Writing blogs can at times be a thankless task, particularly when you’ve a content calendar to keep to. Inbound marketing requires, nay, demands content that reflects what your ideal buyer persona is looking for. Not only that, it demands beautiful, well-crafted, well written content that your target audience will love. As Inbound Marketers, we all know the scenario – “deadline is approaching, I need to get content down and make it relevant to my particular customer but I’m wall banging; I can’t think of what to write!” Continue on for our top tips to beat Writers Block and create amazing content:
1) Content Calendar
I know I mentioned it in the opening paragraph as being part of the problem but here’s the thing, it’s actually a critical tool to have in place to allow you to stay ahead of the deadline in terms of what you need to have to create great content. How? With a content calendar, you will have a series of deadlines with specific topics that you want to write about meaning you have a lead in time for each to research and hone in on the areas relevant to the blog post. Without a calendar you will find yourself blindly rushing to churn out any old nonsense regardless of the quality of the piece you create which ultimately has a negative effect on your brand.
Use the content calendar to define the campaign , identify long tail keywords and allocate these into the calendar along with a series of agreed blog titles that align to both to the keywords themselves and the persona you are targeting. The trick is to know about what you are writing in advance so you can prepare yourself accordingly.
2) Have a Break (The KitKat is Optional)
This sounds so obvious but often tiredness is the kicker to complete and utter mental block. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I literally could not think, let alone sit down to write a blog post. As human beings we need the basics to perform: light, heat, food, water and rest! If you are staring blankly at a screen with your eyes closing to a slit there’s a good chance you need to step away because, honestly, it’s just not going to happen for you in that state. Depending on how you feel range your break from grabbing a coffee with a colleague/friend right the way out to taking the day off and getting a good night’s sleep. A reenergised mind is a super one for tackling tasks or being creative and the break is always worth it.
3) Step Out
You know the old adage: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Well apply that to this particular problem – you sit in front of the same screen, at the same desk, in the same room or the same office every day and you constantly try to think up new and exciting ideas that you hope will be of interest to your clients or target audience but you find it harder and harder to do. Why is that I wonder?
I have a friend who works in the tech sector and based out of a home office. As a matter of routine, once a week he will head down to his local hotel that overlooks the beach and he works from there for the day. Why? He reconnects with people face to face, he works with a view most of us would kill to have from our office window and he genuinely benefits enormously from it. I swear by coffee shops; I will quite happily set up for a morning and work away while the world goes past the window because all I need is a little acorn of an idea to then grow into content. The bland, the beige, the boring will stifle the creative mind so drop it, break the mould and change it up! You will be amazed at the change and how quickly you see the benefit.
4) Bad is Good
When writing, people have a tendency to want to get it right from the off and make sure that everything is perfect as they type. The thing is, the people who tend to follow that school of thought are the same people who make multiple revisions of the same piece and the finished product can be vastly different to what they set out to achieve. So why aim for perfection first time round if you know you will be working back over it again and again? Write badly! Write nonsense! Hell, puke words onto the page! That’s where the creative juices start to flow and the really good content you’re aiming to bring to the fore exists.
I’ll caveat this with a point in gigantic red letters: bad is good at the beginning but once you’ve built your eloquent masterpiece make sure you proof read it!
5) Blank Pages = Staring For Ages
Never ever start a blog post looking at a blank page, it’s a mental hurdle that you don’t need to deal with. There are a couple of tricks on how you can do this:
1) Don’t start at the beginning. Following on from the previous point, you don’t need to write your initial draft from the beginning. If you’re not sure how to kick off your post but you know there’s certain areas you want to tackle then get them down first, the rest will follow including the beginning!
2) Sketch a brief outline of how you want the blog to look and sketch it in light pencil. What I mean by that is the outline is merely to get you going, everything is changeable thereafter!
6) Lend Me Your Ear
If you are creating content but have hit a dead end creatively why not look to those around you for help. Colleagues are always a source of great insight or advice because they work in the same little world you do and understand the challenges, as well as the solutions to the challenges you face. Friends & family are also a super source of inspiration for precisely the opposite reason – they don’t live in that little world so can bring an entirely new & unbiased opinion to proceedings! The best writers take inspiration from everyone around them so do the same.
7) Find Your Comfort Zone and Break It
If the only world I know is an enclosed box with a picture inside of somewhere I have never been nor will I ever go to then I will struggle to understand that place, much less be able to talk about it. The same goes for creating content: if you don’t get out there and truly understand your topic you will never be able to write about them in a way that’s meaningful. Immersing yourself in an area you know nothing about can be challenging and even terrifying to some but once you do it you will find yourself with a mountain of new ideas and inspiration to work with. You will also find you’ll approach the previous ‘norm’ with a new pair of eyes each time you break that barrier so keep pushing and challenging yourself.
8) Ruthlessly Protect Your Writing Days
I’ll defer to JK Rowling here:
“Be ruthless about protecting your writing days. Although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.”
Her point is a simple one: if you allow yourself to be pulled into one meeting after another or work in an environment where noise and confusion reigns you will never be able to concentrate for any length of time to create what you need for your blogs. Book time in your diary, find a quiet space and work away to your hearts content without any fear of interruption.
9) Challenge the Status Quo
Where you find yourself stuck for thoughts or inspiration, why not approach what you are writing about from the opposite point of view. Look at the topic you are writing about, research what others have written about and challenge what the normal point of view is. By coming at it from a different perspective you will have no choice but to consider the alternatives and in these lie the ideas that you can write about. You’ll also provoke debate and that is what every inbound marketer wants to do, engage your readers. They may not agree with you but as long as your piece is well argued and you can stand over it you’ll provide food for thought if nothing else.
10) Turn Off Your Computer
There’s a super author called Austin Kleon @austinkleon who wrote a fantastic book called Steal Like An Artist. In the book he talks about his desks: one digital, the other analog. His analog desk is where his works are created, the digital desk where they are finessed, edited and published. It’s a super way of setting up the creative process so turn off the computer, grab the pencil & notepad and scribble, doodle, sketch and whatever else takes your fancy. The creative is then a natural, organic process which is much easier to build on.
Yes, writing blogs can at times be a thankless task particularly when you have to deal with the dreaded writers block but it also happens to be one of the most enjoyable elements of any inbound marketing programme. In no other area do you have the freedom to create and work with content so as to make it as appealing to your target audience as possible. Follow these 10 Top Tips and you’ll be well on the way to fantastic content that is not only great to read but extremely satisfying & enjoyable to make along the way!
Do you have any other top tips to avoiding writers block? Feel free to leave me a comment, i'd love to hear from you!
