{"id":876,"date":"2021-05-05T08:37:57","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T12:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2025-07-08T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:00:38","slug":"content-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/blog\/content-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Generate Content Ideas That Drive Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m an idea guy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know it\u2019s unfashionable to say that. I execute, too (I\u2019m writing this post right now, see?). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at my core, I love the world of ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a content marketer, your content ideas are of crucial importance. What<\/em> you write and why<\/em> you write it will inform how you write it and how effective it is. Great content starts with great ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is especially true in a world where SEO and content data is largely democratized. Your competitors can pop into Ahrefs and get the exact same list of keywords and search volume that you can. They can then use Clearscope to design a content brief that almost ensures your content will look similar to the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how the hell do you stand out? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better content ideas. Content ideas that come from different sources that keyword research tools. Content ideas that align to your audience\u2019s pain points and interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 Ways to Generate Content Ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Have coffee with your audience<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Go to conferences and meetups<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Implement customer feedback loops<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Mine review sites, social media, and forums<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Find hidden search queries on your own website<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Become your audience<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Reverse engineer smaller competitors<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Reverse engineer popular viral content<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. Find untapped opportunities in your own content<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Go with your gut<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    These tips will help you come up with topic ideas for whatever types of content you write – video content, infographics, blog content, case studies, Instagram stories, YouTube videos, landing pages, social media marketing, memes…whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You\u2019ll have no trouble filling up your content calendar and keeping your content creators busy after doing some of these steps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Have coffee with your target audience.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    First let me get the obvious out of the way. Yes, you can find blog post ideas in keyword research tools like Ahrefs. I do it all the time, and it\u2019s a key piece of my content marketing strategy<\/a>. Look, I just drew this report up in about 45 seconds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"content<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Reports like this tell me a lot, such as keyword search volume, difficulty, CPC, and which competitors rank for these keywords with which pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They can\u2019t, however, tell me anything about how my audience will respond to the topics at hand. Nor can they determine the relevance of *me* writing those articles vs my competitors doing so (I can see that Neil Patel ranks for \u201cquora\u201d but I can\u2019t see if people give a shit about the content he wrote).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Plus, what already exists on search engines is red ocean<\/a>. It\u2019s hard to use past data to find any interesting *new* ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One of my favorite ways to find net new ideas that both a) resonate with my audience and b) are unique and\/or difficult to find in keywords tools is simply to have coffee with people. Or lunch. Doesn\u2019t matter. But in-person conversations tend to kick up sparks and inspiration that you\u2019d never get behind a keyboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before the pandemic, I used to get lunch at least once per week and coffee at least twice per week with folks in my industry. It wasn\u2019t as strategic as looking for content ideas, but they came anyway. Actually, I just enjoy building my network and having conversations with smart people. Sometimes I learn about how they grow their businesses. Sometimes I just have a good conversation about something totally irrelevant, like poker or the paleo diet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But 7 out of 10 times, I walk away with at least once topic idea for a new article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Make networking a habit. It will help you come up with new content ideas, but it will also make you new friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Go to conferences and meetups (or listen to podcasts).<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Even more efficient is to just go to a conference or a meetup. Of course, this is sort of like aggregating hundreds of meetings and idea vectors in one single location. So you can have dozens of coffee and lunch conversations in the span of a few days versus several weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And the immersion helps you stay focused. Typically at a conference, you tell your boss you\u2019ll be \u201coffline\u201d for the time being, so you get permission to simply live and meet and learn. In a normal coffee meeting or lunch, there\u2019s always the impending next to do list item or meeting, which can distract from a full, immersive conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And then you get to watch talks from top speakers and meet them at the after party. These people are in the content creation<\/a> game, having spent hundreds or thousands of hours working on whatever they spoke about in their presentation. They understand content gaps and what people are interested in inherently. A ten minute conversation with a conference speaker should fill you with tons of inspiration, as will the actual presentations<\/a> they give.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sit through a few, poke holes in what they\u2019re saying, and see if you can find any rebuttals, spin-offs, or tributaries from the ideas they spoke about.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you don\u2019t have the means to go to a conference or, if you\u2019re in the middle of a pandemic, you can also get insights from attending virtual conferences and webinars. Even listening to podcasts (like The Long Game<\/a>) can help you eavesdrop on good conversations and pull together ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Implement customer feedback loops.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    So the last two tactics are explicitly active. You have to get out of the house and get coffee with someone or pay a few thousand bucks for a conference ticket and hotel room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    An easier, passive way to find content ideas is to ask your audience for topics. You can do this two ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First, if you\u2019re collecting email leads (which you should be) and you have set up a nurturing sequence (which you should have), you can introduce a reader survey in one of the first three emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Just use a tool like Woorise<\/a>, Survey Monkey or Typeform. Draw up a few questions of things you\u2019d really like to learn about your audience. A mix of demographic and psychographic questions, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n