Do you ever struggle to find a topic for a blog post? I battled to find inspiration today. It's Thanksgiving in the USA, the country from which I originally hail, so maybe I'm having some sort of long buried resistance to working on a holiday. As I watched the clock tick away valuable writing hours, I knew exactly how to solve my problem. I'll let you in on a sure-fire way to find inspiration.
Fluoro-orange, it's so 1980s
On the bottom shelf of my desk sits a fat, fluorescent orange folder with "MKTG RPTS" scribbled across it. Inside is a jackpot of ideas. In the course of my normal internet surfing, I come across all sorts of surveys, reports, research findings, white papers and case studies related to my area of interest – marketing and content marketing. I rarely have time to digest the data contained in these reports when I come across them. I make a habit of printing a hardcopy of the best ones and jam them in my folder.
You're probably wondering why I don't use a bookmarking system. I do, but I've discovered a hard copy is an extremely valuable resource. I keep notes scribbled on the paper documents, key phrases underlined and highlighted, and post-it tabs on pages I know will be useful in the future. My current file has reports from:
- MarketingProfs
- Junta42
- Content Marketing Institute
- American Business Media
- Marketing Sherpa
- Social Media Examiner
- Hubspot
- Super Hero Marketing
- Unica
- Tips Products International
While some of these organisations were not familiar to me when I found their data, it's all proved valuable to my writing over the past six months. Flipping through the reports I can see exactly what ground I've covered in the past and, importantly, find nuggets of information I have yet to extrapolate into my blog. With research findings or hard data to kick-start the writing process, I can usually find the topic for a good post.
The Take-Away
I'm a big fan of technology but have discovered benefits to using an old-fashioned technique to motivate my writing. Digging through a worn folder loaded with dog-eared surveys is a great way to come up with new ideas. It also keeps me aware of annual reports and mindful of the time I need to start looking for updated research. Today, on this American national holiday of gratitude, I'm really glad for my old-school habit of printing and reading hard copy.
What do you do when you're stuck for an idea?
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