How to Generate Unique Content Ideas with Agency Copywriters on nDash

Ideation doesn’t have to be challenging – leverage agency copywriters on nDash to handle this task for you.

Challenges Brands Face with Content Creation

From year to year, how brands view content marketing changes. Yes, the bones of it are still there – creating and sharing relevant content with audiences. There’s been a shift from promoting products and services toward creating engaging and enriching experiences with prospects.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If brands know their audience finds value in their content, there’s a greater chance of conversions.

But how do they know?

Sometimes, they don’t know where to start, as Tammy Sproule, ETQ’s former Director of Content, explains, “One of the challenges our marketing team constantly faces is developing relevant, compelling ideas for specific content topics; the nDash team consistently brings good ideas to the table, arming us with compelling, lead-generating content.”

Ideation is a common challenge among brands regarding content creation. Additional challenges include the following:

Consistency: Brands know they must generate content that answers specific questions, educates prospects about products and services, and helps users find specific pages. The challenge is consistently coming up with unique ideas and creating content to meet those needs.
Content saturation: Without proper research backing ideas, it’s easy for brands to generate content that’s already been posted several times. Because they may lack the time, ensuring they’re not sharing topics already saturating the market is a challenge.
Keeping up with trends: Brands might be subscribed to industry newsletters and RSS feeds. But what happens when there’s no time to read those materials? It’s a missed opportunity to take ideas from that information and create content.
Resource constraints: Even with large teams, in-house teams might have packed schedules. There’s no time to ideate, organize, or plan for content, let alone create it.

One common theme among these challenges is time constraints. Leveraging agency copywriters for content creation helps solve that pain point.

The Importance of Creating Unique Content

Human-first content . . .

That phrase has been on everyone’s mind since AI-generated content hit the scene. Even though Google isn’t specifically penalizing this type of content, you can see from the update above that human content will always win out.

That’s where creating unique content grows in importance. With some brands using AI to generate full drafts and not checking anything before publishing, lacking human touch means it isn’t unique content.

Prioritizing human-first content is important for the following reasons:

Audience engagement: When audiences read something they haven’t seen before, they’re more likely to share it with others and read more of the brand’s content.
Differentiating: Unique content helps brands differentiate by sharing information that isn’t already saturating the marketplace. Instead, they’re offering fresh perspectives.
Evergreen and long-term value: Creating unique content that remains relevant over time provides more value than content replicating existing ideas.
Originality: If AI generates content, it lacks originality. Some perceive this as plagiarized content, while others believe it’s just a machine rewriting someone else’s original thoughts. Unique content prevents these problems.
SEO: Users want to read original and trustworthy content, so search engines prioritize results that give them just that – human-first content.
Thought Leadership and brand authority: When brands create unique content, they showcase their knowledge and expertise in a given subject area or industry.

Yes – you want to differentiate from the competition. Creating unique content is more than that, though. It’s also about adding value, establishing authority, and building relationships. But, again, ideation must happen first.

Benefits of Collaborating with Agency Copywriters During Ideation

Once you lay down the foundation for your content strategy, collaborating with agency copywriters during the ideation phase takes it to a new level.

It’s no secret that content managers know its value. According to CoSchedule, they might dedicate 70% of their time to ideation or distribution and end up neglecting other important tasks.”

But therein lies the problem – think about how much time that is and how that time could be better spent elsewhere. Here are some benefits of collaboration with agency copywriters when ideating:

Clear messaging: Agency copywriters are skilled in creating clear messages. Including them in the ideation phase helps refine the campaign’s core messaging, thus ensuring it’s communicated clearly.
Collaborative brainstorming: When you receive ideas from writers on the nDash platform, there are opportunities to add messages to help enhance or refine each one.
Efficiency: Because we work with such a large pool of freelancers, we can tap into our community and gather dozens of ideas in a matter of days.
Fresh perspectives: The subject matter expertise found in our community means brands receive insightful and unique perspectives on specific topics and industry verticals.
Strategic thinking: When given keywords or topics, nDash’s writers take that information and think strategically about how to research and come up with the highest quality ideas. If the content is data-driven, they also provide a list of sources.

By leveraging agency copywriters early in the process, it’s possible to tap into their expertise to level up your content strategy.

Where to Start? Establish Content Goals

There are a few steps to take before anyone puts pen to paper or starts tapping away at their keyboard. Establishing content development goals provide guiding principles that help shape the direction and purpose of your content strategy. Ensuring your content aligns with your overall business objectives is challenging without this framework.

Some factors to consider when establishing content goals include the following:

Brand awareness
Customer engagement
Lead generation
Promotional efforts
Thought leadership

Identify Your Target Audience

If the writers you’re working with don’t understand your target audience, it’s impossible for them to ideate. With less than half of content marketers – 47% – researching their target audience, it’s clear that prioritizing this step will help you differentiate.

Research your audience’s demographics, interests, needs, and pain points using the following techniques:

Analyzing website analytics
Conducting surveys
Leveraging customer feedback
Monitoring social media

Taking this step ensures that your brand creates relevant and impactful content for your intended audience.

What Are Your Objectives?

Once you’ve established your content goals and identified your target audience, it’s time to define your objectives for each piece of content. Clearly mapping out your content’s objectives allows you to understand the direction and purpose of your content.

