By Caroline Tremblay

A couple weeks ago, we asked whether it’s more of a hassle brainstorming content ideas or actually getting it written. Our community of small biz owners responded loud and clear: Figuring out what to write about!

It’s tough when you’re running a business and you have a thousand different things on the brain. How do you sit down (long enough) to distill the ideas your audience wants/needs/craves?

I think sometimes we overwhelm ourselves by trying to pick the perfect thing, right? We feel like whatever idea we come up with has to be mind-blowing. But what you may not realize is the knowledge you possess and the things you think about each day related to your biz are probably completely new and interesting to your audience.

Your clients don’t have the inside scoop on your industry. They don’t know the ins-and-outs of how you thoughtfully choose products or design services. That behind-the-scenes stuff that only you know—that’s the gold.

So don’t let a lack of ideas stall the process. Keep it simple with one of these three practical approaches and share that gold!

Listen to Your Clients

Think about your latest client call or meeting. What was the biggest pain point your client expressed? What were they really looking for help with? OR if it was a follow-up call, what did they say they appreciated most about your biz? How did you help them solve a problem?

They’re probably NOT the only ones! Take that idea and run with it. For instance, several of our clients have recently said they really appreciate how easy we make it to gather content ideas that serve their audience. For some small businesses, we even sit down and brainstorm a whole year’s worth of topics in advance, just so they know the content piece is in place.

So what are we doing RIGHT NOW??? Writing a blog post about brainstorming content ideas because we know other small business owners could use the same support 💗.

Revisit Your Existing Content

We can always dive deeper into topics that interest our audience, and what better place to dig for ideas than in the fantastic content you’ve already created? Look at your blog posts. Which have been the most popular? How about your newsletter—which mailings had the highest open rates? You can also go to your social media analytics. Are there any wildly popular posts that seemed to resonate?

Once you identify the topics that triggered the most powerful responses, look for clues about what people were most interested in. Did they leave any comments that might give you an idea? Did you feature a particular product and then watch it sell like hotcakes?

That’s exactly what happened to one of our clients who saw a huge uptick in sales of their all-natural exfoliation products. Exfoliation is a hot topic, one featured often in beauty mags and talked about by celebrities.

So we took advantage of the timing to release a full series about the best ways to scrub, from firmness to frequency. Now there’s a whole set of great posts to link to and direct customers to whenever they express a desire to know more 👍.

Think Outside the Box

Is there something you’ve been dying to learn but simply haven’t had time to explore? If it’s something related to your biz, learning about it and then sharing could be an excellent way to connect with your customers.

For example, we recently did a brand refresh, updating everything from our logo and aesthetic to our overall messaging. It was a big undertaking, and we learned A LOT in the process. All that learning has definitely helped us with brainstorming content ideas for 2020.

For instance, you can expect to hear more about our experience designing an all-new website. Instead of playing it safe, we decided to experiment with an entirely new platform, Showit. Turns out, we’re IN LOVE!

Showit has so many capabilities, and we could have fun exploring for hours. For now, we’ve crafted a brand-new site that makes us smile every time we hit the homepage. And we’re ready to help adventurous clients who might be hankering for a fresh take, too 🤩.

What’s something new you’d like to try out and share???