How to tap an endless supply of content creation ideas

And avoid boring brand content

One of the key challenges in content marketing is being able to create enough great content. Great? OK, maybe that’s vague, I mean relevant, engaging and it works. Great means different things to a financial services company than say, a BBQ grill manufacturer, a basmati rice brand or sports clothing manufacturer.

The truth is we all have the same challenge when it come to content creation and content marketing – creating dull content is a choice, it’s your choice.

“If people aren’t talking about you, they’re not talking about you for a reason. And the reason isn’t that they dislike you. They’re not talking about you because you’re boring.” ~ Seth Godin

People first…

Use your imagination, take a step back and think about your target audience, not your brand. What your audience needs over what you want to promote. It’s this return to people where it get’s so much easier for ideas generation. Persona creation is a great way to cluster customer segments where there’s meaningful differences – but not demographics alone, that’s a red herring:

• What do they believe?


• What are they seeking online and what’s their lifestyle in the real world?


• Who do they trust, and why?


• What do they talk about, what are their interests and preferences?


• How can I engage them in discussion in these issues in a conversational, entertaining or educational way?


• Yes, this applies to B2B too

If the above isn’t enough to press the reset button, then let’s take those answers and use a range of free tools to spark more ideas.

Mix it up. Content marketing software Curata claim best-in-Class marketers use 65% originally created content, 25% curated content and 10% syndicated content in their content marketing mix. My experience is that the original content is more powerful too, so let’s focus on practical ideas for just that…

Solve problems with Google’s guidance. Use Google’s instant (predictive) search feature to see what popular searches come up. What do these suggestions spark ideas wise? How are competing pages answering those searches? Also check out Google’s ‘Related Searches’ at the bottom of the search engine results pages.

Repeat, with YouTube. As the world’s second largest search engine there’s a wealth of content for inspiration if you use the similar instant search feature, browse the results, what’s popular?

Repeat, with Facebook’s Open graph search. It’s a new feature for UK user’s and (I think?) still rolling out this side of the Atlantic. Here’s a great post on using it.

Yahoo! Answers & Quora. These are huge platforms when it comes to detailed questions and answers about everything imaginable. There’s better quality in Quora, I find. You’ll get direct ideas from hundred of questions, the patterns across them and of course the answers that resonated with the community.

LinkedIn Groups. Though specific to B2B and professional services in the most part, you can get great ideas on topical themes in LinkedIn and especially the niche interest groups, much like Quora and Yahoo! Answers.

Read niche content sites, blogs posts and reader’s reactions and comments. My best ideas come from other people’s quality content, it makes me feel something and inspired to do my own thing, for my audience.

Your previous content, customers and competitors. Customers are a great source, naturally. It’s really a case of asking the right questions whether in person or via occasional surveys. As with your own, previous content, your competitor’s is also useful as an alternative barometer of what’s popular or not with your customers. What do they say in comments?

Popular, of-the-moment news or trends in Twitter. What is/would your audience think about what’s popular this week, view it through their lens, any ideas?

Lastly, remember to keep the content naturally-you more often that not, this frees your focus to create quality. Be yourself instead of doing video-blogging because you’re inspired by Gary Vaynerchuck and Wine Library TV. Where are your natural talents and/or access to resources for easy, consistent content creation? Conversely, do the unexpected sometimes, remember Coke’s 70–20–10, think about the ‘10’ here.

Any further ideas that you can share in the comments?

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6 Benefits of SMS Marketing

Reasons why you should consider text message marketing as part of your customer communications

As more brands look to target customers on the move, SMS is becoming an increasingly essential part of effective multi-channel marketing. However, with few digital marketing agencies featuring SMS as a core offering, their clients are potentially missing out on communications with customers and increased ROI.

Organisations mistakenly believe that mobile marketing requires heavy investment in apps and does not allow for personalised, targeted communication and lacks strong analysis to support ROI. The reality is that access to mobile communications is far easier than perceived and gaining access to mobile consumers (smartphone and non-smartphone) can be as simple as sending a personalised, targeted text message. The means to instigate two-way SMS messaging between a company and their mobile users is essential to building a brand in households around the world provided consumer privacy is protected through legal requirements for opt-in.

