By Dheeraj Saxena | March 6th, 2018
Strategic content marketing is all about creating content that aligns a brand’s interests with end-user value. This content is generated using a repeatable process, rather than as an ad-hoc afterthought that is simply designed to trick search engines to give higher SERP results.
A robust content marketing strategy is crucial for success; in fact, 70% of content marketers reported having a strong content strategy as of 2023, indicating a growing recognition of its importance in driving engagement and achieving business goals.
Content ideation, or the process of formally identifying, prioritizing and elaborating content ideas is a critical component of this strategy. The process is so diverse and comprehensive, that it deserves a dedicated role of a content ideation specialist.
This article describes the three key stages of content ideation process and builds a case for why companies should look to onboard a content ideation specialist rather than club content ideation responsibilities with those of other roles like a content writer or a content marketing strategist.
What is content ideation?
Content ideation is a framework-driven approach to generating content ideas in b2b content marketing. It involves generating ideas that resonate with your audience and align with your brand’s objectives. Here’s a closer look at what is involved:
3 step process of content ideation
1. Title Research and Idea Identification
A well-researched title narrows down the focus of your content and helps in building an outline. Title research can involve multiple techniques, including:
- Using content ideation tools and topic generators
- Tracking news aggregators
- Utilizing bookmark managers (e.g., Feedly, Evernote, Pocket)
- Reviewing personal notes
- Analyzing competitors’ content
- Evaluating past performance of similar titles
- Reviewing content audit reports to identify gaps
2. Idea Approval Process
Identifying an idea is just the beginning. Not every idea can or should be developed further. Careful evaluation is needed to ensure commercial feasibility. The idea approval process involves:
- Assessing the delivery schedule
- Availability of internal subject matter experts
- Topic relevance and available resources
- Availability of qualitative and quantitative data to support the content
This process requires collaboration, but for accountability, a single resource should own the final decision.
3. Keyword Selection
In mature marketing environments, the SEO team typically owns the keyword strategy. The content team must ensure:
- Every piece of content targets a unique keyword
- Avoidance of keyword duplication
- Prioritization of content for high-value keywords
Aligning content with a strategic keyword plan can be challenging, especially at scale.
Bonus Suggestion: Editorial Calendar Alignment
Content ideation often needs to align with a specific content schedule. For instance, a simple schedule might require three long-form blog posts per week and a couple of shorter articles for external sites. Ensuring content ideas are generated in line with these requirements is a critical project management task.
Completing these activities consistently and within tight deadlines is no small feat, especially when multiple content items need to be delivered each week.
Content ideation specialist vs. Content writer vs. Content marketing strategist
Content ideation specialist has a very different focus on generating content ideas as opposed to converting them into final draft (content writer) or managing the overall planning, production, promotion and analytics process (content marketing strategist)
What does a content ideation specialist do?
Based on the outline of what is involved in content ideation, a sample job description for a content ideation specialist might look as follow
Title research
- Track industry trends and competitor content to identify key themes for ideation.
- Monitor content usage (formats, themes, re-purposing) and suggest varied content ideas, not limited to blog posts.
- Analyze search query data from Web Search Console and Bing to identify promising keywords.
- Review web analytics to assess past content performance and generate follow-up ideas.
- Use operations data to filter out content ideas that may not align with the marketing calendar.
Idea prioritization and approval
- Draft initial content outlines highlighting purpose and key messages.
- Participate in brainstorming sessions to refine content ideas.
- Coordinate with stakeholders and subject matter experts to prioritize content ideas.
- Prepare cost/time estimates and identify skills/writers needed.
- Obtain idea approval and add to editorial calendar.
Content outline development
- Develop detailed content outlines for approved ideas.
Hiring in-house vs. outsourcing?
Most companies will benefit from a dedicated content ideation specialist role. However, the decision to hire internally vs. outsourcing to a specialist agency would be driven primarily by two factors
- Budgetary constraints – The skills required for a content ideation specialist are very similar to those of a content marketing strategist and hiring a full-time internal resource can be an expensive proposition for smaller marketing budgets. Outsourcing, on the other hand can provide access to a content ideation service either in stand-alone mode or as part of a larger engagement. At Syptus for example, our standalone content ideation service starts at $2000/month with no long-term contracts. This equates to $24k/yr. which is much less than the cost of a qualified specialist in most western countries.
- Difficulty of industry niche – When the industry niche is very specific, it is usually very difficult to find skilled full-time resources to hire for content ideation and at reasonable costs. This is not an issue with most established b2b technology marketing agencies like Syptus, who have access to a large network of talent that can be kept engaged across multiple client engagements.
In most cases, smaller companies will benefit more from outsourcing. However, as content marketing budgets grow and as the portfolio of offerings increases, hiring content ideation specialists internally will prove most cost-effective in the long run.
Final words
As content ideation processes become more streamlined, a dedicated content ideation specialist role becomes the centerpiece of quality-conscious, commercially focused content marketing teams. Leveraging the right content ideation framework with the correct content ideation platforms can further enhance this role, making it an indispensable part of the content marketing ecosystem. Where resource constraints do not allow companies to hire dedicated content ideation resources, outsourcing content ideation can be a very effective approach to developing highly creative content ideas.
