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That's Userp.io. Hey, content friends. We're back with another episode of Content Briefly.
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I already have Chloe smiling on the other side of this call every time I say, "Content friends," I think triggers a smile from you, which I'm happy about.
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Today, we're talking about how to come up with good content ideas. I think the meta story behind this episode is Chloe and I were scrambling, as we do every single week, to think of a topic for this episode.
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It's very hard to think of something to talk about every single week on a show like this. So if you have ideas, send them in. Yeah, exactly.
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Anyway, that triggered the idea of how do we come up with the best content ideas, because I think, like, traditionally, a lot of, like, how to come up with content idea advice tends to be around keyword research, and now it's a lot of AI prompts, and that's kind of obvious, and I don't think that's always the best path to great content, and it, like, normally leads to you creating the same stuff as everyone else.
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So today, we wanted to chat about where our best content ideas actually come from, like, the places you should be looking for ideas, like customer calls, support tickets, LinkedIn, wherever.
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And also, we'll chat about, like, our systems and processes, or lack thereof, for filling our content calendars or content strategies with really good ideas that will actually resonate with our audiences.
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How does that sound, Chloe? Sounds great, Eric. Perfect. Okay, so let's just get right into where we come up with ideas. Like, in terms of... I'll just let you start with, like, some source.
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The last great content idea you had, like, where did it come from? The last great one. [laughs] So, I mean- If you've ever had one. Never.
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I think I've said this a lot in, like, interviews and podcasts, but it's still very true. I think the number one thing is I am a massive, massive lurker on Slack and on, like, team communications.
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These are internal calls, right? Like, internal Slack, I mean, right? Yes, internal Slack. Particularly as, you know, I'm in a fully remote role right now. Before, it was more of, like, a remote/hybrid role.
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You're not around each other all the time. It's the best way to just listen in on, like, what people are talking about.
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And also, there's a lot, or there can be a lot of people that are soliciting, like, advice on those channels.
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So places that I like to go are where people are sharing, like, customer wins, even customer losses, to be like, "Okay, what should we be writing about? What shouldn't we be writing about?"
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You know, we have a couple channels at my current company where it's all about, like, measuring actual success with your customers, so it's those, like, tried and true customer stories.
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So trying to figure out if we can use those, if we can anonymize them, or if we can get approval, that's been massively helpful just to see the trends.
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But then also just lurking on sales, like sales and CSM channels as much as possible, and the product innovation sort of channels, if you have, like, product release channels or anything like that, I get tons of ideas from it.
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I also get ideas from an internal perspective in terms of what are people actually looking for with content, 'cause they're like, "Oh, do we have a piece on X?"
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And it's like, "No, we don't, but should we if enough people are talking about it?" So I would say my number one source of inspiration is almost always Slack. Totally. I fully agree.
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I think every great marketer, no matter what kind of marketer you are, should be on as many company Slack channels as you can be and just obsessively reading them every single day. I agree. Ooh, fun.
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What's, like, your highest number of channels you think you've been a part of? Oof.
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I, I mean, I haven't been at a really big company that uses Slack, so at Dock there's maybe 20 channels, but definitely, like, the customer success channel and the sales channel, the product development channel, and we have, like, a Dock love, like, customer love channel where- Love that...
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people share, like, nice things customers said, which I really recommend making that channel if you don't have one because that's really, like, the existence of that channel is what causes our CS team and our sales team to, like, bring forth, and our founder too, just, like, nice DMs they receive.
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And for me, that's either, like, yeah, there's content ideas in there too, but then there's also, it's a good segue into, like, being able to do a case study with a customer.
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And also just thinking too, employee advocacy as well.
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We had that too, where we were like, even if a customer posted about us on LinkedIn, we would pop that in there and be like, "Hey, make sure you're engaging or reposting this," so I think that's good.
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I think one of my last companies, I think I was at, like, 80 plus channels. One day I counted and I was like- [laughs]... "What is my life?" And granted, I'm not active in all of them.
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I keep it muted, but sometimes if I have a day where I'm likeReally trying to figure out what our blog calendar is, 'cause I'm one of those weird content marketers that didn't go keyword first. Mm-hmm.
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And I would just block off 35 minutes and just go through all the channels and try to come up with ideas. So I'd say, like, that's the biggest one.
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I was just on a call right before this about doing sort of an internal safari because myself and another colleague are still kind of onboarding.
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So going and having these internal discovery calls with our client success managers, client success directors, strategic advisors, basically thinking about the people that are closest to the customer.
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And I think you mentioned client support as well.
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One thing that's really interesting and, like, this could get really nitty-gritty, but go to your customer support team and see, like, where are they logging the most number of tickets, like, what kind of themes can come out of there, and that can be a super practical blog for your customers, and even to bring up to, like, your product team as well.
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Totally. Yeah, so I think you've gotten at a second point there, which is, like, internal subject matter experts.
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I think there's the sort of product subject matter experts, and then there's the client experts, like, like, client success.
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Yeah, even, like, our customer success team, they have a spreadsheet of, like, product feedback, and mostly it's like, "I want this button to be over here," or, "You're missing this feature."
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But there's definitely, like, lots of interesting little nuggets about, and sort of insights into our, like, biggest clients who are making the most requests and, like, what their psychology is like with respect to our product.
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Like, I've definitely learned a lot there. And I mean, that brings me to my next point, which is, like, sales team feedback. Like, th- that's where I get most of my ideas for...
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Like, my really good ideas at Dock is, like...
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So we have some standing go-to-market meetings with, like, sales leader, customer success leader, our founder, and me, where we're just talking about, like, sort of major initiatives, big roadblocks, and, like, there's some feedback that comes from the sales leader there and things that are missing.
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But then we also have, like, product enablement sessions or, like, competitor enablement sessions where our founder is like, "What are you hearing about this competitor? What are you hearing about that competitor?"
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And like, "Why are we losing deals?" And sales will just kind of, like, spew information that they're hearing, and I, I learn a lot from that as well.
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So, like, specifically for, like, competitor comparison pieces, but also just, like, topics and ideas that I didn't think of. So, I mean, as many, like, meetings as you can get in on.
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Obviously, no one wants to fill their days with meetings, but, like, any time where you can just have the sales team, like, rant about the problems they're having, you'll probably learn a lot. Yeah.
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I 100% agree with that. I think, too, that just came to mind as well, one that I feel like not enough people look at are onboarding materials for customers- Hmm. That's smart... uh, can be a gold mine.
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Things like if your company has a, like, a university, like HubSpot had, like, their whole HubSpot Academy, right?
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Like, we have a Vizier University, and understanding what are, like, the top most accessed articles in there, and then thinking about how you can potentially repurpose that from a prospect perspective.
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Because a lot of times those articles are obviously in the weeds because they're meant for your customers that are very familiar with your product, and they know what this module does and this.
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But, like, think about if there's a way that you can bubble that up, even from a keyword perspective that can fit into your content calendar. I feel like that's one that a lot of people miss.
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I think the other piece of advice I have is a lot of times the longest standing person at your company, if it's not, like, your co-founder, right?
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If your co-founder's already still there or something like that, but, like, who's the most veteran person at your company? And just go and schedule a coffee chat with them.
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Talk to them about how they have been in X industry for this many years. What have they seen change? What have they seen change in the last year, the last five years, the last 10 years?
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And from there you can kind of get a really cool story and anecdote, and maybe it doesn't have to be a feature on that person.
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Like, who knows, maybe someone wants to read that, maybe they don't, but I guarantee you you'll come out with a ton of ideas. Yeah, totally.
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Yeah, I think normally when I'm thinking internally or talking internally for ideas, I'm not necessarily... Like, I'm not talking to a subject matter expert to, like, turn that interview into a piece.
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I'm just looking for, like, nuggets of little insights or topics or, you know, "Uh, all of our customers are asking for this." "Oh, great idea."
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I think, like, a really good example was our sales team, like, maybe a year or two into me working at Dock was like, "We always get asked, what if we're sending a link to a Dock workspace and, like, the person doesn't open it?"
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And like, we'd get asked that on every single sales call. And so that gave me, like, a really good incentive to build kind of a guide to, like... It addresses the objection.
