Simple ways to get help with content creation

Content creation can be central to an Inbound marketer's daily efforts. There are many sources a marketer can turn to for help with creating new content for a brand website, blog, email, campaigns and ads. Finding inspiration for blogging can be a challenge for many organizations.

• Social media can be a big source of inspiration. Observe what is being shared and commented on. This can serve as inspiration for new articles, email subjects or ad campaigns
• Hold a contest within your company for new and exciting content.
• Archiving emails within your blog or company news section can be an option for new content
• Hire outside writers. Consider hiring creative writers that can think of subjects and research topics to tell compelling stories.
• Google Trends can be a source of new content ideas. Identify highly searched for topics and challenge yourself to create content based on those topics that are relevant to your industry or business
• Designate team members within your company to draft stories for your company blog, and designate other team members to serve as editors. Build a workflow to ensure quality. The act of writing may help team members gain new insights, skills and ideas that may benefit their day to day.
• Study your competition. Never underestimate the inspiration that you can draw from your competition. Don't copy, as it will deride your brand and feel inauthentic. Simply take inspiration from competitors to help push your quality and ideas.
• In-house brainstorming.  Coordinate a round table brainstorming event to draw upon the creativity of your team to create new content ideas. Come with an agenda for the meeting and a starter list of ideas and examples to help kick things off.
• Hire someone to ghost write everything.
• Hire a content manager and have your content manager write and submit your guest post pitches and write/manage your email campaigns. You will be monitoring and tweaking it only to match your voice.
• Source data reports – Often times sifting through third-party reports, survey data, whitepapers, analytics, polls, open source databases or other accessible open-source forms of data can be a great starting point for blogging and content creation.
• Request ideas online – Solicit your very own readers and have them request subjects.
• Answer questions raised in your blog's comments. This works for social media accounts as well. Or, answer a question posed on a competitor's social media page.  Connecting with bloggers using commenting can be a powerful way to build a following and gain a positive online reputation.
• If your organization has partnerships or affiliations, reach out to your partners to co-create a piece of content.