In this post we will summarise the key findings from our latest whitepaper which we explain in our webinar on The benefits of using SMS in your marketing mix and discuss why SMS should be used in a communications mix as well as looking at how it can be used as part of a multi-channel strategy for engaging with customers across the customer lifecycle.

1. It’s a direct, immediate channel

SMS is one of the most immediate channels available; with a read rate of 97% within 15 minutes delivery, you can be reassured that your time critical messages will be read almost instantly. A significant 45% of SMS campaigns generate a successful ROI, reaching over 50% when combined with other popular channels such as email and social media.

2. You can use shortcodes to simplify response and build your database

Have your customers make the first move by adding a shortcode or keyword to print collateral, advertisements and advertising boards as well as social media. This strategy means that customers soon become familiar with a brand’s code and keyword and are therefore more likely to interact and respond.

3. It can support and integrate with other channels

It is important that all channels work well together within the marketing mix and SMS is no exception. SMS is a great standalone channel, however it also has the ability to enhance and support other marketing mediums, such as social media and email.

As well as being great on its own, SMS can also function to enhance and support other popular mediums among consumers, such as social media and email.

For example they can serve to remind customers to read an email sent by a brand hours or even days before. A simple follow up SMS asking “have you read our email?” can help increase email open rates by 20%–30%.

4. You can learn more about your customers

SMS is a great channel to get feedback from your customers via surveys. Research shows that on average 31% of consumers will respond to a survey via SMS with the average response time for users being just over 5 minutes. Meaning you can get great results in a short period of time.

5. You can increase customer engagement

Think of SMS as a way to enhance how your brand engages with your customers across the entire customer lifecycle. Businesses should remember to vary the type of content they send out – while customers may value updates and news on forthcoming developments within the brand, this information is best delivered via email where longer, more creative messaging is more appropriate.

Although marketers may feel that texting is invasive, many consumers are now familiar with text from when using local services like dentists, garages or hairdressers or public services like the NHS. This is a great example of how the NHS is engaging its audience in an admittedly high-engagement occasion!

Additionally, brands can use texting for more immediate, expected sales-related offers such as vouchers, discounts, promotions or even birthday messages.

6. Response data enables you to monitor, track and improve

Tracking meaningful ROI, identifying customers engaging via text message and monitoring delivery rates are all possible through SMS revealing the realities to the misconception of SMS being an untrackable channel and bringing it more in line with what has been possible with email for years.

By using these analytics, businesses can create further targeted campaigns and continually build a better understanding of their mobile database. Not only does it mean they save money and improve ROI but by profiling and segmenting out numbers that are least likely to respond, SMS allows a company to target those customers via email or another channel.

For more details on how to use SMS, with examples, sign up to our webinar on Thursday 20th March at 2pm GMT.

Thanks to Becky Hesilridge for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Becky is the Social Media & Online PR manager at Pure360. You can follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

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The biggest barriers to online purchase? [Infographic]

Statistics on consumer psychology on Ecommerce sites

Have you ever wondered about which are the biggest consumer concerns that are a barrier to online purchase? For example, what is the perception if your website page is slow to load, what consumers actually think about your videos or if on-line vouchers affect the decision to buy. Of course, the best way is to ask consumer direct, by a panel of customers or through conducting a usability test. But as a quick alternative, check out the research we have compiled in the new Vouchercloud infographic on consumer buying psychology.

The findings tell you some of the ‘statistics and habits behind the clicks’: 31% of consumers would be more likely to buy a product after watching a video since it reinforces their confidence, and 41% would abandon the shopping cart if there were hidden charges.

More useful resources on e-commerce

• Ominichannel E-Commerce Satisfaction Drivers


• Improve conversions after the click


• Using Psychology to increase conversion


• Avoiding Conversion Trap Paths

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A guide to running an effective Discovery process

How digital agencies and consultants can use Discovery to improve the value they deliver to their clients

Over the last couple of years I have seen an increasing focus amongst agencies on improving their client discovery projects. In this article, I describe a process I recommend to run effective discovery.

The post is aimed at marketing and in particular digital marketing agencies and consultants, but client-side marketing teams looking to review their position in the market may also find it useful.

More details on the questions to ask during discover are available in this client discovery process template I have developed for Expert members. You may also find the brand audit in the Smart Insights Agency Toolkit useful.

The term “Discovery” is not used universally, so let’s start with the obvious “what?” and “why?” questions.