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So it was like, how to get engagement in your Dock workspace or something like that. It, it was kind of, like, guide-y, but it was also solved, like, a sales objection.
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Customer success could use it in their training, like, checked a lot of boxes and so it...
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that just came directly from something that sales called out and it's been, like, one of our most useful piece of con- Like, it doesn't get organic search, but it comes up at so many touch points kind of throughout the customer life cycle.
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But also, like, user adoption and engagement I think can be a huge topic. So, like, with your onboarding- Mm-hmm... that's one piece of it, right?
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Like, how someone actually sets up your system, but then also the sustained success of whatever system you're running. Like, and obviously we're speaking more toward B2B SaaS, like, that's kind of our wheelhouse. Mm-hmm.
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Um, but you know, where things stall, right?
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'Cause, like, if you think about it from a B2B SaaS perspective, a lot of contracts when they're up for renewal, which is why a lot of times it's, like, a three-year contract versus a one-year because you're still trying to prove the ROI in one year.
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But depending on your contract cycle, it might be like, okay, where... talk to your customer success team about where things are kind of falling down in their renewal process as well. Yeah.
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And think about, again, how do you bubble up content to support with that. So for example, if it's, like, low adoption on a particular part of your product, can you then talk about that?
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Like, you talked about how people aren't clicking on the links. It's like, okay, well, what can you do to make those links more attractive? Like, is that the anchor text you're using? Is it description? Is it...
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et cetera. You can use that for, like, different buckets of your product too.
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I used to do that a lot-At my company, Reward Gateway particularly, because there were so many different modules that customers were engaging with. Yeah, totally.
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And just to sort of summarize your point there, I think looking at the full customer life cycle and, like, where are the choke points in your sort of revenue generating model of, yeah, is it we're not getting enough retention in the first 90 days?
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Is it we're not getting those annual renewals? And then looking for content ideas in those kind of choke points is a really good idea.
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And then the, the big thing that, two points we haven't talked about, which are kind of the most obvious ones, but we should talk about, is talking to your customers- Yes, please [laughs]...
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or listening to customer calls like that. Yes. The-- I think, like, every
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junior marketer or most junior marketers, they're like, feel like they can research their way out of, like, into having good content ideas and a good content strategy, but you'll never learn as much...
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Like, you'll learn more from one customer call than you will doing three months of online research of your ICP. Like, I always feel that way. Like, you get a sense- I agree...
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of their emotional state, you get a sense of like how they actually think about their jobs, you get...
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Like, you learn so much just by even just hearing the emotion in their voice, like how they talk about your product in certain ways.
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Like, I've learned so much from talking to customers, and I think, like, the very obvious way of doing that is to do case study interviews. Like, if you can do case studies, do them.
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But there aren't always opportunities to do case studies, so I feel like that's something maybe I've struggled with in the past. Like, do you have any advice for, like, getting on calls with customers?
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It can be hard because particularly with larger organizations, there are a lot of conflicting requests- Mm-hmm... um, for your customers, so you wanna be really careful about how you navigate that.
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Sometimes a backdoor way can be, again, asking CSMs if they record, like, their quarterly, like their QBRs, for example. Mm-hmm.
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A lot of times they will record that, and as long as, you know, you don't share it externally, it's something that you can listen to, and that, again, has the customer right on the call.
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I think another way is during your onboarding, asking sales or, you know, sales enablement, like what were the top...
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Or even just looking at previous closed won deals and looking at your top three or four biggest deals, and then just looking back at the path of that. Mm-hmm. So looking at gong calls, et cetera.
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And then just trying to insert yourself where possible where customers are already being involved.
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So if, for example, you're planning-- someone on your team is planning in customer advisory board or an event where they're bringing on some customers for a panel, ask if you can be in on those calls as just a fly on the wall, or ask if you can listen to the recording after.
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So it might not even be, like, you reaching out to the customer, but you're still getting a flavor of what that customer is.
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I think it's easier to do when you're in a smaller organization and there's not as much a barrier to entry to the customer. Mm-hmm.
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But for example, I've been at companies where, you know, customers are being contacted for referrals, for press releases, for customer case studies.
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So for me to be like, "I really wanna interview you for a blog," just doesn't sit as high up on the priority list.
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So I've gotta find ways to be creative and then kind of almost like prepackage it and then say, "Okay, if we really do want to attach a name to it, here's how we do it."
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And over the years at, you know, at my old job, I was there for seven and a half years, so I've started forming relationships on my own with customers, where I would have a handful of friendlies.
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So if I was looking for something as, you know, New Year's resolution roundups or lessons learned or something like that, I had a handful of people that I could just be like, "Okay, I'm bypassing everything and I'm just going straight to you."
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But that takes a long time to build up, and I would not recommend skipping over [laughs] Yeah. Skipping over- Absolutely... their, their key CSMs and the people who really need to be front line and keep them happy.
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[laughs] Absolutely. Yeah, I think befriending your CS team and having someone who can just say, "Hey, this person would be happy to talk to you," has worked for me. Also, like, gift cards.
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[laughs] Just saying, "Hey, I'll give you a $50 gift card if you just talk to me for half an hour."
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Another kind of, I don't wanna say sneaky, but if you have a podcast, just inviting your customers onto the podcast and asking the things you want to know from them, [laughs] I think like is a kind of sneaky way to do that.
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I had another thought that was really smart, but I don't remember it, so we'll never hear it again. We'll never hear it again.
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No, I think the podcast idea is definitely smart, but I also think like, think about how you can synthesize any place that your customers are. Mm-hmm.
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So if you are hosting a webinar where you have a customer speaker, if you're hosting a panel where you have customers talking, like, that is where I think AI can really help you accelerate. Like, again, nothing...
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I'm sorry, nothing beats spending a half hour just listening to people talk and hearing, [laughs] I like that you said the state of emotion that they're in, but it's so true.
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Especially for my industry, HR tech, like HR people have a lot riding on their shoulders right now. But I think that if you can take those inputs and synthesize them, I think that can be really, really helpful.
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I think the other place to go to, and this obviously depends on how large of a company you're at, but leaning on your product marketing team as well to see like what have they already synthesized, what might they already have.
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Because a lot of times in larger organizations it's like, you know, the competitive intelligence and the closed lost and the closed won deals, all of that sort of knowledge- Yeah... sits within your product marketers.
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So before you go on a huge discovery session yourself, like see what is already out there. Totally. And I, I did remember what I was gonna say in terms of the customer calls.
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Like, I think that is probably the best leverage point for AI, like you've called out. Like, now most of us should have access to our sales-... teams' transcripts.
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Like, either get a login to Gong or Fathom or whatever tool your team is using, or they're probably logged in the CRM now, which you probably have access to.
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Like, y- you'll be able to find transcripts somewhere, and then you can do some sort of meta-analysis with AI. And now most of those tools-- Like, we use something called Fathom at Doc. It's just, like, a call recorder.
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But I think in the last couple weeks, they finally released an AI feature that's like search across your calls. So now I can say, like, "Find me the most common customer objection," or whatever that is.
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And- Yeah, I know Gong is doing a ton of that, but that's interesting that Fathom's getting into that. I think that the other thing you can do, and obviously, like, caveat, use AI responsibly.
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Like, Jesus Christ, get on an enterprise plan. No, use it, use it like a crazy person. [chuckles] Like, I'm sorry, I work for an AI company. Like, make sure you're not uploading company data into a personal ChatGPT.
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Make sure it's sanctioned. Anyway, once you've got that, one thing you could do as well is, you know, again, Clozd, C-L-O-Z-D, the application analyzes, like, your wins and losses.
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But if you don't have the funds for something like that, you can kind of do a base analysis yourself.
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Like, I know a lot of companies, no matter what the size, they'll send out summaries or they'll send out detailed announcements like how we won this and who was involved, and then run it through AI to pull out those key themes.
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And then take those key themes and then run that against a keyword analysis. Like, this is what I'm bullish on. Like, don't start with the keyword analysis. Start with the themes.
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Start with what you're actually hearing, and then figure out how to optimize. Totally.
