Four ways to generate blog ideas

A lot has been written about the importance of having a blog to serve as a centerpiece for B2B marketing efforts. Advantages include improved search engine optimization and thought leadership which in turn lead to more top of the funnel prospects. Studies suggest that companies that blog generate 67% more leads than companies that do not.

Setting up a blog technically can take just moments. The more daunting part is how you develop enough content to fuel the blog regularly (3 -5 times per week ideally). For small companies, this can seem like quite a challenge. The good news is that, chances are, between information you’ve already developed and the knowledge within your own four walls, you have enough content to generate many blog ideas. The first step is taking an inventory of topics you can cover and begin plotting them on an editorial calendar. Then, you can work to fill in the gaps.

Here are four ways you can generate lots of blog ideas:

1. Look over every slide deck you have
If you have a business where slide presentations are a part of your selling process then this is a good first stop. Recognize that no one wants to hear about your product information on your blog, so look for material related to market problems, trends, best practices, etc.. List each individual topic idea. Then, decide if you can write about the topic in a blog format.

You could also create smaller slide decks, post them on Slideshare and link to them from your blog post. This stretches your original content and allow you to take advantage of an excellent, but somewhat unsung social media platform.

2. Comment on something that is currently happening
Your blog is all yours. Use it to express opinions and focus the impact of recent events for your customers. This could be a change to a law or rule, a product release or discontinuation, or a relevant news item.

3. Describe a process, a risk, or a best practice
Nothing motivates people more than the feeling that they are missing out or stand to lose something. Don’t take for granted that knowledge you use every day in your work is something everyone knows about. One easy win is to consider frequently asked questions from your customers. Since you’ve probably confronted and solved similar problems countless times, this information is particularly valuable to your wider prospect base.

4. Ask others
Soliciting guest bloggers is one way to alleviate some of your internal workload. Added benefits include the credibility of including expert third parties on your blog and potential linking to and from your blog which will help with your SEO efforts.