Consistently publishing high-quality content is one of the best ways for businesses to earn attention and build trust with discerning audiences. Most marketing and communications leaders already know this. The hard part is actually doing it: keeping that rhythm going quarter after quarter. It requires (among other things) a continuous commitment to coming up with new topics—and that can start to feel difficult after a while.
There are the obvious areas teams turn to when planning content topics—common challenges, recurring problems, frequently asked questions—and those are important. But most companies also have a much deeper well of ideas, perspectives, and insights they’re not always sharing—the kind that, when translated into substantive content, are valuable to prospective buyers and existing clients alike.
While it’s impossible to prescribe exactly what you should publish without first understanding your content strategy, here are some categories we use as starting points for our clients when they think the well is starting to run dry.
4 Starting Points for Developing Content Topics
Use these categories to fuel your next content brainstorming session. Consider them a map to the buried treasure hiding in your organization.
1. Preparing for Partnership
Strong client relationships are grounded in clear expectations and a mutual commitment to working well together. Content can do a surprising amount of the work required to achieve this alignment well before it’s time to sign a contract. By addressing the operational realities of how you work—what makes projects run smoothly, where friction tends to arise, and how both sides can collaborate effectively—you help prospective clients understand what a successful partnership actually looks like. Questions to ask:
- What do we wish clients understood about how the work really gets done?
- Where do we often run into issues in client engagements?
- What does effective collaboration with our company entail?
2. Common Misconceptions
Even the most highly experienced buyers have biases and assumptions—some accurate, some flat-out wrong—about the services they need and the companies that provide them. Addressing this thinking head-on helps position you as a source of helpful information, contributing to trust and credibility over time. It also lowers the barrier to a productive conversation. Start here:
- What does our industry tend to oversimplify?
- What do clients consistently misunderstand about our services?
- Where do expectations typically need to be reset or clarified?
3. Secret Sauce
You already know that differentiating your brand from the competition means communicating what makes your business unique. That’s what a stellar value proposition is for, and chances are, you’re already using that to inform your content. But why not go a step deeper? Sharing what we like to call your “secret sauce”—the processes, approaches, and frameworks that aren’t always obvious to people outside your organization—builds credibility by helping buyers connect the dots between the services you provide and the value you promise. Consider these questions:
- What do we do differently from others in our field, even if it feels routine to us?
- What steps or considerations go into our work that clients rarely see?
- What internal processes can we highlight to give buyers confidence?
4. Pulse Check
Talking only about your company and the services you provide can quickly make your content come across as narrow or self-focused. Content can—and should—reflect an ongoing awareness of what’s happening in the industry at large and offer an informed perspective.
That doesn’t mean every organization needs to comment on every headline. In some industries, there may not be a constant stream of developments worth weighing in on—and that’s okay. What matters is relevance and timing. A well-placed, thoughtful perspective on a topic that matters to your audience can go a long way toward demonstrating that you understand the landscape and are actively thinking about what it means for the people you serve. Begin by asking:
- What are our customers thinking about right now?
- What have I seen, read, experienced, or heard about in the industry lately?
- What broader events or trends relate to our business?
When In Doubt, Look to Your Internal Experts
One of the most reliable ways to sustain content programs over time is to cast a wider net across your organization. Internal experts are a deep and often underutilized source of content topics. Engineers, technical specialists, product marketers, customer-facing teams, executives—each brings a different perspective influenced by their priorities and proximity to the work.
When you turn to internal experts, you often uncover topics you wouldn’t have thought about otherwise. The work they’re doing quietly, every day, tends to contain the specifics and nuance your audience cares about. In fact, internal experts can support the development of content in all the categories already listed.
Experts are such valuable and reliable sources of content that we developed an entire approach to capture their knowledge, expertise, and insights. We’ve put this approach to work for companies across industries—from pharma and life sciences to consulting and professional services—and have yet to run out of ideas for even our most long-term clients.
You can learn more about our expert-led content approach here. Or, if you’d rather talk it through, book a call.
