As a small business owner, you may find it difficult to come up with ideas for your business blog on a weekly or monthly basis. However, by understanding your audience and having a clear purpose for your blog, you will find it easier to stay inspired. This, in turn, will help you produce content that inspires your customers. Use the following tips to help you find inspiration for your next business blog post.

The Case for Business Blogging  

It takes time and effort to create a strong business blog that serves customers well and is capable of generating leads. There are days, especially in the beginning, when many a marketer has questioned the value of inbound marketing. (Inbound marketing is the term for creating assets that attract, or pull, your clients to you rather than pushing advertising out to the market.)

It may help you to know these statistics. They strongly suggest that content marketing is one of the most effective tactics for defining your brand and being truly seen: 

Hubspot research has shown that 93% of businesses who practice inbound marketing strategies increase their traffic within 7 months: 

Demand Metric reports that 91% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use a content strategy. An amazing 37% “believe that content-led websites are the most important ways to engage customers! They also report that “companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog.”

And Hubspot’s 2022 State of Inbound Marketing survey shows that businesses with blogs generate more quality leads. 

I also must point out this important statistic – quoting directly from the Hubspot report: “Having your own blog, podcast, or newsletter is no longer optional if you want to cover the entire customer journey. You can’t simply rely exclusively on building on ‘rented land’ – PPC [pay-per-click advertising] or Social Media – because that means that you’ll be hostage to an algorithm that could change at any time.” (We’ve been through this enough times, haven’t we? The algorithms change constantly. Who’s got the time to keep up with that — unless marketing is your main job?)

Knowing all this, can you get inspired to start planning and executing – or beefing up – your content strategy?

Here is the basic strategy for accessing that inspiration so you can publish a high-quality business blog that serves your customers and reflects your brand.

Get to know your customers. What are their interests, needs, and questions?

Writing detailed blog posts on a consistent schedule can be challenging. Yet it has proven worthwhile when it comes to connecting with potential customers. To ensure you produce content that your customers will value, craft a detailed content plan that takes into account the interests, needs, and questions of those who you wish to reach. 

Conducting interviews or surveys with your target audience can help you construct an effective content plan. An “effective” plan clarifies what information they need and will appreciate. Additionally, exploring analytics such as viewing patterns, bounce rates, and conversions can provide valuable insights into what resonates with customers. Armed with this data, you will have all the resources you need to develop blog topics that strike a chord with your audience.

Keep a list of potential blog topics handy. Refer back to it when you feel stuck.

Keeping an updated list of potential blog topics is a great way to make sure you’re never stuck for ideas when it comes time to publish. This is one of the best strategies for staying inspired! We recommend planning content quarterly – giving yourself or your team 3 months of cohesive content ideas to pull from at any given time. Capturing (i.e., writing down) ideas as they come helps make sure that no good post or thought goes unrecorded. Even if you have to write something quickly, referring back to a content calendar gives you reassurance that you won’t get caught scraping the bottom of the barrel. Try and keep it dynamic and regularly filled with creative ideas that your team can get behind and your customers will value.

Set aside time each quarter to brainstorm and plan.

Strategic planning is key. Setting aside time each quarter to brainstorm, plan and outline 90-days of content for your blog can help you stay ahead of deadlines and serve up fresh content your various audiences value. Dedicated content planning at the start of every quarter will help ensure your blog remains an essential tool for enhancing your relationships with your audience(s).

Don’t be afraid to outsource help. Plenty of talented writers can ghostwrite your blog.

If you’re a busy entrepreneur or business owner, don’t despair – it’s totally normal to outsource help! There are plenty of talented writers – like us at The Allyson Group – who specialize in ghostwriting blogs. They will take your content brief and turn it into engaging, well-written pieces quickly and efficiently. It doesn’t have to be a full-time investment – you can find someone to churn out just a single blog a month (although weekly makes a bigger impact). So why not save yourself the stress and free up some valuable time? All those inspiring blogging hours can now be spent on your more critical tasks! Yet, by investing in good quality content, you’ll keep customers interested, informed and coming back each month for more.

Take a break when you need it. Step away for a while when inspiration seems hard or elusive. 

Maintaining a blog that publishes regularly can be quite a challenge, especially when it comes to finding inspiration for new topics. While it’s important to write often and stay on schedule, one key to success may be to take breaks in between. Taking a break from work provides us with much-needed rest. Fresh perspectives, more creative approaches, and greater insights may come more readily when we return. So don’t be afraid to take a break—you might find it to be the best way to reset, and finally access the inspiration you need.

Commit, then schedule it!

They say no plan is real until you put it into “existence.” In other words, put it on a calendar. You have to make time for your business blog. But with our method, the heavy lift (content planning) happens just once a quarter. This way, you get whole team on the same page at the same time. You set dates. You write the headlines. You sort out the who-does-what of things. If you’re lucky enough to have a team, everybody knows their part and their individual deadlines. Then, honestly, the rest is easy. 

So… 

• take the time to get to know your customers,
• create a list of potential blog topics and a content calendar,
• set aside time every quarter to brainstorm and plan,
• outsource help if necessary, and
• take a break when you need it

Then you’ll be up for the challenge. 

So, stop worrying. Start planning. Your customers will thank you.