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Yeah, I did some kind of, like, mad scientist thing where I pulled all the transcripts, all our sales call transcripts into Airtable, used the, like, built-in Claude or whatever it was in Airtable to be like, "Pull some themes that emerged on this call.
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From those themes, pull some keywords."
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And I was able to generate, you know, an SEO keyword list that came from sort of the customer's mouth, and then I was able to compare that against the keywords I already had on my list. So I, I found- Love that...
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like, I found some good opportunities without-- but they weren't, like, from the keyword tool itself. It was like, "What are the keywords that matter to my customer, like, from their own mouth?"
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And that's, like, the better direction to do it in, I think, than just like, "Give me the top 1,000 keywords that have this word in them." Yes. I love that approach.
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One other idea too is just obviously getting outside your own company, and it can be a rabbit hole, but just hop on LinkedIn.
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And, like, one of the first things I did when I joined my new company was because obviously I've been in the HR space, but not in this particular field.
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And so after a call with one of our internal subject matter experts where I sort of did some of the discovery, I said, "Hey, can you give me the top 10 people you're following on LinkedIn?
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Because I really wanna start curating my feed against that versus what it was before." And so she gave me, you know, 10 or 12 people to follow, and so now I've got them on my LinkedIn feed.
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So curating your, your feed as much as you can. And I wouldn't... I don't love looking at competitor things for inspiration- Me neither...
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because I think you should just be more creative and, you know, inside out versus being like, "They did it. We should do it too."
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But one sneaky thing you can do is go look at your competitors' social feeds or the executives at that competitor and then see who's commenting on, engaging on their stuff, and then go follow them, because chances are those are the people that you also wanna be engaging with, and they probably are talking about the things on LinkedIn that you care about more.
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Super smart, super smart. Okay, I do wanna get to, like, social and all that, but there's one other, like, internal source we didn't talk about, which was, like, your product [chuckles]
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and, like, the, all the ideas that can emerge sort of out of your product. And we don't have to dwell on this too long, but I think, like, some ideas for me recently have come out of our product roadmap.
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So it's like, okay, we're releasing this feature. Doc is launching, like, an LMS, for example, for sales teams.
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So that means I should go to my content calendar and make sure we're talking about, like, training sales teams, right?
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Like, that's an obvious one, but I feel like often content marketers, you mentioned collaborating with product marketing.
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I think this is a really good example where, like, make sure you have your hands on the product roadmap and that- Yes...
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you're aligned kind of with the company strategy and the company product strategy as well, and you're not just, like, reactive to things after they've come out, that you're sort of proactively planning your calendar around that.
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Yeah, and also think beyond just, like, the product release.
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Like, yes, you need an announcement, maybe you need a press release, maybe you need a social post, but, like, what was the impetus behind actually making that decision? Yeah.
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And is there a forum for you to talk about that? And I think that's where you can get a lot of your product leader's voice into the space, which, which I think can get lost sometimes.
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One other piece that I forgot to mention on the product side of things that can be massive is, if you're allowed to use it, usage data. So again- Mm-hmm...
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understanding what parts of your product your customers are engaging with the most.
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Like, the company that I work for, obviously users opt in, but there's a lot of benchmark data that we can use across different industries, across different, like, company sizes so that we can use that to create very, very custom proprietary research about how, you know, how HR leaders and other leaders are actually using people analytics and workforce intelligence.
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So, like, that's massive.
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Not all companies will have that, but at a different company I was at, they release a, a yearly benefits benchmark report, and that's specifically on how customers are using their benefits within that platform.
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So, like, think about, like, what you have access to.
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A lot of times larger companies will have, like, a business analyst team or a business insights team, and if they don't, then you might be able to, like, slice and dice yourself as well or be able to pull in a contractor to help you.
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But that's again just kind of-What I always say is like telling the story that only you can tell. Mm-hmm. So I think that's a massive missed opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.
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And then maybe last thing we'll say about the product itself is like the jobs to be done framework is extremely helpful.
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So what are the jobs that someone can accomplish with your service or product, and then like that's kind of the best place to start, right, with content ideas. Yes. So for Doc, it's like how do I share content?
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How do I share sales content with my prospect more efficiently?
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Like, thinking about all the challenges your ICP has and then just sort of mapping them to your product and then sort of starting like kind of bottom up from the product. And- Yeah, I actually-...
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that's kind of obvious, but that's like the number one thing I'm doing at Doc, to be honest. I might be stealing your idea, and if I am, let me know. But I- I will give in...
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feel like I read somewhere or something where it was basically taking all of like your ICP job descriptions and then- Mm-hmm...
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loading them into, yes, AI, and then basically saying like what are the common like responsibilities or challenges that you can say from these job descriptions, and then figure out how that shows up or doesn't show up in your content.
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Is that you or was that someone else? I did do that. I don't know if you heard it from me. But yeah, and I, I think it was... that was interesting to learn. So yeah, another great source of ideas is job descriptions.
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And I believe that was on a Superpath Pro thread, just saying. Yeah, exactly. Join Superpath Pro to get great ideas like this.
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Yeah, 'cause I was like just for context, I was trying to figure out like what sort of percentage of mind space our prospects spent thinking about like different aspects of sales enablement.
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So like just for example, a sales enablement leader who's our customer at Doc is like they spend some time thinking about training their team, they spend some time thinking about content management, et cetera.
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And like, I was really feeling like some of the j- things I was writing about were like so on the periphery of their actual...
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Like, I was starting too product-focused and like wasn't connecting it back to their actual role.
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And so I wanted to do a bit of a meta-analysis of job descriptions just to see like what's the most common things they're responsible for, and I did learn a lot through that, so I think...
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And it gave me more ideas for how to like connect the dots back from like customer to content to our product, so that was definitely a really good one. Yeah. I love that. I think that's so important, too.
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I mean, there are a million ideas that you can get from your product, but being able to just figure out the through line and really just challenge yourself, like once every week, am I thinking about the customer enough?
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Is there something else that I should be doing to get into their mindset?
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And whether that's your actual customers or whether that's just the ICP that you're going for from whatever, like a persona, I just think as content marketers, we really need to challenge ourselves to do that.
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Absolutely. Myself included. Absolutely. Okay, let's talk about some more external sources quickly. I do wanna kinda chat about our ideation processes and stuff like that too, but let's sort of finish off this list here.
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So I mean, f- for me, like communities are massive. Like private Slack communities, like obviously for Superpath, most of our ideas for this show come from things people are asking in the community. Mm-hmm.
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Uh, like we get a really good pulse check on like there's...
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'Cause there's LinkedIn is one thing, which you've already mentioned, but I think one of the challenges with LinkedIn is like thought leaders in air quotes with an agenda trying to sell something tend to dominate the discussion, and like the everyday things that like the masses care about are often quite different than like content that's out there.
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And so what I like about communities is it's like y- you really get a better sense of the day-to-day problems people are dealing with that like they had to go...
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Plus it's something that they obviously didn't find on a Google search. We always say that about Superpath Pro, where like the best part of it is like all the things you can't Google. And so- Yeah...
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like for Doc, I'm part of a couple sales enablement communities that like we sponsored, and I'm kinda just like lingering in there and listening.
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[laughs] Uh, but I learn so much from people like, "Oh, does anyone have a template for this?" Like perfect, I should make that.
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Like, "Does anyone have a rubric they use to score this type of software like when they're gonna buy it?" I'm like, oh man, like what a gold mine just sitting and listening, so there's so much there.
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And like more interesting questions get asked in more like private communities than like Reddit, for example. Yeah, definitely.
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I think the other piece, and this is again obvious, but people are forgetting it, is just like your industry publications.
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Um, so there's obviously associations that are probably affiliated with whatever industry you're in.
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My first job at the content marketing agency, I found out there's pretty much a publication for literally everything you can think of, and I was like, "This is interesting."
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So there's like industry publications, just like flipping through those every quarter and just getting a sense, and then anything that is more journalist forward where you can pick up just ideas, right?
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It's like how do you get ideas for anything? You go out and you read and you discover things. Like you- Mm-hmm... don't always just Google, like what should I be writing about? And if you are- [laughs]...
