“I’m bored with content marketing,” the self-publishing author confessed. “I need some better ideas.”
Everyone gets bored, me included, but if you’re running a small business, you need to market. In a sense, marketing is easier for writers and authors; writing and developing ideas is what we do.
In another sense, I completely understand this author. After a few hours of writing, the last thing you want to do is write more.
So how do you get a fresh burst of excitement and energy?
Content marketing: get fresh ideas
A fresh idea inspires you, and inspiration delivers energy, even when you’re bored.
When I get bored, I explore my favorite sources of ideas:
- Magazine covers;
- Kindle highlights;
- Lists of words and hashtags.
Images kickstart your subconscious processes. I’ve often written about magazine covers as a source of inspiration. You can explore magazine covers online, or visit a bookshop.
Magazine publishers know their audience. They spend a lot of money on researching the content which will appeal to readers. Magazine covers need to motivate their audience and trigger them to read and buy.
Muse over some covers for a few minutes. Wait for your subconscious mind to deliver some ideas…
These days, I read on my tablet more than I read print. I can collect inspiring ideas and words. I highlight prolifically: anything which makes me think—or smile.
So, when I’m bored, I spend a few moments on Kindle Highlights.
I just checked my highlights and found this amusing highlight from The October Horse (Masters of Rome Book 6) by Colleen McCullough:
“As for you, Marcus Brutus, take heed of my words—there is to be no debt collecting in our absence, is that understood? You can have a propraetorian imperium to govern, but if you take so many as one lictor to enforce payments from Romans or provincials, I swear I’ll string you up by whatever balls you have.”
The above words make me smile and suddenly I’m not bored any longer. Now I want to write. Not anything related to Roman history; some content marketing projects I’m developing for clients.
Colleen McCullough’s words helped trigger my own.
Which brings us to word lists; for me, they’re another reliable source of inspiration. I simply start listing words, either down the page in my journal, or on the computer screen. And then… Within moments, I want to write.
Find your own sources of inspiration, then use them when you’re tired and bored.
1. Find your own reliable sources of inspiration
Pay attention to what inspires you.
Perhaps you get inspired when you’re hiking, or listening to music. Maybe a movie inspires you…
We’re all different. Something will trigger inspiration in you. Once you know what that is, you’re golden. You can become inspired at will and content marketing will no longer hold any terrors for you.
2. Write quick drafts: a title and a list
When you’re struggling for ideas, start listing titles, the more outrageous the better. Aim for silliness and humor. Chances are you won’t use any of your titles, you just want collections of words and thoughts.
If all you can write is variations of: I’m bored, bored, bored… Excellent. They’re words.
Keep writing.
Sooner, rather than later, you’ll get bored with your own boredom and real ideas will emerge.
Write a list of titles. (For articles, blog posts, books, whatever.)
Choose two or three and make a list of what you could include in this article or book.
Try the tips and develop your own content marketing inspiration
The self-publishing author who was bored found inspiration. She joined a local writers’ group. “At our last meeting, a couple of the writers there gave me some great ideas for content,” she told me.
She wasn’t bored any longer. 🙂
Have fun finding your own sources of inspiration.
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Photo by Mona Eendra on Unsplash
Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
