By: Leah Rodgers & Joshua Bolkan
Writing even simple things like a blog post can feel a little overwhelming when you see that blank document staring back at you. Maybe your head suddenly feels as empty as the page, even though you might’ve been overflowing with ideas until you opened the word processor. Or maybe you have the opposite problem: too many ideas are clamoring to get out, leading to writer’s block that feels more like a log jam or rush-hour traffic.
Either way, a few keys can help you get your creative juices flowing onto the page and ready to grab eyeballs that might be interested in your products or services.
- Identify your buyer personas.
We talk a lot about buyer personas in any aspect of inbound marketing, from targeting emails to informing the sales process, all the way through improving customer support. When we use them in content creation, we’re simply hewing to the old writing adage about knowing your audience.
You don’t chat with your friends the same way you give a presentation at work. If you do, you’re likely to leave your friends wondering why you’re such a stiff or your colleagues confused about your casual tone and impenetrable inside jokes.
Writing is much the same. Knowing your audience will tell you what tone and style you should use, what kinds of details might be relatable to your readers, and, of course, why they might be interested in your content.
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To Keep the Content Ideas Flowing!
Identifying your buyer personas will also reveal what stories they like hearing about. What causes do they care about? What problems do they need your help with?
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- Know your goal.
What do you want your reader to do?
You’re not just trying to entertain your readers or dazzle them with your beautiful prose. You’re not even trying to inform them, at least not for its own sake. You want them to do something. That something may be no more than to think of your company as an authority or no less than to invest millions of dollars in your product.
If you’re just trying to burnish your company’s image as a thought leader to attract people at the top of your sales funnel, you should focus on offering helpful information and resources. If you’re looking to support or delight your existing customers, it might make sense to write more specifically about how they can more fully use your products or services.
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To Keep the Content Ideas Flowing!
Writing a blog post that will help reach your goals depends on keeping your audience front-of-mind. Building relationships and trust by writing tailored content will move your goals forward.
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- Pose a challenge and offer a solution.
This one is pretty straightforward, but easy to forget. People read for all kinds of reasons, from pure entertainment to a desire to expand their own minds and their empathy for their fellow people. They don’t, however, read inbound marketing content to expand their humanity—though if your content helps them do that they’ll likely share it far and wide.
They’re reading your content because they want to solve a problem, and you have a possible solution. Don’t be coy about it. Lay the problem out clearly, within the first few lines, and then bring on the solution! Even if the solution is not your product, that’s fine. You’ll still establish your company as a place to turn to solve your prospects’ and customers’ problems.
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To Keep the Content Ideas Flowing!
Get a group together! After you brainstorm problems that your buyer personas must have, brainstorm solutions to those problems.
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- Include strategic keywords.
This one is also pretty simple. If you want your content to be discoverable, you need to include the words your audience is searching to find the answers to their problems.
It may be tempting to try to jam them all in there as you go, but you’re likely to end up with clunky writing if you do. Don’t worry about keywords on the first pass. As an expert in your industry, you’ll probably include a handful naturally as you draft your content. Once you move into editing, you can take another look and figure out where to slide a few more in.
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To Keep the Content Ideas Flowing!
When you’re researching keywords, what stories are attached to them? What are your competitors writing about when they use similar keywords? Researching what’s already been written will allow you to brainstorm different perspectives and problem-solving techniques.
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- Write a dazzling headline.
Your headline is the first—and if it doesn’t grab them, maybe the only—thing your reader will see. Even if it’s compelling, make sure it accurately reflects the rest of what you’re writing to avoid irritated readers.
There are also a few tricks you can use to goose the number of people who click on your headline. Including numerals, for example, or phrases like “in the world,” is proven to catch readers’ eyes. You don’t want to rely on those too much, though, or readers will start to assume you’re just tossing out clickbait.
It’s tempting to start with the headline, and working titles can be very helpful in focusing your writing at the beginning of the process. But it’s often better and even easier to wait until the end: your headline will more likely be a focused and accurate representation of what you’ve written, and it may well come to you effortlessly as you write.
You’ll still need to come up with great ideas for your content, but by focusing on the nuts and bolts of crafting it, those ideas will spill onto the page as fast as you can publish them.
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To Keep the Content Ideas Flowing!
Before you write your post, slap down a working headline at the top that simply answers, “What question am I answering or what solution am I providing?” After you’ve written your masterpiece blog, article, or email, take a look back and adjust your working headline into something straightforward and snappy.
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Thanks for sharing!