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like get outside. [laughs] You know? Like, but for example, like in the HR community, there's a bunch, like when I was working for a UK-based company, there was the HR Grapevine. Now there's like HR Executive.
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There's, you know, there's all of these pockets of industry-led publications that really look at things from a more journalist perspective.
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And when you look at that, maybe not all of it is appropriate for your business, and again, you don't have to be like the most provocative or the most d- like save it for the editorial, like PR bylines, but maybe there's a way that you can use it for more of a content marketing perspective.
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Or you use it as a standalone social post and you have, you know, an executive react to something, for example, right? Like, but that can be another, I think, missed opportunity that people forget about. Absolutely.
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Okay, I mean, there's other things we could talk about in terms of inspiration, but I feel like content marketers understand like content as a source of inspiration, so. Content is everywhere.
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[laughs] We'll leave that aside.
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I'm just curious now, like do you have an actualContent ideation process, or is it something that you're just, like, sitting there and, like, a good idea strikes you, and you just write it down somewhere, and it ends up on a big list?
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I'm just a genius. Uh [laughs] Yeah. That makes sense. That's what I thought. I thought you were gonna say that. It's the marketer's favorite answer, it depends, right? Yeah.
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So right now, what I'm trying to do is come at it from a couple different approaches. One is w- our keyword list in general is way too big- Mm-hmm... and it's not as focused as I need it to be.
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So step one is, like, actually looking at the tactics of the keyword list, getting it down to a manageable piece, and then from there, developing, like, the actual themes and content pillars that we wanna talk about, right?
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Like, this is table stakes, but every, I would say, year, you're gonna wanna go through and you're gonna wanna, like, evaluate where your company is against this, especially if you're at a fast-moving company, which I just always have been.
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The second piece of it is I always just have, like, a running idea bank where, again, I'm lurking on Slack channels, or I am in a meeting, I scribble something down, and then I say, "This could be something."
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So that is just, like, a running Google Sheet. If I think that it's timely, sometimes I'll put it in Asana, and I'll be like, "Think about this in three months," because it's something seasonal.
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And then it really aligns more, so it's like those two threads, and then it's also just, like, business priorities.
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So looking at our product roadmap and what we absolutely have to talk about, looking at our go-to-market messaging and, like, where we need to make updates, and then looking at our overall campaigns and themes- Mm-hmm...
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and focus areas. So and then just, like, I liked what you said about, like, how much of our content should be talking about X.
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I feel like I haven't quite figured out that balance because the editorial calendar is just so fast-moving. But in an ideal world, it would be you would, like, map it back, right?
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So it's like this type of content, or not even type, like, this theme theoretically drives this much revenue or this much retention, so it should be X amount of our content. Like, that would be really cool to get to.
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I can't say I've gotten to that yet. Yeah. Yeah. I think y- your process sounds a lot like mine. I have, like, different idea lists.
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Like, the one big one, like you said, is the keyword list, and some things we do there to, like, triage is I have, like, a business relevance score where it's like, okay, this keyword is super related to our product.
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This one is less related. I also have, like, a... What's the other one? Just, like bu- like you said, business priority- Mm-hmm... sort of score. And then after I've kind of...
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I do some initial evaluation of the keyword of, like, does this have to be, like, a template, or is this a tool? Is this a listicle? Like, what is the format that will work for this topic or idea?
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And then, again, it's like, oh, well, I'm noticing that this format is working really well for us, so this gets prioritized for that reason.
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So there's kind of, like, the SEO list, which is one thing, and then I have, like, a mega, bigger projects list that's, like...
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For example, I was like, "Oh, we should do analysis of job descriptions," like we talked about earlier. That's, like, a big project that I don't have time for. I have a list of those ideas.
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I think, like, what I've learned about that big list is I don't prioritize it enough, and, like- Mm... sometimes, like, when inspiration strikes, you should just do the thing.
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Like, if it feels like a good idea, you should just do it now.
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And I think, like, that's my biggest kind of, like, continual content regret is that I'm stuck with, like, the SEO list or, like, this calendar I already have in place, and that something that feels really exciting is probably a really good idea that you should prioritize.
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I think that the one thing that I definitely have learned over the years is to prior- just, like, build in those buffers and those- Mm-hmm... like, we're gonna have to do something about X.
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We don't know what it is yet, but this keeps on bubbling up in conversation, so we're gonna have to figure it out.
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So, and I know that sounds vague, but that is literally sometimes what my editorial calendar will look like. Like, this has been brought up three times in a meeting. We're gonna want some sort of content on this.
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I don't know what it is yet. And then we need to loop back on it, you know, a week later.
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I think the other piece too is just, again, depending on how, you know, your wider marketing team operates, if you're a very events-driven company, for example, there are hopefully a lot of ways that you can be repurposing that content, so, like, that can help fill out your calendar too.
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I think the biggest thing is that, in my opinion, there should almost never be a shortage of ideas. Mm-hmm. It's more about trying to decide what you actually need to be writing about and what actually makes sense.
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And I think in today's world where, you know, the zero-click content and so many people are turning to social over or, you know, with the blogs and the more, like, long-form content, you really need to figure out, like, where it's gonna make the most impact.
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And that, I think, is a challenge that is, it is in every single business, but the answer to that is gonna be unique to every business, depending on, again, like, what you're trying to actually go out to market with.
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Yeah. Then you're... It's more of a idea prioritization question at that point.
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I think what you're getting at too is, like, how do you come up with ideas that have more, like, distribution baked in or will, like- Yeah... will get more attention.
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I think that's probably bigger conversation for another day that stresses me out. [laughs] Makes sense.
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Um, I think, like, one other little fun hack I have for, like, capturing ideas is that I made a little Slack automation that I can use. So say a person on sales is like, "Hey, we need so and so asset."
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I'll reply with a little hashtag that says hashtag content idea, and then I have a Zap that's, like, waiting for that trigger, and so it'll, like, add that to the list.
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The reason I like doing that is that it makes it, like, super visible to everybody else in the company that I'm building a list of ideas. That's a great idea.
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So it'll be like th- like this has been added to the list, and there's a link to it. Mm-hmm. And then they can't even see thatList, but they can like see that things have happened, and then that gives me kind of...
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It gives visibility that I'm open to ideas, and that our marketing team like wants suggestions. And then sometimes I'll even just put my own ideas right in Slack and put like #contentidea, and they can see that happen.
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Just so that like people see that I've like, I'm... And then sometimes people reply and say, "Oh, that's a great idea, and you could do X, Y, Z," and I get really good quick feedback that way.
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I mean, 90% of the time it just gets ignored, but it's creating internal visibility for like all the work that goes behind like even just coming up with ideas.
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I really like that idea, and I do think that is a lovely common misconception outside of our little content world- Yeah... is like no one knows where the content calendar comes from.
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And like I always say what we're publishing should never be a surprise. [laughs] But a lot of times it is, and I think that's a really good way. Also, yeah, like soliciting ideas from your company, you can do it.
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I personally like having the one-to-one conversations and- Mm-hmm... just making it more of a, yeah, like a concerted effort where...
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But I think that's a really good way to make someone just feel like heard and valued without sacrificing a lot of your time and energy. That's awesome. I might steal that.
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Well, that's a great place to end, with you thieving me of my great ideas once again. [laughs] So thank you everybody for listening to today's episode.
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Of course, if you want more brilliant ideas for content, you should join Superpath Pro Community, where there's always lots of interesting sort of prompts or questions that people have that trigger lots of good ideas, like related to content marketing or not.
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There's just lots of good stuff happening in there.
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So thanks for listening, and if you do have any ideas for Chloe and I to talk about every single week, please let us know on LinkedIn or Slack or wherever you can get ahold of us. We have an email, right? Yeah.
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Who, who knows what it is. We've never gotten an email. podcast@superpath.co, I believe, is the email. I'm still waiting for someone to email. Someone is just patiently waiting to, by that inbox to read your suggestions.
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[laughs] So please send them in. Awesome. Thanks everyone. Thanks all. [outro music]
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[upbeat music] Hey everyone, Alex here. Let me tell you about Userp. That's U-S-E-R-P dot I-O.
