February 17, 2022 • 10 mins
We've all been there.
That darn blinking cursor. It's like it's taunting you, "Look at this big, blank page. You'll never figure out what to write. Such a waste of time. Loser."
RUDE.
This week I go over 15 ways you to always know what to write. I'm finally recording this episode because one of the most common things I hear from people is that they have no idea what to write about, especially when it comes to their business.
As well, you don't ALWAYS want to be strictly talking about your business, at least not in a way that it comes across that way. Ideally, you'll make a connection to your audience... I always say to have an ongoing conversation with your audience - a copy as a conversation.
You may be like, "Okay, great, I know how to talk about my product. But what else do I talk about? I'll tell you! Listen in for a few ways (15 to be exact) to keep the writing topic ideas coming.
If you need help with your copywriting, I have a bunch of different ways I can do that. One of them is my Copyedit Polish + Strategy service - if you've written something and it's not performing for ya, not attracting engagement or sales and you need to get it to the next level to really engage and connect with your audience for that sale... you can send it to me and I'll give it a glow-up if you will, to really make it pop for you and engage those customers. I'll also look at all of your copy holistically and suggest strategic placement and perhaps additional copy to add to bring in more sales. Click here for more info!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Geiger (00:02):
Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset
podcast, where we dive intotactical strategies to grow your
business. And to make an impacton this world. A huge part of
success is keeping your mindsetand vision on track. So this is
a major part of our process. Andthis podcast, let's do this.
(00:25):
Hey, Erin here, welcome to thesmall business, big mindset
podcast. All right, this week,we're going to get into it, I'm
going to go over 15 ways you canget ideas for what to write,
because one of the most commonthings I hear from people is, I
have no idea what to writeabout, especially when it comes
(00:45):
to your business. Because youdon't always want to be talking
about your business, right as asfar as like, what you sell what
they can buy from you, you know,that sort of a thing, you want
to make a connection to youraudience, I always say have an
ongoing conversation with youraudience a copy as a
conversation. And so you'relike, okay, great, like I know
(01:06):
how to talk about my product.
But what else do I talk about?
That even makes sense? So I knowthat people get writer's block,
right? That blinking cursor getsyou every time, it's hard to
write from a blank page. Sohere's a few ways to keep the
writing topic ideas coming.
Alright, number one of 15 isbrain dump memories. So just sit
(01:27):
down, type it out, write it out,whatever feels most comfortable
for you. And you can break it upinto topics too. You can say
like, early childhood, teenageyears high school, college, but
you know, whatever you want, youcan say, whatever organizations
you're in, you know, like bookclub running club, you know, you
could do like Kid memories, likeyour own kiddos, or, you know,
(01:53):
fun stuff you've done with yourpartner. So you can come up with
these different topics that fityour life. And then just write
out memories to start out with,you can just write sort of like
phrases, you don't have to gointo the entire memory, you can
always go back to that if youwant, you know, the time at the
beach, when you know, my twoyear olds took his first swim or
you know, whatever, you can justkind of do a one liner, and then
(02:17):
later, you can go back and fillit out. The second one is look
at the photos on your phone. SoI've said this one before on
different episodes, I think. Butyou know, there's so many
memories, if you're anythinglike me, you have probably a
couple of years of photos onyour phone, hopefully that are
backed up. But you can kind ofscroll through and look at
photos on your phone. And that'sgoing to kind of get jog your
(02:39):
memory of stuff that you'vedone. And you probably have both
personal and professional photoson your phone. So scroll through
those make notes as you goalong. The third one is look at
holiday photo cards. So we'rebig on our holiday photo cards
and our family we send one outevery year. No shade, don't do
that. But we love to get them.
(03:03):
So we get a bunch every year,we're so grateful for it. And we
put them in photo albums like Icannot bring myself my husband's
the same way to like throw outthese holiday photo cards,
because there's these memoriesand photos of your family and
friends. So we and when I say weI mean Joey puts these cards
into photo albums, right? So ifyou do that, or if you have
(03:24):
photo albums, look throughthose. So you know and that's
gonna jog your your mind ofmemories as well. Number four,
is look at the memories insocial media. So if you're on
social media, like Facebook, youknow, it'll say like, you know,
memories on this day. And itkind of takes you back however
many years that you've been onFacebook if something happened
(03:46):
that day. So that's pretty coolto look through. As far as what
happened, I'll jog your memory.
Number five, is scroll throughyour social media accounts. See
what are people talking about?
Right. So you might you might beconnected with personal and
professional people, dependingupon the social media platform.
And be like, you know, kind ofwrite down like, oh, so and so
(04:07):
posted about this, even if it'slike a friend got a new puppy,
like write it down, because thatwill jog your memory of other
things that kind of have to dowith that maybe you had a puppy
or maybe you will allow youremployees to take their dogs to
work. And that's something totalk about, right? And scroll
through groups if you're a partof different Facebook groups or
LinkedIn groups. See what peopleare talking about right? What's
(04:29):
resonating was kind of gettingpeople going. Number six is
scroll through your LinkedInprofile. So I broke this out
separately from the other socialmedia accounts because this
could be more of yourprofessional memories. You can
even just just scrolling throughkind of like your online resume,
different places you've worked,maybe the recommendations that
people have made for youtestimonials people have posted
(04:52):
for you that can kind of getyour mind going as well. And of
course scrolling through, youknow, your newsfeed your
contacts on there. Back at helpto number seven is brain dump
realistic goals. So these arethings you know you can achieve
in the next 3060 90 Days to ayear, I wouldn't go further than
(05:14):
that, because we really don'teven going a year. Like we've
learned in the past few years,we don't even know what's gonna
happen tomorrow. So, but theseare realistic ones that you know
that you can achieve. Okay, sonow for number eight, you want
to brain dump a pie in the skygoals. And number seven, you did
realistic goals. And then numbereight brain dump pie in the sky.
