some timely content.

Twitter. Start participating in Twitter chats. You can search by subject for scheduled chats here http://tweetreports.com/twitter-chat-schedule/. You can actively participate in chats or you can just read the chat as it’s taking place. Twitter chats are a great way to learn about a particular topic and can also provide great ideas for content.

LinkedIn. LinkedIn groups are another great source for content ideas. By joining groups relevant to your business, you can read conversations taking place and gain insight into questions being asked.

Your competition. Do some web searching to see where your competition is turning up in the press. Perhaps they are participating in a ‘conversation’ where you also should be at the table.  Or maybe they do something really well. By writing your own post on that topic, you can start to position your own company as the subject matter expert in that area.

 

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5 Sources for Inspiring Marketing Content

It’s not news that engaging, informative and interesting content is key to gaining readership. Many websites have blogs. In fact, the number of blogs in total has risen 25% since January 2015 to January 2016 to 276 million (source statista.com).

And there are plenty of stats about how blogging can help your business.

Just these three stats alone should be enough to convince you that you need a blog on your website. Sites with blogs that have continual postings:

Have 97% more links to their site

Generate 55% more site visits

Have pages indexed <by search engines> 434% more often.

So where do you get the content for those blog posts?

The Competition – What does your competition post about? Reading your competitors’ content can give you a good sense for how they are positioning themselves. And, it can give you some good ideas for your own content.

Customers – Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. If you were in the market for your product, what would you want to know about?  You can even take the step of asking some of your customers what’s important to them. All great fodder for future posts! Plus, your customers post on social media, sometimes about your company. Stay vigilant in tracking those posts so that you can identify topics that are of interest.

Your Salespeople – Ask your salespeople what objections they hear most often when they are on sales calls. Use those objections as a way to formulate content that counters them. You wouldn’t want to say: “Our customers say our product breaks after 3 weeks. But our studies show…” Instead you’d write a post about how you build your product using the top materials available in the industry.

Your Customer Service Staff – These people are on the front-lines. They talk to your customers every day and have great insight. They may be able to identify potential issues that may come up on their calls, and if you can tease them out, you can write a post that counters an issue before it becomes a real problem.

Other Bloggers – Identify bloggers who write about your industry and actively read those blogs. They will be a great source of information that you can write about yourself.