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That's Userp.io. Hey, content friends. We're back with another episode of Content Briefly.
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I already have Chloe smiling on the other side of this call every time I say, "Content friends," I think triggers a smile from you, which I'm happy about.
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Today, we're talking about how to come up with good content ideas. I think the meta story behind this episode is Chloe and I were scrambling, as we do every single week, to think of a topic for this episode.
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It's very hard to think of something to talk about every single week on a show like this. So if you have ideas, send them in. Yeah, exactly.
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Anyway, that triggered the idea of how do we come up with the best content ideas, because I think, like, traditionally, a lot of, like, how to come up with content idea advice tends to be around keyword research, and now it's a lot of AI prompts, and that's kind of obvious, and I don't think that's always the best path to great content, and it, like, normally leads to you creating the same stuff as everyone else.
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So today, we wanted to chat about where our best content ideas actually come from, like, the places you should be looking for ideas, like customer calls, support tickets, LinkedIn, wherever.
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And also, we'll chat about, like, our systems and processes, or lack thereof, for filling our content calendars or content strategies with really good ideas that will actually resonate with our audiences.
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How does that sound, Chloe? Sounds great, Eric. Perfect. Okay, so let's just get right into where we come up with ideas. Like, in terms of... I'll just let you start with, like, some source.
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The last great content idea you had, like, where did it come from? The last great one. [laughs] So, I mean- If you've ever had one. Never.
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I think I've said this a lot in, like, interviews and podcasts, but it's still very true. I think the number one thing is I am a massive, massive lurker on Slack and on, like, team communications.
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These are internal calls, right? Like, internal Slack, I mean, right? Yes, internal Slack. Particularly as, you know, I'm in a fully remote role right now. Before, it was more of, like, a remote/hybrid role.
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You're not around each other all the time. It's the best way to just listen in on, like, what people are talking about.
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And also, there's a lot, or there can be a lot of people that are soliciting, like, advice on those channels.
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So places that I like to go are where people are sharing, like, customer wins, even customer losses, to be like, "Okay, what should we be writing about? What shouldn't we be writing about?"
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You know, we have a couple channels at my current company where it's all about, like, measuring actual success with your customers, so it's those, like, tried and true customer stories.
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So trying to figure out if we can use those, if we can anonymize them, or if we can get approval, that's been massively helpful just to see the trends.
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But then also just lurking on sales, like sales and CSM channels as much as possible, and the product innovation sort of channels, if you have, like, product release channels or anything like that, I get tons of ideas from it.
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I also get ideas from an internal perspective in terms of what are people actually looking for with content, 'cause they're like, "Oh, do we have a piece on X?"
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And it's like, "No, we don't, but should we if enough people are talking about it?" So I would say my number one source of inspiration is almost always Slack. Totally. I fully agree.
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I think every great marketer, no matter what kind of marketer you are, should be on as many company Slack channels as you can be and just obsessively reading them every single day. I agree. Ooh, fun.
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What's, like, your highest number of channels you think you've been a part of? Oof.
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I, I mean, I haven't been at a really big company that uses Slack, so at Dock there's maybe 20 channels, but definitely, like, the customer success channel and the sales channel, the product development channel, and we have, like, a Dock love, like, customer love channel where- Love that...
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people share, like, nice things customers said, which I really recommend making that channel if you don't have one because that's really, like, the existence of that channel is what causes our CS team and our sales team to, like, bring forth, and our founder too, just, like, nice DMs they receive.
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And for me, that's either, like, yeah, there's content ideas in there too, but then there's also, it's a good segue into, like, being able to do a case study with a customer.
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And also just thinking too, employee advocacy as well.
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We had that too, where we were like, even if a customer posted about us on LinkedIn, we would pop that in there and be like, "Hey, make sure you're engaging or reposting this," so I think that's good.
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I think one of my last companies, I think I was at, like, 80 plus channels. One day I counted and I was like- [laughs]... "What is my life?" And granted, I'm not active in all of them.
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I keep it muted, but sometimes if I have a day where I'm likeReally trying to figure out what our blog calendar is, 'cause I'm one of those weird content marketers that didn't go keyword first. Mm-hmm.
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And I would just block off 35 minutes and just go through all the channels and try to come up with ideas. So I'd say, like, that's the biggest one.
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I was just on a call right before this about doing sort of an internal safari because myself and another colleague are still kind of onboarding.
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So going and having these internal discovery calls with our client success managers, client success directors, strategic advisors, basically thinking about the people that are closest to the customer.
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And I think you mentioned client support as well.
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One thing that's really interesting and, like, this could get really nitty-gritty, but go to your customer support team and see, like, where are they logging the most number of tickets, like, what kind of themes can come out of there, and that can be a super practical blog for your customers, and even to bring up to, like, your product team as well.
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Totally. Yeah, so I think you've gotten at a second point there, which is, like, internal subject matter experts.
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I think there's the sort of product subject matter experts, and then there's the client experts, like, like, client success.
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Yeah, even, like, our customer success team, they have a spreadsheet of, like, product feedback, and mostly it's like, "I want this button to be over here," or, "You're missing this feature."
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But there's definitely, like, lots of interesting little nuggets about, and sort of insights into our, like, biggest clients who are making the most requests and, like, what their psychology is like with respect to our product.
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Like, I've definitely learned a lot there. And I mean, that brings me to my next point, which is, like, sales team feedback. Like, th- that's where I get most of my ideas for...
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Like, my really good ideas at Dock is, like...
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So we have some standing go-to-market meetings with, like, sales leader, customer success leader, our founder, and me, where we're just talking about, like, sort of major initiatives, big roadblocks, and, like, there's some feedback that comes from the sales leader there and things that are missing.
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But then we also have, like, product enablement sessions or, like, competitor enablement sessions where our founder is like, "What are you hearing about this competitor? What are you hearing about that competitor?"
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And like, "Why are we losing deals?" And sales will just kind of, like, spew information that they're hearing, and I, I learn a lot from that as well.
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So, like, specifically for, like, competitor comparison pieces, but also just, like, topics and ideas that I didn't think of. So, I mean, as many, like, meetings as you can get in on.
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Obviously, no one wants to fill their days with meetings, but, like, any time where you can just have the sales team, like, rant about the problems they're having, you'll probably learn a lot. Yeah.
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I 100% agree with that. I think, too, that just came to mind as well, one that I feel like not enough people look at are onboarding materials for customers- Hmm. That's smart... uh, can be a gold mine.
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Things like if your company has a, like, a university, like HubSpot had, like, their whole HubSpot Academy, right?
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Like, we have a Vizier University, and understanding what are, like, the top most accessed articles in there, and then thinking about how you can potentially repurpose that from a prospect perspective.
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Because a lot of times those articles are obviously in the weeds because they're meant for your customers that are very familiar with your product, and they know what this module does and this.
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But, like, think about if there's a way that you can bubble that up, even from a keyword perspective that can fit into your content calendar. I feel like that's one that a lot of people miss.
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I think the other piece of advice I have is a lot of times the longest standing person at your company, if it's not, like, your co-founder, right?
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If your co-founder's already still there or something like that, but, like, who's the most veteran person at your company? And just go and schedule a coffee chat with them.
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Talk to them about how they have been in X industry for this many years. What have they seen change? What have they seen change in the last year, the last five years, the last 10 years?
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And from there you can kind of get a really cool story and anecdote, and maybe it doesn't have to be a feature on that person.
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Like, who knows, maybe someone wants to read that, maybe they don't, but I guarantee you you'll come out with a ton of ideas. Yeah, totally.
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Yeah, I think normally when I'm thinking internally or talking internally for ideas, I'm not necessarily... Like, I'm not talking to a subject matter expert to, like, turn that interview into a piece.
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I'm just looking for, like, nuggets of little insights or topics or, you know, "Uh, all of our customers are asking for this." "Oh, great idea."
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I think, like, a really good example was our sales team, like, maybe a year or two into me working at Dock was like, "We always get asked, what if we're sending a link to a Dock workspace and, like, the person doesn't open it?"
