What is Content Marketing? 

Content marketing is the process of regularly creating relevant content to share with your target audience. While you’re not directly selling your product or service, your content should always be related to your brand and provide value for your target audience.

A full-content marketing strategy includes a distribution strategy (such as blog posts, Youtube videos, Facebook videos, etc) but you’ll first need to consider how to come up with new content for your target audience.

How to Find Content Ideas: 

1. Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is one of the core principles of any content marketing strategy. It involves looking at data related to Google, Youtube, Bing, and other search engine trends.

Software like SEMRush or Keywords Everywhere can provide you with valuable keyword data. Here are some of the metrics you can use when analyzing keyword data:

Monthly Search Volume (MSV)  – how many people a month search for a particular query

Keyword Difficulty % (KD%) – how difficult it is to rank for a search term on a scale of 1-100. When first starting out, you should be seeking easier terms that are relatively easy to rank for.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – how much it costs per click to run an ad on this term on Google. Higher CPC = competitive keyword that likely leads to lead generation and salesConsider the top searches in your focus area and build content around them!

2. Perform Competitive Analysis

Now that you’ve gotten a good idea of which search terms relate to your brand, it’s time to see what content is doing well for your competitors. Check out your blogs on competitors’ websites, and look for patterns in their content.

Use their titles, topics, and subject matter as inspiration for your own pieces, or check out the “Most Viewed” videos on their Youtube channel to see what’s working for them.

Keep in mind, while you can look at competitors for inspiration, you don’t want to plagiarize, so the content you create will need to be unique in its own right.

3. Look at Google Search Results

We’ve all seen the long list of search suggestions Google recommends when you’re searching. Google’s algorithm bases this list on user demand, so keep a keen eye on what related topics pop up.

Google also includes  “People Also Ask”  and “Related Searches” sections on results pages, so look for additional topics to cover there.

See which blogs are performing the best for your relevant searches. What subtopics do they address? Which questions do they answer? If Google has it ranking well, it suggests that the content is relevant for the searcher.

4. Look at Youtube Results

Did you know Youtube is the second largest search engine platform out there? With over 2 billion monthly users, it is another platform that is wise to look at when coming up with content ideas.

Look at the top-performing videos. Like Google, if a video appears at the top of a Youtube search results page, it probably is one of the best on the subject.

5. Look at Youtube Recommended Videos

The recommended videos section next to Youtube videos is another great place to look for new content ideas. What other topics relevant to your target audience are included alongside a popular video? Consider addressing those topic areas in content of your own.

6. Analyze Social Media

Paying attention to trends on social media can help you to gauge what people are interested in. What are the top influencers in your space sharing? What type of posts seem to be popular in relevant hashtags? Consider creating new content that can be used / re-purposed for social media based on what seems to be popular on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

7. Use a Topic Generation Platform

There are amazing resources on the Internet that will give you content ideas for FREE! Consider using tools like Portent or HubSpot’s Blog Idea Generator to come up with potential content topics and titles.

How to Improve Content Performance

So, you now have the know-how to come up with some awesome content ideas. What’s next?

Since you’re taking the time to come up with content ideas, you’ll now need to consider how you can maximize your content’s potential. Here are some of the ways you can get your content in front of your target audience:

Consider What’s Missing From Existing Content

With the increase in demand for content marketing, there are probably a lot of blogs and videos out there related to what you want to talk about. In order to outperform the existing content, you’ll need to think about additional ways you can create value for your target audience that aren’t included in the top videos or posts.

For video content, consider making a video that’s several minutes longer than the top performing Youtube videos on the subject. For written pieces, make longer blog posts.

Draft a Thorough Outline

While you might be eager to get started on making your content, expert content marketers typically recommend starting with a content outline. What topics, headings, and sub-headings will be included in your post? What keywords do you need to include?

Consider the keyword data and existing content when building your content outline. You’ll need to produce a stronger piece of content than your competition if you want to perform well on Google and/or Youtube, so be diligent.

Hire Influencers / Content Creators

Another great thing about making an outline first is that you can consider passing it over to an expert content creator to make it a reality. Hiring an expert to produce your content for you is a surefire way to create 10/10 content that will get you traffic.

Take the time to vet influencers and content creators to find someone to create your content (and potentially promote it on their own social channels) and be sure to walk them through your content outline to really emphasize your full vision.

Create Content at Scale

While content marketing is one of the most valuable ways to use your marketing budget, you’re not going to see success overnight. Creating content is a long-term strategy. That being said, if you take time to mass-produce high-quality content, you can see results more quickly.

But how can you produce content at scale? Software is one way to get it done. With social media management software, you can produce a volume of content, whether you’re looking for modularized content or all different kinds, base it off of the data you found.

With platforms like Brkfst, you can automate content creation by building relationships with content creators that can produce a volume of videos for you with performance based equity. You can create content quickly, track performance, and use expert algorithms to perform A/B testing. That data will quickly provide insights on what your target audience likes, and will ensure that your future content incorporates these elements.

For more details on how performance-based content creation can help you, click here for a consultation.

Content Marketing FAQs

How to Come Up With a Creative Video?

To come up with social media and Youtube video ideas, do some research into what the top videos are when you search your topic on Youtube. Once you check out those videos, also take a look at what pops up in the related video section to the right.

How to Come Up With Original Content Ideas?

In order to come up with original ideas, you’ll need to consider what’s missing from the existing content already out there. Take a look at Google and the top Youtube videos and consider, “how can I make this better?” Be sure to include similar sections to your competitors and then add sections that would make your content even more valuable for your target audience. How to Do Competitive Analysis?

Take a look at your competitors’ blogs and social media and see what they’re talking about. If certain topics seem to stand out, it’s most likely that those are some of their more popular subjects to focus on.

Also, be sure to Google the topics you’d like to rank for. The top results typically are some of the best content out there on the subject.