In this day and age of IoT(internet of things), customers’ engagement with businesses is more crucial than ever. With time, the ways of advertising and engaging customers have changed a lot.
There are many companies out there persuading audiences by advertising their products/services in many different ways. So if you as a business entity want to succeed in the marketplace, you need to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Otherwise, you will be left behind in the race by your competitors.
A good way to build that one-to-one connection with your target audience is to understand:
- Who is your target audience?
- What are their needs?
- How can you fulfill their needs through your products or services?
In this blog, we will walk you through the process of gathering ideas to market your content. So let us get started.
Watch Your Competitors and Learn
One of the many ways of gathering amazing ideas for your content marketing strategy is to learn from your competitors. Your business competitors are the ones selling the same services/products that you offer. Keeping a close eye on their marketing tactics will enable you to reach out to your audience effectively.
But wait, are we encouraging you to copy content? No! That is not what we want you to do. Observing and keeping a close eye on your competitors does not mean that you should copy their stuff(blog posts, website content). It just means that you should take inspiration from their content and marketing tactics.
For instance, if you want to start a blog of your own but can not think of relevant topics to write upon, you can visit your competitor’s website and look at their published blogs. This will help your brainstorm and get some ideas for your own blog posts. Visiting the website of someone successful in your industry will also give you a sense of what is trending.
Ubersuggest
Another sterling way to gather ideas for content marketing is Ubersuggest. It is a free SEO keyword tool that enables you to find relevant keywords. The keywords that this tool suggests are based on some factors like:
- How many people have searched that keyword?
- Concerned keyword’s level of difficulty
- What is its click-through rate?
All you need to do is search for a keyword related to the content you want to create. And it will do the rest for you. For instance, if you search for “digital marketing,” it will provide you with all the details associated with this phrase. This will make it easier for you to create content and promote your business in an online environment.
Use Your Facebook Page/Group
Focus on getting more content ideas from your existing audience. And this is where Facebook comes into the picture. If you have a Facebook community group or a Facebook page of your brand, this will work for you.
Facebook allows you to create an intake form for your group. This form allows you to ask several questions from people interested in joining your group. The form pops up every time a new person requests to join the group.
Well, a lot of people do not take this feature seriously. But it is a great opportunity for businesses to gather ideas for content marketing right from the audiences themselves.
You must be strategic about the questions you ask from the audience. Asking what their favorite animal or color is will not do any good for you. Instead, while they are on the hook, ask them questions related to your niche.
Utilize Chatbots
Chatbots are not only a great way to enhance customer experience. But using it on your website will also enable you to generate content ideas. But how exactly?
Chatbots allow customers to reach out directly and ask questions. When people talk with the chatbots and tell their queries, companies actually have a great opportunity to get ideas for content marketing.
Therefore, consider storing a wide range of questions and answers in the database of chatbots to cater to customer problems. Different customer queries also help companies generate amazing topic ideas.
Further, it gives a nice personal touch to the people and allows them to communicate with the company instantly and get their problem solved.
Gather Ideas through Email Marketing
Email marketing sequences can do wonders when it comes to gathering ideas for content marketing. When you set up your email marketing campaign, you send emails to your prospects and ask people to sign up. When the interested ones sign up for your email newsletters, you can ask them questions and interact with them effectively. Once you know what interests your audience the most, you can build your content marketing strategy around it.
However, sometimes people do not respond the way you want them to but knowing what they are interested in is also a great opportunity to take advantage of. If there is something that your audience is not interested in, there is no point in incorporating it further, even if you personally think it is good.
For instance, you run a blog, and you came to know that there is a topic that your audience will not be interested in reading, you should not write about it. Why? Because the audience is what matters the most!
So if you are not using email marketing to gather content ideas, it is now time to start using it!
Social Media
Social media is a superb communication platform that allows the creation and sharing of different ideas or types of content. So if you are looking for some sterling content ideas for content marketing, social media is where you should head.
Now getting ideas from social media does not mean that you can copy content and publish it on your website. But it can help you turn your gears.
For instance, if you want to get content ideas, you can get help from Pinterest. Let us say that you need content ideas about digital marketing. In this case, all you need to do is click on the search bar on Pinterest and type the key phrase. The results you see on the first page will be the top trending ones related to your searched phrase. In this way, you can gather a whole bunch of different ideas for your content marketing strategy.
Similarly, you can visit other social media sites and gather content ideas.
Youtube
Youtube is another great platform for finding ideas for content marketing. Visit Youtube and look for the most popular videos in your niche. These videos could be:
- How-to videos
- Trend Videos
- News Videos
- Infotainment Videos
Find the videos with the most views, comments, and likes. These are the metrics through which you can identify the topics that have the most user engagement. Focus on those topics and create your content marketing strategy around them.
Internal Round-Ups and Surveys
Taking an internal round-up or survey in your archive to see what content you have created in the past is another essential idea. Take an internal survey and find out the topics that had engaged users the most and try to modify and improve them.
However, if you are not sure about your customer requirements, you can ask them questions by conducting surveys. For instance, you can ask them about:
- What topics are they interested in or would like to know more about?
- What challenges are they facing in this industry?
However, the idea is not to overdo it by asking a bunch of questions. Asking three questions from each customer will do just fine.
Webinars
The last idea that we have on our list today is webinars. Webinars have gained tremendous attention over the last decade. The idea is to look for the most popular webinars in your industry. Then, please find out the people hosting those webinars; they are usually influencers. Follow a few of the most popular ones and seek their advice for your content marketing strategy.
Bottom Line
With so many platforms available, gathering content marketing ideas is convenient in these times. But gathering ideas not being a hassle does not mean that you can develop a killer content marketing strategy right away. Instead, it is an iterative process that takes time.
If you follow the steps mentioned in this blog, you can develop great ideas for content marketing. So why are you waiting? Start gathering ideas now!