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And like, we'd get asked that on every single sales call. And so that gave me, like, a really good incentive to build kind of a guide to, like... It addresses the objection.
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So it was like, how to get engagement in your Dock workspace or something like that. It, it was kind of, like, guide-y, but it was also solved, like, a sales objection.
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Customer success could use it in their training, like, checked a lot of boxes and so it...
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that just came directly from something that sales called out and it's been, like, one of our most useful piece of con- Like, it doesn't get organic search, but it comes up at so many touch points kind of throughout the customer life cycle.
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But also, like, user adoption and engagement I think can be a huge topic. So, like, with your onboarding- Mm-hmm... that's one piece of it, right?
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Like, how someone actually sets up your system, but then also the sustained success of whatever system you're running. Like, and obviously we're speaking more toward B2B SaaS, like, that's kind of our wheelhouse. Mm-hmm.
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Um, but you know, where things stall, right?
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'Cause, like, if you think about it from a B2B SaaS perspective, a lot of contracts when they're up for renewal, which is why a lot of times it's, like, a three-year contract versus a one-year because you're still trying to prove the ROI in one year.
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But depending on your contract cycle, it might be like, okay, where... talk to your customer success team about where things are kind of falling down in their renewal process as well. Yeah.
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And think about, again, how do you bubble up content to support with that. So for example, if it's, like, low adoption on a particular part of your product, can you then talk about that?
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Like, you talked about how people aren't clicking on the links. It's like, okay, well, what can you do to make those links more attractive? Like, is that the anchor text you're using? Is it description? Is it...
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et cetera. You can use that for, like, different buckets of your product too.
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I used to do that a lot-At my company, Reward Gateway particularly, because there were so many different modules that customers were engaging with. Yeah, totally.
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And just to sort of summarize your point there, I think looking at the full customer life cycle and, like, where are the choke points in your sort of revenue generating model of, yeah, is it we're not getting enough retention in the first 90 days?
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Is it we're not getting those annual renewals? And then looking for content ideas in those kind of choke points is a really good idea.
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And then the, the big thing that, two points we haven't talked about, which are kind of the most obvious ones, but we should talk about, is talking to your customers- Yes, please [laughs]...
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or listening to customer calls like that. Yes. The-- I think, like, every
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junior marketer or most junior marketers, they're like, feel like they can research their way out of, like, into having good content ideas and a good content strategy, but you'll never learn as much...
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Like, you'll learn more from one customer call than you will doing three months of online research of your ICP. Like, I always feel that way. Like, you get a sense- I agree...
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of their emotional state, you get a sense of like how they actually think about their jobs, you get...
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Like, you learn so much just by even just hearing the emotion in their voice, like how they talk about your product in certain ways.
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Like, I've learned so much from talking to customers, and I think, like, the very obvious way of doing that is to do case study interviews. Like, if you can do case studies, do them.
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But there aren't always opportunities to do case studies, so I feel like that's something maybe I've struggled with in the past. Like, do you have any advice for, like, getting on calls with customers?
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It can be hard because particularly with larger organizations, there are a lot of conflicting requests- Mm-hmm... um, for your customers, so you wanna be really careful about how you navigate that.
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Sometimes a backdoor way can be, again, asking CSMs if they record, like, their quarterly, like their QBRs, for example. Mm-hmm.
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A lot of times they will record that, and as long as, you know, you don't share it externally, it's something that you can listen to, and that, again, has the customer right on the call.
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I think another way is during your onboarding, asking sales or, you know, sales enablement, like what were the top...
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Or even just looking at previous closed won deals and looking at your top three or four biggest deals, and then just looking back at the path of that. Mm-hmm. So looking at gong calls, et cetera.
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And then just trying to insert yourself where possible where customers are already being involved.
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So if, for example, you're planning-- someone on your team is planning in customer advisory board or an event where they're bringing on some customers for a panel, ask if you can be in on those calls as just a fly on the wall, or ask if you can listen to the recording after.
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So it might not even be, like, you reaching out to the customer, but you're still getting a flavor of what that customer is.
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I think it's easier to do when you're in a smaller organization and there's not as much a barrier to entry to the customer. Mm-hmm.
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But for example, I've been at companies where, you know, customers are being contacted for referrals, for press releases, for customer case studies.
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So for me to be like, "I really wanna interview you for a blog," just doesn't sit as high up on the priority list.
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So I've gotta find ways to be creative and then kind of almost like prepackage it and then say, "Okay, if we really do want to attach a name to it, here's how we do it."
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And over the years at, you know, at my old job, I was there for seven and a half years, so I've started forming relationships on my own with customers, where I would have a handful of friendlies.
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So if I was looking for something as, you know, New Year's resolution roundups or lessons learned or something like that, I had a handful of people that I could just be like, "Okay, I'm bypassing everything and I'm just going straight to you."
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But that takes a long time to build up, and I would not recommend skipping over [laughs] Yeah. Skipping over- Absolutely... their, their key CSMs and the people who really need to be front line and keep them happy.
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[laughs] Absolutely. Yeah, I think befriending your CS team and having someone who can just say, "Hey, this person would be happy to talk to you," has worked for me. Also, like, gift cards.
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[laughs] Just saying, "Hey, I'll give you a $50 gift card if you just talk to me for half an hour."
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Another kind of, I don't wanna say sneaky, but if you have a podcast, just inviting your customers onto the podcast and asking the things you want to know from them, [laughs] I think like is a kind of sneaky way to do that.
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I had another thought that was really smart, but I don't remember it, so we'll never hear it again. We'll never hear it again.
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No, I think the podcast idea is definitely smart, but I also think like, think about how you can synthesize any place that your customers are. Mm-hmm.
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So if you are hosting a webinar where you have a customer speaker, if you're hosting a panel where you have customers talking, like, that is where I think AI can really help you accelerate. Like, again, nothing...
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I'm sorry, nothing beats spending a half hour just listening to people talk and hearing, [laughs] I like that you said the state of emotion that they're in, but it's so true.
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Especially for my industry, HR tech, like HR people have a lot riding on their shoulders right now. But I think that if you can take those inputs and synthesize them, I think that can be really, really helpful.
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I think the other place to go to, and this obviously depends on how large of a company you're at, but leaning on your product marketing team as well to see like what have they already synthesized, what might they already have.
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Because a lot of times in larger organizations it's like, you know, the competitive intelligence and the closed lost and the closed won deals, all of that sort of knowledge- Yeah... sits within your product marketers.
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So before you go on a huge discovery session yourself, like see what is already out there. Totally. And I, I did remember what I was gonna say in terms of the customer calls.
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Like, I think that is probably the best leverage point for AI, like you've called out. Like, now most of us should have access to our sales-... teams' transcripts.
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Like, either get a login to Gong or Fathom or whatever tool your team is using, or they're probably logged in the CRM now, which you probably have access to.
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Like, y- you'll be able to find transcripts somewhere, and then you can do some sort of meta-analysis with AI. And now most of those tools-- Like, we use something called Fathom at Doc. It's just, like, a call recorder.
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But I think in the last couple weeks, they finally released an AI feature that's like search across your calls. So now I can say, like, "Find me the most common customer objection," or whatever that is.
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And- Yeah, I know Gong is doing a ton of that, but that's interesting that Fathom's getting into that. I think that the other thing you can do, and obviously, like, caveat, use AI responsibly.
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Like, Jesus Christ, get on an enterprise plan. No, use it, use it like a crazy person. [chuckles] Like, I'm sorry, I work for an AI company. Like, make sure you're not uploading company data into a personal ChatGPT.
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Make sure it's sanctioned. Anyway, once you've got that, one thing you could do as well is, you know, again, Clozd, C-L-O-Z-D, the application analyzes, like, your wins and losses.
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But if you don't have the funds for something like that, you can kind of do a base analysis yourself.
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Like, I know a lot of companies, no matter what the size, they'll send out summaries or they'll send out detailed announcements like how we won this and who was involved, and then run it through AI to pull out those key themes.
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And then take those key themes and then run that against a keyword analysis. Like, this is what I'm bullish on. Like, don't start with the keyword analysis. Start with the themes.
