Blog ideas are a dime a dozen. But creating new relevant content that appeals to your target audience can be more of a challenge, especially when it seems like everyone has already written a blog post about everything there is to be written about. However, successfully marketing a small business in today’s digital age requires an effective content marketing strategy which involves writing a blog.
Where do I find the best blog ideas?
Writing a blog and constantly generating relevant and interesting blog ideas for your target audience is no easy task even for many creative writers. Should I brainstorm until I come up with some really good blog ideas, or should I just write about anything in my mind? The tradeoff between quality and quantity is a tough decision content marketers always have to make.
Here are two ways that can help you come up with new content for your next blog posts:
1. Turn to Your Readers
One disappointing thing content marketers often encounter is that the blog they spend so much time writing is dying quietly. No one sees it. No comments are left. It just passes away like it never exists. So when someday they check their blogs and surprisingly find that someone has left a comment and it’s not spam, they are often too excited to do anything else.
Readers’ comments can be much more valuable than giving you a good feeling of achievement. They’re a crucial source of content for your blog ideas! Content marketers are always trying to find out what is on their target audience’s mind. So there is no reason to take readers’ comments lightly. They are voices directly from the people you want to reach. You receive a comment saying the reader likes your idea? Good! Keep writing on it because people are interested. A question? Excellent! Your next blog post can be a detailed reply to that query. A comment saying your idea makes no sense? Even better! Try to find out why the reader thinks that way and write about it. You can always find something useful in the readers’ comments.
2. Use Content Marketing Tools
Since the potential of content marketing is widely recognized, businesses specializing in probing what content intrigues people has emerged accordingly. Taking advantage of their big data processing and analyzing ability, these marketing tools can give you tons of information about trending topics in different industries and among different demographic groups. So instead of sitting in front of the computer and painstakingly thinking over the theme for your next blog post, turn to some of the available content marketing tools to make their wisdom yours.
One representative of such marketing tools is IdioPlatform. Based on the cloud, the marketing tool can be integrated with a company’s CRM system, enabling businesses to understand the evolving interests of each of their customers, build up detailed interest graphs and use this to personalize and predict the “Next Best Content” for your target audience.
Writing a Blog is Like a Marathon
Writing a blog is a marathon, not a sprint, so having consistently good blog ideas over time will attract the right target audience. Paying attention to comments and using research marketing tools that are easily available online can help you re-fuel at each pit stop. Good blog ideas don’t appear out of thin air. Consistency is key for effective content marketing, so I hope these two sources provide good inspiration for blog ideas now and in the long run.