Diversify your writers
If your goal is to be recognized as a thought leader, the content you choose must not only be engaging, but should breathe life into other ideas. It’s best to hire writers that can hone your thoughts and come up with brilliant topics that make a difference.
Use an idea generator
Using a content idea generator can help your content strategy add humor, insight, and variety to your topics to develop interesting titles and points of view.
Start from within
Your content marketing team should have a strong relationship with other departments of your organization to find out what makes the company run. Even if it’s a small company, getting input from team players can help in determining what types of content will be interesting to your target audience.
There’s something funny about how the best ideas sometimes come from the most unlikely sources. Someone from accounting pipes up in a meeting about a problem they solved, and suddenly you’ve got a whole new angle for a blog post. And honestly, people love to peek behind the curtain; company culture posts, a day-in-the-life, or even a simple “here’s how we make this work” story lands surprisingly well. It turns your brand into real faces and real voices, not just logos or official statements. Those offbeat details might just be more interesting than you’d expect.
Tell a story
One of the best content concepts for industries is to tell an engaging story that not only pulls the reader in, but demonstrates how to do something, whether it’s solve a problem, put something together, or deal with others. The story should be interesting enough where your audience deems it worthy of sharing.
Provide shock value
Starting your content off with a “Did you know?” or topic that could be considered risqué could work well in providing an interesting start to your content pieces. Controversy and shock value does well when engaging your audience. This is a perfect time to address those areas and topics that no one else in your industry wants to touch. Studying infographs and other statistical information for your industry can assist in providing all the content you need to make this work.
Of course, there’s a line between “shock” and “just desperate for clicks,” and it moves around depending on your industry and your readers’ sensibilities. But sometimes, framing a common piece of advice with a blunt or slightly provocative intro does the trick. People tend to remember the posts that make them stop and either laugh, wince, or even roll their eyes—at least they’re feeling something. If you can mix a bold opening with solid research or a genuinely helpful takeaway, you’ve got a winning combo. Don’t be afraid to test the limits a bit; just, you know, keep it on the right side of cringey.
Step away from your industry
Your content does not always have to be centered on your specific industry. Diversification is one of the best things you can do to not only shake things up, but give your audience something different. What other industries do you work with? Are there any specific products you use that are not manufactured by your company? Is there something of relevance going on globally that is thought-provoking enough to give you credibility with your readers? All of these things work to your benefit and can keep your readers on their feet. The more diverse content you introduce, the more they will want to see what you have to say.
These are just a few ways you can come up with interesting content concepts that will engage your readers and help position you as an authority that has more to offer. Keeping things light, interesting and “different” will provide a captive audience every time.
