What do you think is the biggest determinant in deciding whether a piece of content is successful for your brand? Is it the number of conversions, the number of clicks, and reshares or is it just the fact you’ve written something to boost your online visibility on search engines?
Well, the answer is none of the above. In fact, what matters is not what you write, but what you write about. The topic of a piece of content, and the idea behind it, is what draws in consumers that convert. But coming up with content ideas can be easier said than done. It’s easy to brainstorm many different topics and content formats when a website is brand-new, but the real challenge comes after you’ve been posting for a while.
Even the most experienced marketers may have trouble thinking up new concepts, and it may feel like everything you come up with has been used before in some capacity. This is where content ideation can help.
What is Content Ideation and Planning?
Content ideation is a term used to describe the process of developing new content ideas to engage your target audience. Before we dive into understanding what exactly this means, it is important to understand that we are using the terms “content” and “engage” to mean something that is subjective to each brand.
Content is a word that stands for anything a brand creates to represent itself. This can be a blog, marketing copy on a website, an infographic, a video, a social media post, or even a podcast. Similarly, the term engage can mean a variety of different things depending on your marketing goals; from building brand awareness, teaching consumers something new about your product, inspiring users to convert, or nurturing longtime customers. Content can be used to grow your business while also connecting with consumers and building brand loyalty.
The best content ideation strategy should include all the above.
Content Ideation: 13 Tips to Finding Ideas
Not sure where to start when diving into the world of content ideation? Here are some helpful tips.
1. Look at Trends in Your Industry
One way to ensure clicks is to capitalize on what is trending in your industry. Take a look around and see what your competitors, as well as thought leaders, are talking about. Don’t just look at what they are saying, examine how they are saying it. Check to see what content format is being created and how consumers are engaging with it. Are they commenting on graphics, like a video or a visual? Or is there more discussion around a long-form blog post?
While there is no right answer, research is crucial to not only find what best suits your brand, but also what the consumer is looking for. Once you have settled on the content’s format, try taking a unique approach to a trending topic. Write about what’s popular, but in a way that makes you stand out from competitors. Producing the same content as your competitors will not do you any favors; not only does it not stand out among the crowd, but it also isn’t interesting and won’t attract new people to your brand.
2. Explore Industry News
With the emergence of new technologies and an ever-changing landscape, clients are looking for news content they can trust. Financial news, health care insights and strategic business news can guide clients as they make decisions on which products to launch or how to better serve their own audiences. Curating this news also turns your company into a trusted source of information for your target audience.
3. Brainstorming with Peers
One of the easiest ways to come up with different content topics is to sit down and brainstorm with your peers. You never know what can happen when you get colleagues together to think long and hard about a topic, so surround yourself with a diverse group of people who bring new and different perspectives. They don’t have to be people who have previously engaged with the project.
Your brainstorm can include people from all different backgrounds and departments in your organization. Someone may surprise you with a content idea you’ve never considered before, so bring as many minds to the table that you can. Consider working with sales and marketing to gain insight into the sales journey. Leverage business development for topics that will interest prospects. By working with different teams, you'll be able to develop better content.
4. Talk to Other Divisions for More Insights
Your brainstorming sessions can include people from all different backgrounds and departments in your organization. Someone may surprise you with a content idea you’ve never considered before, so bring as many minds to the table as you can. Consider working with product, sales and marketing to gain insight into the sales journey. Leverage business development for topics that will interest prospects. By working with different teams, you'll be able to develop better content.
The customer service and leadership teams can also determine challenges and benefits for customers, making them excellent resources for new content ideas.
Setting this up may include:
- Scheduling recurring meetings with department leads or representatives to brainstorm new ideas.
- Designing a form or email address to collect new ideas, where all the relevant people know that it’s there and periodically check for/send in ideas.
- Asking a set of questions designed for each department
5. Address Customer Pain Points and Consider Their Needs
The reason a consumer purchases something from your brand is because your product and/or service will either answer their question or help them in some way. So, if you don’t address your customers’ pain points in your content, how will you target them to choose your business? Consumers need to know that they can turn to your brand to fulfill their needs, and content is the best way to express this. When coming up with content topics, make sure to give readers actionable tips on a problem they may be facing.
Getting this information can be done through the following methods:
- Client feedback surveys: These surveys should ask customers what they are currently struggling with and for feedback on the material they would like to see.
- Joining sales calls: Sales calls will give your content team insight into the sales process and the questions prospects are asking. These concerns can be worked into future content pieces.
- Talking to sales teams and account managers about customer pain points: Sales and account managers have the most interactions with customers. They will be able to provide insight into what they see clients struggling with and what there is demand for.
All in all, content ideas can arise when you think about the specific needs of your customers. For example, blog posts that directly pinpoint your customers’ pain points are always a great content angle to take that will result in valuable, high-quality content for your clients.
6. Explore Social Media
Almost everyone has social media nowadays, and if you don’t target your audience via social media platforms, you will be missing out on a huge opportunity. But keep in mind that not all content is created equally, especially when it comes to social sharing. You can get great ideas for your content topics by exploring what content creators are posting on social media. Plus, you can see exactly how content performs right then and there, without having to use analytics, by simply looking at the number of likes, shares and comments a post gets.
Overall, a brand’s creativity is often explored on its social media pages, and by creating a robust content marketing strategy, you can show off your brand’s voice and engage with your audience.
7. Look at What Your Competitors Are Writing About
Your competitors are often your greatest motivators, so take a look at what kind of content they’re writing about, what’s ranking well and what consumers are engaging with to get your creative juices flowing.
