How to think up 6 blog ideas in 60 seconds
Hands up, who did the CEO sleepout before Christmas?
Who’s running a marathon this year, or baking cakes for charity?
Have you hired someone new?
Or won an award?
Great, but did you tell your clients?
If you like the idea of blogging, but aren’t sure you have enough to talk about, a quick look at your achievements last year will prove you wrong – and unearth a handful of blog topics to get you started.
Let’s say you came up with 6 ideas – that’s 6-month’s worth if you’re blogging once a month.
If you wanted to up the frequency and publish fortnightly, you’d only have to look for 6 more topics and you’d be covered until the summer.
Then you’ll have a whole other 6 month’s achievements to talk about
I know what you’re going to say next: “I thought blogging was supposed to be subtle? This is all about me, you wally.”
And you’d be right.
But remember the fortnightly idea?
In between each ‘promotional’ blog (and remember, they’re only vaguely promotional because you’ve written them so skilfully that they’re actually now an engaging story) you can add one that’s not about you.
What’s it going to be abaaaat then? You ask, inexplicably, in a cockney accent
The answer to that comes down to a couple of things: who your ideal clients are and what they’re interested in. And what their problems are and how your service or product can solve them.
Combining those will give you a nice spread of engaging content that together builds a picture of who you are, and how you can help your client. It will help your search rankings too.
Some examples
You’re a financial planner and your clients are predominantly small business owners – write a piece that will appeal to the entrepreneurial mindset.
A blog on ‘3 habits of highly successful people’ will leave them feeling flattered, informed and entertained. They’ll realise you understand them. But at the same time, they’ll understand a bit more about you.
Combine this with more topics that are more closely linked with your service, but also useful and engaging – for example ‘Budget tips to help your children at university’ and they’ll see you can help them with other parts of their lives that might not have occurred to them before.
Imagine a new client is about to come and see you
They’re potentially intimidated, and worried about appearing uninformed. So, showing them a bit more about you can help to put them at ease – and gives them a way of breaking the ice, face-to-face.
So why not dig a bit deeper and share ‘My top 5 holiday destinations’, ‘Books I’ve been inspired by’ or ‘The toughest business decision I’ve ever had to make’. Come on – you’ve all got one of those…
Don’t know the answers?
Ask me to draft you something.
One or two stories a month could get your brand out there – and you’d be surprised at how many of those I can get out of you.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso
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