Usually all it takes for a stream of manufacturing blog content ideas to dry up is a blank screen, a blinking cursor, and a deadline. Where do you turn to fight blog article writing vapor-lock or for inspiration when it feels like there’s nothing new under the sun in manufacturing marketing?
Engaging manufacturer blogging ideas and industry-relevant blog topics are likely closer than you think. Use these 8 easy and proven methods to find them:
Social media conversations are great fodder for content. Use your blog to answer questions that customers are asking on your LinkedIn and Facebook pages and other social platforms, or look to comments left on previous articles or “contact us” pages for fresh perspectives on popular topics. Poke around in customer reviews of your products and services for recurrent themes. Also consider digging into FAQ pages — your own and those of competitors — to leverage evergreen discussions and challenges as manufacturing blog content ideas.
Tap into trending topics in your industry through LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Community pages, and Twitter hashtag feeds. Doing so does more than demonstrate your engagement and knowledge of current events. It helps you keep your blog content ideas relevant to your target buyer personas and existing audiences while also creating opportunities to attract new prospects that are well-aligned with your products and services. Plus, engaging with social networks allows you to build connections that could prove valuable sources for idea generation.
It’s a no-brainer to set Google and other RSS alerts to deliver manufacturing marketing topics and industry-related headlines to your email inbox — but don’t sell search engines short. Typing in some topic-based keywords will garner search engine results pages (SERPs) full of potential blog content ideas that appeal to target markets, not to mention a conduit to lists of “related searches” that could spark new ideas or angles.
Did you recently attend an online seminar, webinar, or workshop? Are you faithfully digesting trade publications, industry blogs, and other similar manufacturing marketing content? Are you aware of your competitors’ market positionings and offerings? It could serve you well to share key takeaways in your blog. Consider a multi-part series for meaty topics, or create a list of short bullet points for glance-and-go scanning of bite-size content, such as statistics.
You’re not creating blog content ideas in a vacuum. Brainstorm with coworkers, and compile a list of topics that surface. While theoretically there is no such thing as a bad idea, it’s worth your time to take a more strategic approach to who you tap for input. Your sales team, for example, is a perfect group for brainstorming. They regularly communicate with customers and prospects, and field everything from general questions to major concerns — that’s a wealth of manufacturing blogging ideas ripe for the picking by savvy B2B marketers.
RELATED: How to Get Your B2B Sales Team to Actually Use Your Content
Hearing first-hand about your business from industry partners, employees, and customers is an effective way to find enthusiastic brand evangelists — but how does that translate to blog content ideas?
Sure, you may have the occasional feature wherein a customer sings your praises, but implementing a voice of the customer (VOC) program gets you much closer to what your customers want and feel. In turn, prevalent VOC concerns, challenges, and learnings may be distilled into pertinent blog content. Likewise, partnering with subject matter experts (SMEs) on your team or through your customers is an often overlooked content marketing knowledge base. Interviewing SMEs allows you to tackle robust topics or dissect nuances in blog content with accuracy and authority.
RELATED: Using Interviews to Create Target Personas and Fuel Content Strategy
Chances are you have resources on your website that are already traffic drivers. A quick review of your website analytics will reveal an eBook that’s resonating with your target audiences, a must-have fact sheet that’s doing boffo, or similar popular marketing efforts. Don’t view those content pieces as sacred manufacturing marketing cows. Use the topics to fuel blogging efforts. You may even have the opportunity to reinvigorate traffic to the resources by using them as blog calls to action.
There’s also the power of video to consider. Nearly 90% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — and you’re probably in that percentage, whether starting a blog or augmenting an existing one. Video is an effective messaging medium because you can pack a lot of info into a little time, which could well influence everything from lead generation to purchase decisions. Plus, embedding video provides visual interest, like this recent Weidert offering:
Repurposed webinars are also like video and blogging gold. Viewing webinar sessions keeps visitors around for a while, making for a nice time on-page boost, and they also give you some blogging latitude. You can choose to expound on the main webinar topic from a fresh angle to accomplish various manufacturing marketing strategies, or simply provide a transcript.
Excessively patting yourself on the back is one of the surest ways to turn off new and loyal blog readers. However, you can slide a little humble bragging into your marketing plan while providing solid educational articles.
Showcase your accomplishments in case studies that celebrate your customers’ successes. Provide insightful white paper overviews to demonstrate thought leadership. Debunk a popular myth to discuss how your products and services solve similar, actual manufacturing challenges. Using these types of illustrative examples shows how your manufacturing company helps customers and prospects instead of merely showing off for them.
Your industry marketing blog content ideas don’t have to be feast or famine. Thoughtfully leveraging information you already have or can readily access may provide the variety and inspiration you need to keep your manufacturing blog fresh. Learn more in The Power of Repurposed Content — A How-to for Inbound Marketers.
Topics: Content Marketing
