We all get days when we’re a bit short on ideas and inspiration for developing meaningful new content for an ecommerce website, blog post or campaign.
It’s not just coming up with ideas themselves that can feel like swimming through treacle sometimes, it’s coming up with ideas that meet a specific defined audience need, have ecommerce SEO potential, can contribute to sales and tie in with your wider marketing aims that can feel out of reach at times. There are lots of areas to consider if you want to create the most effective content possible.
We’ve put together some quick and easy-to implement tips to help you get your ecommerce content idea mojo back as soon as possible.
Look at current high-performance content for some inspo
What’s the most popular blog on your ecommerce website or what’s the most successful piece of campaign content you have created? Take a look at it again and ask yourself these questions:
- Why does it work? (For example, review the structure (MS Clarity or HotJar can help inform this), note the length and depth of content, how many images does it have – and are there any trends that can be taken away i.e., are they people-focused?)
- If you were to create it again, what would you do differently or how could you make it even better?
- Can any of this content be reimagined for your purposes now? E.g. if it works well as a blog post, could it work even better as a video? Or is any of the information now a bit old? Could you update it to make it more relevant to today’s audience?
- How it’s driving traffic, and what is it ranking for on organic search (and how that then aligns with its structure)
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel if you have some content already that can be built on, used again or improved.
If your new content needs to be a totally different topic, you can still take inspiration from the ways in which the successful piece seems to resonate with the audience and incorporate the same principles into your next content idea.
Look at other people’s great content for even more inspo
You’ve looked at your own good content, but what about pieces or campaigns you’ve seen that are done by someone else, even outside of your ecommerce niche? If you can’t think of any that you’ve stumbled across recently, try searching for ‘best examples of ….’ And see what you find.
Ask the same questions as you did for your own content – try to work out why it’s successful and how it could potentially be done in a different way to be even better. Besides doing a quick Google, using tools like BuzzSumo or Semrush can help identify and drill into top performing content.
Obviously, you can’t simply steal someone else’s work – but you can be inspired by it and use this to spark your own ideas and how you can offer uniqueness and added value. You always need to bear Google’s Helpful Content Update in mind and make sure that new content you develop meets these guidelines.
Get a change of scenery
Whether you’re working at home, in an office or elsewhere, sometimes your lack of inspiration for content ideas can be somewhat tied to the place where you are. Getting a change of scenery can often be all that’s needed to gain a fresh perspective on things.
It might mean going for a quick walk, especially if you can escape to a green space, looking up at things around you or even looking at an interesting skyline or building if you’re in an urban area. Ten minutes of people watching in a busy shopping street can lead to some new inspiration.
It might mean going to sit in a café for half an hour with a notebook and not using the internet at all for a while. Even a change of room or desk can make a difference and start things moving again creatively if you’re limited to where you can go.
Look to your customers for topic inspiration
The whole point of content marketing is meeting an audience need through content, so going back to your customers for ideas can be a good place to start.
This probably won’t mean personally ringing them up for a chat, but is much more likely to involve seeing what they are asking or saying about you on social media, through review sites or on customer feedback forms. Social listening tools are great for this, as well as checking out top review sites like Trustpilot.
If people are complaining about something, is there a piece or even series of content you can produce to alleviate this problem? If they are happy about something, is there an educational piece you can create about it to help spread the word about your brand and products?
Find someone to help you brainstorm new ideas
If you’re working on your own and could do with someone else’s input, finding another head or two to put together could make all the difference.
This might be over video call if you’re working remotely, over a chat engine if a call isn’t possible or in person if you can. Just 10 minutes of throwing some ideas around between you can be enough to spark something that gets you enthused.
Tip: Ensure you’re armed with all the facts and data, as well as the objective of your meeting, and a brief agenda to make it as productive as possible.
Write in whatever order works best for you
Content creators sometimes get a bit stuck on the narrative arc or spend fairly ridiculous amounts of time working on an introduction, when it would actually be more effective to write the middle bit first, then worry about the rest later. The idea you’ll most likely be excited about isn’t usually the intro – it’s the crux of the piece, so start with that and come back to everything else.
That said, others might work best when they plan out a piece in order first. The key is understanding what works for you as an individual and going with it.
It might take a while of trying different methods to get there, but it’ll mean much more effective content creation in the future once you get a good grasp on the processes that help you deliver your best work.
Once you have some ideas…
Do a quick sense check exercise on your favourite ideas before investing any more time into them
Using a content brief template to run a quick sense check can be a great way to ensure your idea has all of the elements and angles needed to be effective as part of your content plan and wider marketing strategy, without needing to go into all the details at this point.
Are there relevant intent-led keywords with any volume that your target audience are likely to use? What point of the buyer journey will it be? How can different channels use this content, or another form of it, to amplify it as much as possible?
Running your ideas past someone else can also be really useful at this stage, but keep it brief and top line so you don’t spend ages going over the nitty gritty when it’s not necessary right now.
Start creating. Don’t put pressure on yourself to get it spot-on first time. You can always refine things later on but the sooner you get started on it, the easier it usually becomes to see what needs improvement.
If you’d like some help with your content marketing strategy or any creative marketing or PR campaign, our team would love to hear from you. Get in touch using the form below.
