Every marketer knows the feeling. You sit down to write a blog entry, email marketing message or even a witty social media post but the blank screen taunts you as you struggle to come up with any interesting ideas. So how do you get the creative juices flowing? Scouring the Internet is always a good place to start, but sometimes you don’t even have to look outside your own organization.
No matter what business you’re in, every day someone at your office is working on something inspiring—the key is recognizing it. Take, for instance, the product manager that works down the hall from you. You’ve been writing press releases about the new product he or she recently developed for the past week, but did it occur to you to go ask that person where the idea came from? A five-minute conversation could lead to a compelling blog post about innovation in a business.
Take your boss as another example. Every week you have a meeting to discuss projects you’re working on, but did you ever think to ask about what he or she sees as the most important skills for a manager? Taking 10 or 15 minutes to have this kind of discussion might give you several great ideas for pieces about what makes a great business leader. Marketers are always striving to create content that shows thought-leadership, but that can be difficult to do just sitting by yourself at a computer. Conversely, one of the most effective ways to come up with ideas for engaging content is to sit down and speak with co-workers about industry trends and challenges they see every day.
The point is, just as your company is full of subject matter experts, it also employs individuals with knowledge about a wide variety of subjects that can help you with content creation. Every marketer has experienced writer’s block—it is inevitable with the amount of content you are expected to churn out—but you can find inspiration down the hall if you know where to look.
Get Some Inspiration Assistance
There’s no reason you have to tackle writer’s block alone, either. A content strategy vendor provides a team of writers and editors that live and breathe content creation strategies. These professionals know exactly where to look in your organization to find great stories to tell, and they can even conduct the interviews—and of course produce the subsequent content—with the most engaging employees in your organization. Before you know it, your writer’s block will turn into building blocks for a successful content marketing strategy.
