In the competitive world of marketing, content blocks are a common challenge. There is an ingrained mentality that marketers should be pulling amazing content ideas out of thin air, relying on their gut to guide them.
But the truth is that you have to have a reliable, repeatable, sustainable process for ideating and executing impactful content for your blog. Your gut is just not going to cut it. You need an organized process that empowers you to use your skills as a marketer to create impact.
Here, I’ll walk you step-by-step through a proven process for conquering blocks when writing for your blog.
Let’s get started!
How to conquer content blocks:
DEEP BREATH. The pressure of trying to be a spontaneous creative genius when it comes to content is not fun (and it’s bad for your blood pressure!). However, there’s a smarter way to create impactful blog content, and we’re going to help you. Take a deep breath — you can do this!
TAKE A STEP BACK from the misconception that you can pull ideas out of thin air. Spontaneous creative genius in this case means your gut will magically tell you what to write about. Unless you secretly have super powers, this is unlikely to happen. What you do have is intelligence, the ability to learn, and access to data. Let’s use these things to your advantage!
USE A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH. Ideas can’t come from thin air, but they can be derived from data and research. This scientific approach is how you learned to write papers when you were younger. Pull from your school writing experience, when you were in a class you knew nothing about, and had to come up with a topic to research and write about. You know how to do this!
Here are three ways you can mine topic ideas for your blog:
- Review your brand’s data on the performance of past content. Focus on the topics that got a lot of traffic and social shares.
- Gather competitive intelligence. Take a look at your competitor’s’ content and blogs. Find the topics that look like they got the most social shares and write them down.
- Take a look at industry forums for discussions on pain points. Are there LinkedIn groups, Reddit discussions, or Quora questions related to your industry? Scan these for industry pain points you can address on your blog.
These are great leads! Write down ideas for how these challenges or topics can work for your brand.
BRAINSTORM YOUR BRAND’S UNIQUE OFFER. Take a look at your ideas list, and try to think of one to two ways your company can offer unique help to readers on each subject.
SOUNDING BOARDS can help you sort the good ideas from the bad. Find two to three people on your team or in your network who you can use as sounding boards for these ideas and offerings. Listen to their thoughts and incorporate the feedback that is constructive for your content goals.
USE YOUR CONTENT CALENDAR. Go back and add your final ideas to the calendar — pick one to work on today.
Don’t have a content calendar you’re confident in? No problem! Here’s a free Content Calendar Template you can download — it’s what we use here at TrackMaven!
RESEARCH your topic. Do research on the subject, writing down notes and links in a document as you go.
ORGANIZE your notes. If you see patterns in your research, follow them to completion. If you don’t see patterns, find theories and data that crop up repeatedly, or that resonate strongly. Bump these highlighted sections to the top of your document, and copy the rest of your notes at the bottom, but don’t delete them — you may change your mind about including them later.
CREATE AN OUTLINE based on your findings. A story is how an author reflects the evolution of significant patterns. Don’t worry about prose or filling in the narrative — just get the outline of what you want to include in your piece cemented. Some of these points may end up being your headers for the piece.
JUST WRITE. If there is a pattern in your research, pull it out and tell the story of its evolution in your own words. Include your narrative as you would explain your research to someone in person. Don’t worry about your writing being good or even sensical. Your goal here to get all of your thoughts around your research findings on paper, and to connect the patterns and points with narrative.
REREAD and gently edit your piece, looking for logic and flow. Now is when you’re concerned about smoothing out transitions, getting rid of tangents or unnecessary commentary, and expanding upon points you may have only touched on previously.
TAKE A BREAK. Work on something else. I find it’s best to wait until the next day, so my head is clear, before moving on the the next step.
REREAD your piece again. This time, keep an eye out for grammar, style, and double check the flow of your logic. Try to identify phrases or paragraphs that could be made stronger with assertive language and different word usage. Get rid of jargon, and simplify language so it is easier to consumer.
GET A SECOND PAIR OF EYES on your piece. Have a colleague read the piece for content, grammar, and style. Read over their suggestions carefully, and don’t just blanketly accept all of their changes.
REREAD your piece one last time. Find any lingering errors you or your colleague may have missed. Make sure you feel good about your piece. If you don’t feel good about it, how do you expect other people to feel about it?
YOU’RE DONE! You feel good about your piece, your colleague gave you great feedback, and you’ve double checked to make sure everything is right. Now go ahead and publish!