So you understand the value of creating great content for your prospects and customers. And you want to supply them with great intel on a regular basis. Great! But what do you write about? When will you find the time? How will you keep it interesting?
Generating engaging ideas is quite a challenge, especially if you're playing in a fairly saturated market or have a product or service that doesn't it lend itself to a multitude of topics. I mean how many ways can you talk about a light bulb?
That's when you need a little outside perspective, and a content strategy that helps you think outside the box to devise topics and ideas that your customers will truly value. Here are five ways to generate high value content.
- Hire professional content creators. If you want quality content, start with a content marketer. They are experts in understanding your market and telling the stories that your audience wants to hear. They will devise a full content strategy, that not only includes topics, but also a calendar and rationale for what types of content to deliver by channel, audience and time, and how that content can be recycled in multiple formats for maximum impact.
- Hire copwriters. If you already have a solid strategy, hire a freelance copywriter to bring your ideas to life. While, you may have to edit and manage the workflow, at least you'll have someone proactively putting pen to paper. Keep in mind that some copywriters specialize so think about what you need (short form, long form, content types, etc.) so you know exactly what to look for in a freelance writer.
- Solicit guest bloggers. Crowdsourcing your content from like-minded individuals is a great way to get enthusiasts talking about your industry on your website or blog. Target influential bloggers in your industry, clients, and other raving fans, but provide some guidance or topic ideas. You want to be able to control your brand message. See content that would be a great fit for your blog, but was written by someone else? Ask to repost their content on your blog; they might even write a fresh introducton for you. In either case, guest bloggers are great promotional and SEO tools since they will likely drive traffic to your blog from their social media activity.
- Curate third-party content. It goes without saying that the internet is your greatest souce of ideas. Use content curation tools to help you wrangle and share industry perspectives on your blog. For example, Storify helps collect social media content from across the web and integrate it within your site. Storyful serves as a news gathering platform and Buzzsumo helps find the most talked about topics and influencers. For larger organizations, Curata helps marketers take a strategic vantage point to the curation, planning and measurement of their content's impact.
- License third party content. Sometimes your needs a simple. You need a great picture or video, and maybe even some music to get your message across. Creative Commons provides free access to all types of media from photos to songs to text. All you have to do is give credit to the creator. And Canva makes it super easy for design amatuers to create all types of media for free or on the cheap (ie. $1).
No matter how you approach content creation, focus on providing meaningful and relevant material that provide value for the reader. To learn more about how to use content for inbound marketing, download the Inbound Marketing Checklist.