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Start with what you're actually hearing, and then figure out how to optimize. Totally.
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Yeah, I did some kind of, like, mad scientist thing where I pulled all the transcripts, all our sales call transcripts into Airtable, used the, like, built-in Claude or whatever it was in Airtable to be like, "Pull some themes that emerged on this call.
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From those themes, pull some keywords."
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And I was able to generate, you know, an SEO keyword list that came from sort of the customer's mouth, and then I was able to compare that against the keywords I already had on my list. So I, I found- Love that...
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like, I found some good opportunities without-- but they weren't, like, from the keyword tool itself. It was like, "What are the keywords that matter to my customer, like, from their own mouth?"
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And that's, like, the better direction to do it in, I think, than just like, "Give me the top 1,000 keywords that have this word in them." Yes. I love that approach.
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One other idea too is just obviously getting outside your own company, and it can be a rabbit hole, but just hop on LinkedIn.
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And, like, one of the first things I did when I joined my new company was because obviously I've been in the HR space, but not in this particular field.
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And so after a call with one of our internal subject matter experts where I sort of did some of the discovery, I said, "Hey, can you give me the top 10 people you're following on LinkedIn?
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Because I really wanna start curating my feed against that versus what it was before." And so she gave me, you know, 10 or 12 people to follow, and so now I've got them on my LinkedIn feed.
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So curating your, your feed as much as you can. And I wouldn't... I don't love looking at competitor things for inspiration- Me neither...
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because I think you should just be more creative and, you know, inside out versus being like, "They did it. We should do it too."
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But one sneaky thing you can do is go look at your competitors' social feeds or the executives at that competitor and then see who's commenting on, engaging on their stuff, and then go follow them, because chances are those are the people that you also wanna be engaging with, and they probably are talking about the things on LinkedIn that you care about more.
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Super smart, super smart. Okay, I do wanna get to, like, social and all that, but there's one other, like, internal source we didn't talk about, which was, like, your product [chuckles]
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and, like, the, all the ideas that can emerge sort of out of your product. And we don't have to dwell on this too long, but I think, like, some ideas for me recently have come out of our product roadmap.
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So it's like, okay, we're releasing this feature. Doc is launching, like, an LMS, for example, for sales teams.
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So that means I should go to my content calendar and make sure we're talking about, like, training sales teams, right?
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Like, that's an obvious one, but I feel like often content marketers, you mentioned collaborating with product marketing.
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I think this is a really good example where, like, make sure you have your hands on the product roadmap and that- Yes...
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you're aligned kind of with the company strategy and the company product strategy as well, and you're not just, like, reactive to things after they've come out, that you're sort of proactively planning your calendar around that.
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Yeah, and also think beyond just, like, the product release.
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Like, yes, you need an announcement, maybe you need a press release, maybe you need a social post, but, like, what was the impetus behind actually making that decision? Yeah.
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And is there a forum for you to talk about that? And I think that's where you can get a lot of your product leader's voice into the space, which, which I think can get lost sometimes.
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One other piece that I forgot to mention on the product side of things that can be massive is, if you're allowed to use it, usage data. So again- Mm-hmm...
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understanding what parts of your product your customers are engaging with the most.
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Like, the company that I work for, obviously users opt in, but there's a lot of benchmark data that we can use across different industries, across different, like, company sizes so that we can use that to create very, very custom proprietary research about how, you know, how HR leaders and other leaders are actually using people analytics and workforce intelligence.
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So, like, that's massive.
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Not all companies will have that, but at a different company I was at, they release a, a yearly benefits benchmark report, and that's specifically on how customers are using their benefits within that platform.
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So, like, think about, like, what you have access to.
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A lot of times larger companies will have, like, a business analyst team or a business insights team, and if they don't, then you might be able to, like, slice and dice yourself as well or be able to pull in a contractor to help you.
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But that's again just kind of-What I always say is like telling the story that only you can tell. Mm-hmm. So I think that's a massive missed opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.
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And then maybe last thing we'll say about the product itself is like the jobs to be done framework is extremely helpful.
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So what are the jobs that someone can accomplish with your service or product, and then like that's kind of the best place to start, right, with content ideas. Yes. So for Doc, it's like how do I share content?
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How do I share sales content with my prospect more efficiently?
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Like, thinking about all the challenges your ICP has and then just sort of mapping them to your product and then sort of starting like kind of bottom up from the product. And- Yeah, I actually-...
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that's kind of obvious, but that's like the number one thing I'm doing at Doc, to be honest. I might be stealing your idea, and if I am, let me know. But I- I will give in...
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feel like I read somewhere or something where it was basically taking all of like your ICP job descriptions and then- Mm-hmm...
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loading them into, yes, AI, and then basically saying like what are the common like responsibilities or challenges that you can say from these job descriptions, and then figure out how that shows up or doesn't show up in your content.
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Is that you or was that someone else? I did do that. I don't know if you heard it from me. But yeah, and I, I think it was... that was interesting to learn. So yeah, another great source of ideas is job descriptions.
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And I believe that was on a Superpath Pro thread, just saying. Yeah, exactly. Join Superpath Pro to get great ideas like this.
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Yeah, 'cause I was like just for context, I was trying to figure out like what sort of percentage of mind space our prospects spent thinking about like different aspects of sales enablement.
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So like just for example, a sales enablement leader who's our customer at Doc is like they spend some time thinking about training their team, they spend some time thinking about content management, et cetera.
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And like, I was really feeling like some of the j- things I was writing about were like so on the periphery of their actual...
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Like, I was starting too product-focused and like wasn't connecting it back to their actual role.
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And so I wanted to do a bit of a meta-analysis of job descriptions just to see like what's the most common things they're responsible for, and I did learn a lot through that, so I think...
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And it gave me more ideas for how to like connect the dots back from like customer to content to our product, so that was definitely a really good one. Yeah. I love that. I think that's so important, too.
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I mean, there are a million ideas that you can get from your product, but being able to just figure out the through line and really just challenge yourself, like once every week, am I thinking about the customer enough?
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Is there something else that I should be doing to get into their mindset?
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And whether that's your actual customers or whether that's just the ICP that you're going for from whatever, like a persona, I just think as content marketers, we really need to challenge ourselves to do that.
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Absolutely. Myself included. Absolutely. Okay, let's talk about some more external sources quickly. I do wanna kinda chat about our ideation processes and stuff like that too, but let's sort of finish off this list here.
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So I mean, f- for me, like communities are massive. Like private Slack communities, like obviously for Superpath, most of our ideas for this show come from things people are asking in the community. Mm-hmm.
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Uh, like we get a really good pulse check on like there's...
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'Cause there's LinkedIn is one thing, which you've already mentioned, but I think one of the challenges with LinkedIn is like thought leaders in air quotes with an agenda trying to sell something tend to dominate the discussion, and like the everyday things that like the masses care about are often quite different than like content that's out there.
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And so what I like about communities is it's like y- you really get a better sense of the day-to-day problems people are dealing with that like they had to go...
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Plus it's something that they obviously didn't find on a Google search. We always say that about Superpath Pro, where like the best part of it is like all the things you can't Google. And so- Yeah...
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like for Doc, I'm part of a couple sales enablement communities that like we sponsored, and I'm kinda just like lingering in there and listening.
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[laughs] Uh, but I learn so much from people like, "Oh, does anyone have a template for this?" Like perfect, I should make that.
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Like, "Does anyone have a rubric they use to score this type of software like when they're gonna buy it?" I'm like, oh man, like what a gold mine just sitting and listening, so there's so much there.
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And like more interesting questions get asked in more like private communities than like Reddit, for example. Yeah, definitely.
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I think the other piece, and this is again obvious, but people are forgetting it, is just like your industry publications.
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Um, so there's obviously associations that are probably affiliated with whatever industry you're in.
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My first job at the content marketing agency, I found out there's pretty much a publication for literally everything you can think of, and I was like, "This is interesting."
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So there's like industry publications, just like flipping through those every quarter and just getting a sense, and then anything that is more journalist forward where you can pick up just ideas, right?
