Is the task of finding newsletter content ideas causing stress? Discover a multitude of sources to spark the imagination. When creating newsletters, blog or items for LinkedIn posts and articles, finding suitable content can be challenging. There are several things that you can do before starting to write.
Why I’m sending a newsletter
The first thing that I do is to remind myself of the purpose of the article, my target audience and how that fits the marketing plan. Is the article designed to:
- Keep in touch with existing clients?
- Generate quality leads - as in attract potential clients?
- Raise the firm’s profile?
- Assist with lead nurturing?
- Send readers to the website?
- Promote a particular service?
- Increase conversion (from “just looking” to taking action)
The choice is yours, but you do need to consider your goal(s) and let the rest of the decisions flow from that.
Gathering content ideas
When creating an article, I sometimes adopt the active search approach. By that I mean, I think of a suitable topic, often of a general nature, and then go looking for ideas.
The alternative is to make use of the passive approach. This can save me from hours of Internet research. As I come across an idea, or an article, I 'jot' the idea down, bookmark the page and/or save it as a PDF. Then when it’s time to create an article, I know that I am already part way there.
Content inspiration starts here
Some great places to look for content inspiration:
- Using Google to search the Internet on topics of interest
- The firm's own social media accounts
- Sites that publish articles with a practical bent - How to…, Top 10 ways to, Seven steps to…
- Other firm's newsletters
- Talking to people at networking events, trade fairs…
- Internal newsletters
- Topics suggested by subscribers
- The firm's market research
- Industry news
- Share success or even a mistake (and the lesson learnt)
- Summarise recent research
- Summarise legal and regulatory changes
- Interview a thought leader on current industry issues
- Your industry association
- Information/subscription services
Another great place for ideas can come from the sales, and service staff. These people are in frequent contact with the firm's clients. If asked for, I sure that some great ideas will surface.
The other possibility
Is to contract out the writing of your newsletters, or blog, or LinkedIn posts and articles.
In fact, not only can we help you with content writing, we also provide a newsletter management service, where we do the lot:
- Developing an email newsletter strategy
- Crafting content and sending your email newsletters
- Creation of a newsletter template
- Creating a newsletter sign-up form for the website
- and so on.