What is discovery?

The term discovery graces a lot of agency process charts on pitches but what do we mean by it and what is its value? My view is that the purpose of the discovery stage of a project and the insight that is delivered from it ensures we produce marketing assets and campaigns that are relevant, engaging and effective for our (or our clients) audience and eventual customers.

Anthony Iannarino has a useful definition of client discovery :

“Discovery is about learning what your client needs, their strategic indicatives, their goals, and their outcomes. Discovery work is what allows you to neatly tie anything you propose to what your client needs and to tailor it to those specific needs”.

So, discovery is about collating and analyzing insights about brands, their competitors and most importantly, the characteristics, beliefs, behaviour and perceptions of their audiences. It should involve undertaking as thorough an investigation as possible (within real world constraints) of a range of research data that is pertinent to the engagement you are involved in.

By that I mean that if you have an open brief from a client (and subject to budget or your own pre-agreed time investment) you will look at ‘everything’, for example: the overall market, existing marketing initiatives and their efficacy, brand metrics, social network insights, existing customer, prospects or stakeholders and their personas

But more likely you will focus on discrete areas of discovery to serve a specific client brief or set of marketing objectives: ‘Market / marketplace discovery ‘, ‘social media landscape discovery’, ‘campaign effectiveness discovery’, ‘website /ecommerce efficacy discovery’ etc.

Why do discovery?

It’s simple, discovery enables agencies and consultants to formulate robust insights about the business of their clients that leads to well-written creative, content, technical and marketing (e.g. media / channel selection) briefs. This in turn should then lead to the best solutions possible, be they content strategies, SEO, website build initiatives or broader integrated marketing campaigns.

So, the aim of discovery is to eliminate hunches and subjective views and instead create sound, defensible rationale for the marketing approaches and proposals that will be subsequently discussed and implemented with clients.

The depth and breadth of activity undertaken within a discovery exercise should and will flex; depending on the requirement and timescales and budgets involved. But even if flex is involved you should always look to undertake discovery – even a ‘small’ site build or inbound marketing campaign requires some due diligence before launching.

Who should look after discovery?

The answer to “who?”, depends on the size and specialisation of the agency, but a Planner in larger agencies or a senior account handler will probably lead it with a good strategic (and organised!) head in smaller agencies. Their role is to act as the conductor of the orchestra, as it were, since will work with other team members to look at data / research sources, triangulate findings and ensure thinking is coordinated.

Whoever leads the process, they are looking to:

• agree exactly what hypotheses or objectives are being addressed


• manage who is looking at what within the team


• triangulate the findings and resultant insight from the disparate research and data sources.

And are also keeping an eye on the timeframe and budget / resources that is being worked to, to create a robust, (and as mention earlier, defensible) rationale for the insights and proposals that will subsequently be discussed with client.

Charging and paying for discovery

Any discovery activity will take time (even if that may flex depending on the circumstances of the engagement), but even a shortened discovery phase should be costed out. The due diligence and thorough research that the agency will complete and the robust insights gained will only strengthen any campaigns or projects that are subsequently created. Agencies shouldn’t give away their thinking time for free in order to secure a ‘commodity’ service e.g. site builds, email production, SEO management etc.

That’s a perennial debate, up there with pitch fees of course, but one you should keep to when and where you can. Having said that, an amount of discovery will inevitably always be needed pre-sale e.g. at pitch stage or in order to recommend an overarching strategy. In that case you should invest a pre-agreed amount of time (normally agreed between the new business director and account director or board director etc.) for ‘discovery-lite’ – and stick to it. Demonstrating to your client or prospect that you have some robust initial insight based on due diligence / discovery will go a long way to selling in a solution. The level of investment you make (multiples of in-house time and / or any externally commissioned research) will depend on the potential long term worth of the client business to you.

Discovery workstreams

‘Discovery’ is a bit of a catch-all term for a range of separate research gathering and data assimilation workstreams and can involve things like desk research, face to face or distance interviews with client teams or customer groups and the use of different software platforms to mine information. Each piece of work can be substantial and in a larger agency may be completed by different team members, hence ‘workstreams’.

In the second part of this article, I will explain 9 activities that can form the workstreams for the discovery process.

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Are Your Values Worth More Than Your Profits?

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