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It's like how do you get ideas for anything? You go out and you read and you discover things. Like you- Mm-hmm... don't always just Google, like what should I be writing about? And if you are- [laughs]...
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like get outside. [laughs] You know? Like, but for example, like in the HR community, there's a bunch, like when I was working for a UK-based company, there was the HR Grapevine. Now there's like HR Executive.
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There's, you know, there's all of these pockets of industry-led publications that really look at things from a more journalist perspective.
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And when you look at that, maybe not all of it is appropriate for your business, and again, you don't have to be like the most provocative or the most d- like save it for the editorial, like PR bylines, but maybe there's a way that you can use it for more of a content marketing perspective.
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Or you use it as a standalone social post and you have, you know, an executive react to something, for example, right? Like, but that can be another, I think, missed opportunity that people forget about. Absolutely.
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Okay, I mean, there's other things we could talk about in terms of inspiration, but I feel like content marketers understand like content as a source of inspiration, so. Content is everywhere.
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[laughs] We'll leave that aside.
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I'm just curious now, like do you have an actualContent ideation process, or is it something that you're just, like, sitting there and, like, a good idea strikes you, and you just write it down somewhere, and it ends up on a big list?
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I'm just a genius. Uh [laughs] Yeah. That makes sense. That's what I thought. I thought you were gonna say that. It's the marketer's favorite answer, it depends, right? Yeah.
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So right now, what I'm trying to do is come at it from a couple different approaches. One is w- our keyword list in general is way too big- Mm-hmm... and it's not as focused as I need it to be.
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So step one is, like, actually looking at the tactics of the keyword list, getting it down to a manageable piece, and then from there, developing, like, the actual themes and content pillars that we wanna talk about, right?
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Like, this is table stakes, but every, I would say, year, you're gonna wanna go through and you're gonna wanna, like, evaluate where your company is against this, especially if you're at a fast-moving company, which I just always have been.
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The second piece of it is I always just have, like, a running idea bank where, again, I'm lurking on Slack channels, or I am in a meeting, I scribble something down, and then I say, "This could be something."
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So that is just, like, a running Google Sheet. If I think that it's timely, sometimes I'll put it in Asana, and I'll be like, "Think about this in three months," because it's something seasonal.
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And then it really aligns more, so it's like those two threads, and then it's also just, like, business priorities.
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So looking at our product roadmap and what we absolutely have to talk about, looking at our go-to-market messaging and, like, where we need to make updates, and then looking at our overall campaigns and themes- Mm-hmm...
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and focus areas. So and then just, like, I liked what you said about, like, how much of our content should be talking about X.
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I feel like I haven't quite figured out that balance because the editorial calendar is just so fast-moving. But in an ideal world, it would be you would, like, map it back, right?
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So it's like this type of content, or not even type, like, this theme theoretically drives this much revenue or this much retention, so it should be X amount of our content. Like, that would be really cool to get to.
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I can't say I've gotten to that yet. Yeah. Yeah. I think y- your process sounds a lot like mine. I have, like, different idea lists.
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Like, the one big one, like you said, is the keyword list, and some things we do there to, like, triage is I have, like, a business relevance score where it's like, okay, this keyword is super related to our product.
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This one is less related. I also have, like, a... What's the other one? Just, like bu- like you said, business priority- Mm-hmm... sort of score. And then after I've kind of...
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I do some initial evaluation of the keyword of, like, does this have to be, like, a template, or is this a tool? Is this a listicle? Like, what is the format that will work for this topic or idea?
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And then, again, it's like, oh, well, I'm noticing that this format is working really well for us, so this gets prioritized for that reason.
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So there's kind of, like, the SEO list, which is one thing, and then I have, like, a mega, bigger projects list that's, like...
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For example, I was like, "Oh, we should do analysis of job descriptions," like we talked about earlier. That's, like, a big project that I don't have time for. I have a list of those ideas.
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I think, like, what I've learned about that big list is I don't prioritize it enough, and, like- Mm... sometimes, like, when inspiration strikes, you should just do the thing.
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Like, if it feels like a good idea, you should just do it now.
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And I think, like, that's my biggest kind of, like, continual content regret is that I'm stuck with, like, the SEO list or, like, this calendar I already have in place, and that something that feels really exciting is probably a really good idea that you should prioritize.
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I think that the one thing that I definitely have learned over the years is to prior- just, like, build in those buffers and those- Mm-hmm... like, we're gonna have to do something about X.
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We don't know what it is yet, but this keeps on bubbling up in conversation, so we're gonna have to figure it out.
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So, and I know that sounds vague, but that is literally sometimes what my editorial calendar will look like. Like, this has been brought up three times in a meeting. We're gonna want some sort of content on this.
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I don't know what it is yet. And then we need to loop back on it, you know, a week later.
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I think the other piece too is just, again, depending on how, you know, your wider marketing team operates, if you're a very events-driven company, for example, there are hopefully a lot of ways that you can be repurposing that content, so, like, that can help fill out your calendar too.
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I think the biggest thing is that, in my opinion, there should almost never be a shortage of ideas. Mm-hmm. It's more about trying to decide what you actually need to be writing about and what actually makes sense.
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And I think in today's world where, you know, the zero-click content and so many people are turning to social over or, you know, with the blogs and the more, like, long-form content, you really need to figure out, like, where it's gonna make the most impact.
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And that, I think, is a challenge that is, it is in every single business, but the answer to that is gonna be unique to every business, depending on, again, like, what you're trying to actually go out to market with.
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Yeah. Then you're... It's more of a idea prioritization question at that point.
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I think what you're getting at too is, like, how do you come up with ideas that have more, like, distribution baked in or will, like- Yeah... will get more attention.
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I think that's probably bigger conversation for another day that stresses me out. [laughs] Makes sense.
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Um, I think, like, one other little fun hack I have for, like, capturing ideas is that I made a little Slack automation that I can use. So say a person on sales is like, "Hey, we need so and so asset."
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I'll reply with a little hashtag that says hashtag content idea, and then I have a Zap that's, like, waiting for that trigger, and so it'll, like, add that to the list.
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The reason I like doing that is that it makes it, like, super visible to everybody else in the company that I'm building a list of ideas. That's a great idea.
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So it'll be like th- like this has been added to the list, and there's a link to it. Mm-hmm. And then they can't even see thatList, but they can like see that things have happened, and then that gives me kind of...
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It gives visibility that I'm open to ideas, and that our marketing team like wants suggestions. And then sometimes I'll even just put my own ideas right in Slack and put like #contentidea, and they can see that happen.
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Just so that like people see that I've like, I'm... And then sometimes people reply and say, "Oh, that's a great idea, and you could do X, Y, Z," and I get really good quick feedback that way.
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I mean, 90% of the time it just gets ignored, but it's creating internal visibility for like all the work that goes behind like even just coming up with ideas.
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I really like that idea, and I do think that is a lovely common misconception outside of our little content world- Yeah... is like no one knows where the content calendar comes from.
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And like I always say what we're publishing should never be a surprise. [laughs] But a lot of times it is, and I think that's a really good way. Also, yeah, like soliciting ideas from your company, you can do it.
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I personally like having the one-to-one conversations and- Mm-hmm... just making it more of a, yeah, like a concerted effort where...
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But I think that's a really good way to make someone just feel like heard and valued without sacrificing a lot of your time and energy. That's awesome. I might steal that.
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Well, that's a great place to end, with you thieving me of my great ideas once again. [laughs] So thank you everybody for listening to today's episode.
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Of course, if you want more brilliant ideas for content, you should join Superpath Pro Community, where there's always lots of interesting sort of prompts or questions that people have that trigger lots of good ideas, like related to content marketing or not.
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There's just lots of good stuff happening in there.
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So thanks for listening, and if you do have any ideas for Chloe and I to talk about every single week, please let us know on LinkedIn or Slack or wherever you can get ahold of us. We have an email, right? Yeah.
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Who, who knows what it is. We've never gotten an email. podcast@superpath.co, I believe, is the email. I'm still waiting for someone to email. Someone is just patiently waiting to, by that inbox to read your suggestions.
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[laughs] So please send them in. Awesome. Thanks everyone. Thanks all. [outro music]
