How to Get the Best from Your Content Brainstorming Session

‘The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away’

– Nobel Prize winner Linus Paulings.

Good content is created by asking a simple question, ‘how do I add real value?’ That’s a big question – one that requires considered thought and the involvement of a strong team with different skills, perspectives and ideas.

Getting all your ideas out there and mapping the how, when and why can only be done through brainstorming. This is how you’ll create content that engages, inspires, motivates and sells.

Here’s how to get the best from any content brainstorming session.

How to Brainstorm

Coming up with ideas isn’t the hard part of brainstorming. The hard part is weeding out the good ideas from the bad. All too often ideas snowball, with one epiphany leading to another, and another and another. The danger of this process is that it can lead to a loss of focus. The trick is to pinpoint and refine your ideas.

Good and Bad Content Ideas

Do you want to stamp your authority with shrewd, yet impactful brand awareness? Do you want to reach more buyer personas? Do you want to increase revenue? All this begins with content brainstorming.

Getting all your ideas out there for your colleagues to consider is crucial. Google docs is very handy for collaboration. Documents can be shared with ease and real time changes made, allowing for multiple opinions. Two heads are always better than one!

Think about your experience, and the experiences of your colleagues. With your collective knowledge, how can you collaborate to ensure the very best customer experience?

Don’t make the mistake of not contributing to a session because you think your idea unfeasible. It may just be workable, and become integral to your strategy.

How to Turn Ideas into Content

With your ideas refined, the next stage is to collaborate on an action plan and strategy. Here’s how you turn ideas into a content strategy that delivers results.

Address Each of Your Buyer Personas

When developing content, you should always have your buyer personas at the forefront of your mind. This will allow you to tailor your content to each persona, addressing their individual needs.

Mapping the Buyer Journey

At the initial stage of the buyer journey, all the content you create needs to be geared towards demonstrating that you’re aware of the challenges faced by each of your personas. As such, all the content you create must reflect this. This is the awareness stage.

Your content should be informative and helpful. This means that you need to build trust by providing helpful resources that answer any questions your buyer personas may have. A series of informative blog topics is a great way to build awareness. Once that trust has been established, each of your buyer personas should be convinced that your solutions benefit them.

Your content should address the key decision-making factors of buyers. Statistical comparisons and infographics is a simple way to demonstrate your prowess. This is the consideration stage.

Lastly, you’ll need to provide value and manage expectations. This is your opportunity to show each of your personas why they should choose you, above your competitors. This is the decision stage.

developing content for the buyers journey

All content created should focus on each buyer persona and how you intend to meet their individual expectations and fulfil your promises.

Executing the Strategy

Once you’ve addressed your personas and decided upon the content you wish to create, you’ll need to decide how you intend to publish your content.

The goal is to guide each buyer persona along a journey that engages them at every stage and compels them to act at the decision stage. Always employ strategic thinking. What type of content have you decided on? How and when do you intend to publish your content? These are questions your brainstorming session should answer.

The best content strategies are those that reflect each stage of the buyer journey. You should hook buyers, then demonstrate you understand their needs before finally demonstrating how you meet those needs.

Refine the Process

Even the best content strategy can be refined to achieve a greater ROI. Analysing its success rate is paramount to enjoying ongoing success. You should always monitor how your content is performing. How many comments do certain blog posts have? How often has your content lead to an enquiry? Of those enquiries, how may have turned into sales?

Once you have compiled all the data, use this in your next content brainstorming session. This will allow you to make improvements and create better and better content!