I come across a lot of entrepreneurs (clients or not) who understand that content creation and content publishing (i.e. content marketing) is important.
They realize that it’s the most important part of a smart SEO strategy, that content is vital to be relevant in social media, that it’s important to give content away to build yourself an audience and that it’s the only way to position yourself as an authority in your niche.
That’s awesome! I like working with smart people! And even if I don’t end up working with them, I’m happy to see they are catching up and jumping aboard the content bandwagon.
But creating content is easier said than done…
I Don’t Know What To Talk About
I’m currently working with an Australian Hypnotherapist and she recently told me: “I want to start a blog on my site and I’d like to have an autoresponder sequence but seriously, I don’t know what to write about”.
Honestly, there’s a ton of stuff she can talk about that will educate her prospects and get them to know, like and trust her. But I understand that it can be tough to come up with topics ideas when you’re not used to do it (and even when you are more experienced, you can get stuck).
Of course, she’s in luck because as my client, it will be a pleasure for me (and part of my job) to help her find topic ideas. But I thought I would let you know exactly how I come up with ideas for blog posts, videos, emails or any other type of content. If you’re just getting started, it will give you a head start and if you ran out of ideas, it will hopefully unstuck you.
The Secret Weapon
The truth is, I’m kind of cheating. I’m using a secret weapon that never failed to spark new ideas in my head almost instantly. But that’s OK because you’re allowed to cheat too.
I use Jon Morrow’s 52 Headline Hacks: A Cheat Sheet For Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral
It’s a free ebook written by one of the world’s most popular blogger in which you’ll find 52 proven-to-work headlines that you can tweak and use for your niche. You can find it at HeadLineHacks.com or BoostBlogTraffic.com.
There’s no catch, it’s free, you just have to join Jon’s mailing list. That way, you’ll also receive a notification each time he publishes a new post on his blog. It’s always very useful stuff so you win even more.
By the way, I’m not affiliated with Jon at all (although I’d love to be), it’s just that I really use his Headline Hacks often (even for this post’s title).
A Step By Step Course Of Action
So here’s my suggested course of action:
1- Get the Cheat Sheat Here.
2- Go through it once (it’s a quick read).
3- Optional step: brainstorm about your topic. Just write down (on a piece of paper or using any text editing software) everything that comes to mind about your topic. What are some fun things you’d like to teach? What are the questions your prospects usually ask you? What are the benefits of your product or service? If you’re teaching something, do you have a course outline? What are the steps you need to take with a client in order to deliver your service? What are the steps of the production of your product? Anything else you can think of. Brainstorming without censoring yourself for 15 minutes should be enough.
4- With your general topic in mind, go through the table of contents, find a few headlines that spark ideas (there will be some for sure) and tweak them a little.
5- When you have a great headline that makes a promise, you have your idea. Because your post (or video, email, etc.) will simply deliver on that promise.
5 Ideas In 5 Minutes
Now, allow me to deliver on my promise.
In the video below, I’ll come up with 5 new post ideas about hypnosis for quitting smoking or loosing weight. I have not done a brainstorm but these topics are fresh in my head since I’ve been working on sales pages on these topics in the last few days. I promise I’m not cheating (this time), I’m recording this live and I don’t know what I’ll come up with before actually doing it….
Here are the five ideas I came up with:
7 Warning Signs That You Desperately Need To Quit Smoking Now!
5 Little-Know Factors That Could Be Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts
The Minimalist Guide To Loosing 1 Pound A Week The Easy Way
Do You Make These 9 Weight Loss Mistakes?
How To Become A Non-Smoker By Closing Your Eyes For 60 Minutes
I could use them for blog posts, videos, audios, emails or topics for webinars. Not only will these headlines grab the attention of my target audience, but they also give me a very clear sense of direction with my content. I know what I’ll be talking about and I know what I have to deliver, I have to teach or reveal what I’m promising in my headline (the 7 warning signs, the 5 little-known factors).
It’s Your Turn Now
This method and this tool (thanks Jon) really simplifies things for me and I’m convinced it will work for you too. You know what are the steps to follow and you know where to get the tool. So go ahead and find those great ideas for your content marketing!
Please share your comments and/or questions in the comments below. And if you found this post useful, please share it with your friends.
Totally agreed. I’ve looked at lists of great headlines to spark ideas as well. The trick is to take the headline (and the blog) and make it your own. You don’t want to fall into the trap of just rewriting the content that’s already out there.
Hey Matt, good point! Originality is obviously super important when it comes to the actual content. But for structure, no need to reinvent the wheel, we can use what’s proven to work. I was listening to a call with Sonia Simone and Jon Morrow of Copyblogger and they were talking about looking at popular post and use the same format for headline, sub-heads and structure.
today it is actual SMM instead of SEO