That understanding helps you measure the content’s effectiveness and success. Common objectives may include the following:

Boosting brand engagement on social media
Establishing thought leadership in your industry
Generating leads
Increasing website traffic
Promoting new products or services

Brainstorming Techniques Agency Copywriters Use During Ideation

Good ideas don’t come out of thin air. Our community of elite freelance writers uses several techniques when ideating, including gap analysis, mind mapping, and SWOT analysis.

Here are some specifics about that:

Gap analysis: While gap analysis isn’t necessarily considered a brainstorming technique, it’s a valuable tool freelance writers can use to generate ideas and identify content opportunities. This analysis helps them understand the existing content landscape, pinpoint areas where there’s a lack of information or where improvements can be made, and then develop content ideas to fill those gaps.
Mind mapping: Mind mapping allows agency copywriters to visually organize and explore ideas, connections, and relationships related to a specific topic or project. It helps stimulate creativity, generate new ideas, and provide structure to the ideation process.
SWOT Analysis: This acronym stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This framework helps freelancers evaluate the internal and external factors related to a topic. By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a brand’s content or the opportunities and threats in its industry, writers can come up with ideas to leverage strengths or address gaps.
Trend Analysis: Freelancers stay updated with the latest trends and identify emerging topics or interests within a brand’s industry or niche. They explore social media platforms, industry news, forums, RSS feeds, and other sources to uncover high-quality ideas. This framework helps them create timely content that resonates with the brand’s target audience.

Collaboration Tools to Enhance Ideation with Agency Copywriters on nDash

Our team knows the struggles brands face when trying to come up with ideas. So, we’ve taken steps to help streamline the process from when you receive your first idea to organizing workflows after that.

Ideas & Pitching

Would you like to send specific idea requests to our pool of freelance writers? You can send requests to specific writers or post an open call to specific writing communities.

Freelance writers fill out the following sections when submitting ideas and pitches:

Title: If you don’t specify a title, the writer proposes one.
Abstract: This section summarizes the idea or the approach the writer would like to take when working on the project.
Turnaround: Here, the writer gives you a timeframe for which they can deliver (i.e., Turnaround: 5 business days).
Price: If you don’t specify a rate, the writer proposes one here.
Note: Writers typically use this section to add information about their background and links to relevant writing samples.

Collaborative Content Calendars

Once brands accept a pitch and agree on a turnaround time, the assignment automatically populates onto the content calendar on nDash’s platform. That way, everyone from the team can see who is working on what. These calendars also allow brands to add notes on specific days.

For example, suppose you want to focus on a specific theme for July, and you know you want to publish every Tuesday and Thursday. Use the notes feature to start brainstorming what you’d like those posts to be about. Then, send an idea request out to the nDash community, so they can help you fill in those slots.

You’ll also find specific labels for each assignment, including:

In progress: The writer is currently working on the assignment
Submitted for approval: You or someone from your team can review the content
Complete: The assignment is approved and ready to publish
Past due: Either the assignment wasn’t turned in or reviewed by the due date

Project Management

If you feel like the process is too overwhelming for your schedule, you can work with a project manager. This individual is your point of contact within the platform and via email. They’re responsible for the following:

Sending out idea requests based on conversations you have with them regarding specific needs (i.e., you want ten ideas focusing on the keyword “supply chain”)
Assigning work once you give feedback on and approve ideas
Proofreading content after writers submit
Communicating with your teams if they have specific content requests
Managing your brand’s content schedule

How Agency Copywriters Research Trending Topics When Ideating

One of the biggest benefits of working with agency copywriters is their ability to dive deep into research – including during ideation. They closely monitor social media, monitor news and media outlets, and use tools like Google Trends.

Additionally, they study industry reports, conduct surveys and interviews, analyze competitor content, explore trending content, and attend industry events and conferences. This multifaceted approach ensures their copy remains relevant, engaging, and aligned with your brand’s messaging and content goals.

The Benefits of Staying Current with Trends

We can all see how things are changing – our social media feeds don’t look anything like they did two years ago. Blog content has gone from short 250-500 word posts to long-form content. And there’s a growing demand for video and interactive content.

When writers have their finger on the pulse regarding how content is changing, it helps them better identify and stay current with various trends. This is beneficial for several reasons, including:

Competitive advantage: Instead of churning out the same content as competitors, brands can trust that the content they outsource to agency copywriters is unique and relevant because their ideas are based on current trends.
Engagement: When something is trending, it’s a topic on everyone’s mind. Therefore, there are more opportunities for genuine engagement.
Relevance: When you know writers are creating relevant content, you stand a better chance of ensuring it’s relevant to your audience.
Shareability: Audiences want new information, and when a topic is trending, they’ll seek out as much content as they can about it. If your content aligns with those searches, there’s a greater chance of it being shared.

So, say there’s a trending topic you’d like to cover on your blog, but you’re unsure where to start. For example, it might be about digital twin technology. When you send an idea request, you can ask writers to submit ideas about this topic and research its current trends. Examples of those ideas might include:

Empowering digital twins with Artificial intelligence (AI)
Providing better user experiences across multiple devices
The increased adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT)

Turn to nDash’s Agency Copywriters to Generate High-Quality and Unique Ideas

Are you looking for fresh perspectives? Do you want to rank for a specific keyword? By tapping into nDash’s freelance writer community, you no longer have to struggle with coming up with unique ideas. They’re experts in staying on top of trends, maintaining consistency, identifying content gaps, and avoiding content saturation. Contact us today to learn how our talent pool can help you with ideation.