During your competitive research, you’ll want to ask the following questions:
What Types of Content Are My Competitors Writing About?
To determine this, you can quickly do a competitive gap analysis, which is when you analyze what types of content your competitors are writing, and where there are gaps with your content strategy. This doesn’t mean only looking at their blog and social media posts, you’ll also want to analyze how your competitors write their content marketing copy on landing pages, how they write their product descriptions and even what tone of voice they use.
What Content Formats Perform Best?
Where do your competitors have the most engagement? Is it on their blog, their social media platforms or is their website very strong? While we don’t recommend copying their approach verbatim, use their successes as inspiration when creating your own strategy.
How Do They Write About Tough Concepts?
It is a digital marketing best practice to write content the way you would speak, but this can be tricky when you are in a niche industry. If you need some ideas on how to write about tough concepts, consider looking at your direct competitors to see how they deal with this. Look for fun and interesting elements that you haven’t thought about before.
What Content Gaps May Exist?
A competitive analysis should lead to an audit of your own content, where you can identify gaps in your current strategy. Look at how competitors are engaging with clients and in what formats they’re doing so. You may want to test new strategies or approach topics from a new angle based on these results.
8. Don't Be Afraid to Ask Your Audience Firsthand
Not sure where else to look for inspiration? Asking your audience firsthand what they want out of your content can be extremely helpful. After all, they may be able to give you ideas you would have never thought of!
There are plenty of ways to engage with your consumers and ask these questions. You can send a short poll to your newsletter subscribers and give them a few options of content ideas to choose from. Or consider using social media and website polls and ask open-ended and leading questions. There’s no need to make things more complicated than necessary, just get your voice out there.
9. Use Licensed Content
If you’re struggling to consistently come up with new content ideas and want to boost your credibility with your target audience, licensing content is a great option to consider. This form of copyright licensing uses editorial content created by thought leaders from renowned publications. In fact, 65% of buyers strongly prefer credible content crafted by industry influencers over other forms of content. Utilizing the credibility of these publications and authors will add something new to your content calendar and engage your target audiences in a new way they haven’t seen before.
10. Content Ideation Tools for Generating Ideas
Blog Topic Generator from Hubspot
This tool is great for generating blog topic ideas for your site. It is simple and intuitive because it asks for 5 nouns of your choice. These nouns are then spun into suggestions that serve as starting points for you to create an engaging post.
The Blog Title Generator from Impact
This tool from Impact also aids your process for creating blog topics, however, it has additional features where the user can navigate between different recommendations to customize titles with their own keywords.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public generates content ideas by analyzing data collected from search engines. You will need to enter a specific keyword to use and the tool takes it from there. The tool lets you know which phrases are most searched by users that include the keyword.
11. Identify a Theme
When you’re creating blog topics for a marketing campaign, it is important to try and determine themes around what you are seeing. Many topics you create may be able to be tied into a series, which makes it easier to plan out your content.
12. Use Content Scheduling and Seasonality
Plenty of content is dictated by seasonality and holidays, use that to your advantage by sourcing and developing ideas with that in mind. Using a social media calendar and editorial calendar will help your team stay on track and plan ahead of important dates. Strategically divide the quarters and decide what you will want to focus on beforehand.
13. Evaluate for Relevancy and Execution
One of the most important parts of content ideation is sorting through your ideas. Unlike a normal brainstorming session, the evaluation is done by those involved in the content creation and promotion process. For each idea, you’ll want to talk through how the content might look, how you’d like to achieve it, and how to allocate the budget towards this endeavor.
Final Thoughts
Content ideation is successful when you think about how your business can create valuable and useful content for your clients. While creating ideas for your content might seem quite daunting, your content strategy can soar with a bit of hard work, determination and creativity. Using the tips above for your content ideation purposes can be exceptionally helpful, no matter what industry you are in.
The NYTLicensing Group has many content options for businesses and brands of all kinds. When you harness the power of The New York Times expert storytelling, you will inspire your customers to want more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Ideation Strategy?
An ideation strategy involves generating new ideas to solve a business problem. While content ideation pertains to marketing, other divisions can use this process to solve issues they may encounter.
What Does Ideation Mean in Marketing?
Ideation in marketing is the process of creating new ideas that can be used to better connect with customers and prospects. The ideation process can touch upon all facets of marketing whether that be related to the content or a product launch.
What is the Purpose of Content Ideation?
Content ideation gives the marketing team a chance to gather data and ideas surrounding the editorial calendar. The best topics are then selected and relevant assets are created. By using best practices related to content ideation, your team is more likely to create better content for your audience.
What is Blog Content Ideation?
Blog content ideation is the process of developing topics that will be posted on an organization’s website. When generating topics for the blog, companies should also pull in relevant metrics such as Google Analytics and Search Console data.
What is Ideation in Digital Marketing?
Ideation is the ideas that fuel innovation, create substance, and drive success. Ideation in digital marketing focuses on creating specific content, and sourcing topics to be used in future digital marketing content.
What are the Stages of Ideation?
A successful Ideation strategy focuses on generating, selecting and developing new ideas and focuses on all stages of the customer lifecycle. Stages can include brainstorming, research, and selecting the right ideas.
How Can Content Ideation Help my Business?
Content ideation has numerous benefits, the main one being having the opportunity to give your marketing team the ability to strategize ideas for content creation. This will help your business ask the right questions about your customers and uncover innovative solutions for their problems.