So these are, this is yourvision for your life. This is
(05:37):
like ideally, like if you couldhave anything in life, this is
what would happen, okay? Theseare goals that if you told
someone else, they'd be like,Whoa, okay, those are big goals.
Let's see if those reallyhappen. You know, so you want to
write those down, too. And thennumber nine, I want you to write
down advice that you've heardfor life, good or bad. Okay,
(06:02):
because that's really goodfodder, you know, for something
to to explore further. It couldbe good or bad advice. So
advice, there's good that youfollowed. And that worked out
really well for you, or badadvice that either you followed
and it did not work out or a badadvice that you knew you did not
follow because you knew it washorrible. But those are really
(06:22):
fun things and interestingthings to write about. Number
10, is to write about adviceyou've heard for business.
Number nine is for personalnumber 10 is for business again,
good or bad, good advice thatyou took, or maybe didn't take,
and what happened, bad advicethat you took or didn't take and
your thoughts behind that.
Number 11, scroll through yourinbox, see what headlines are
(06:44):
out there and what others aretalking about. Okay, so I'm sure
you're like me, and you get abunch of, you might even get a
bunch of kind of cold marketingemails. And those are usually
what not to do.
Or you, you know, might see newsheadlines, or even retail sales,
or all that kind of stuff, likewhat are what are people talking
(07:07):
about, write that down. Number12 is go through the podcasts,
ones that you listen to, maybeones that you know, you've yet
to discover or listen to, thatare in your niche or within your
industry. And also you can justlook at general podcast, you
know, news podcasts and see whatpeople are talking about that
(07:28):
doesn't necessarily necessarilycorrelate with your business.
And number 13 is do a similarthing, scroll through your like
news, your notifications, blogposts, to see what's going on,
what is the conversation? Whatis the narrative happening
externally, that could kind ofgive you some ideas. And number
14 is scroll through your textmessages. So you might be like
(07:52):
Erin What, like that's personal.
i You don't have to like youknow, quote, unquote, spill the
tea. But some conversations thatyou're having might spark a
topic, okay, so you don't haveto name names, or get into super
personal things, but you'll belike, oh, yeah, so and so told
me about that. And that remindsme of XYZ. And that could spark
(08:12):
a topic. And then for number 15,the final one is scroll through
movie releases events going on,in your area, or nationwide,
those could spark a topic toOkay, so that's 15 things I just
went over as far as what you cankind of look for, to get ideas
for what to write. And again,all of these can be correlated
(08:32):
to your business, but they'regoing to help you connect with
your audience along the way. Andkind of keep that two way street
of conversation thatconversational copywriting going
so that your audience feelsengaged, and like they're in the
conversation with you instead ofyou just kind of like talking at
them, they're a part of it. SoI'm hoping that helps you. As
(08:57):
always, send me a note at Erinat muscle creative comm with any
questions or you know, juststuff you want to talk about.
And, and then also, if you needhelp with your copywriting, I
have a bunch of different ways Ido that. One of them is at
muscle creative comm slash copyedits, and I call it my my copy,
edit and polish service or ifyou've written something and you
(09:21):
kind of need it, to get to thenext level to really engage and
connect with your audience forthat sale. You can send it to me
and I will kind of take it tothat next level, give it a glow
up if you will, to really makeit pop for you and engage those
customers. So until next week, Ihope you guys are doing well and
(09:41):
I'll hopefully chat with yousoon. Thanks for tuning in to
the Small Business Big mindsetpodcast to keep the fun going
check out Our Facebook groupstart and scale an online
business For even more freetrainings and resources from
fellow entrepreneurs. If youhaven't already, head on over to
muscle creative calm and clicksubscribe to join our email list
(10:05):
for weekly updates. And ifyou've enjoyed this podcast
episode, check us out on yourfavorite podcast platform to
follow us and give us a review.
As always be authentic bring aninsane amount of value and keep
crushing it
Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset
podcast, where we dive intotactical strategies to grow your
business. And to make an impacton this world. A huge part of
success is keeping your mindsetand vision on track. So this is
a major part of our process. Andthis podcast, let's do this.
(00:25):
Hey, Erin here, welcome to thesmall business, big mindset
podcast. All right, this week,we're going to get into it, I'm
going to go over 15 ways you canget ideas for what to write,
because one of the most commonthings I hear from people is, I
have no idea what to writeabout, especially when it comes
(00:45):
to your business. Because youdon't always want to be talking
about your business, right as asfar as like, what you sell what
they can buy from you, you know,that sort of a thing, you want
to make a connection to youraudience, I always say have an
ongoing conversation with youraudience a copy as a
conversation. And so you'relike, okay, great, like I know
(01:06):
how to talk about my product.
But what else do I talk about?
That even makes sense? So I knowthat people get writer's block,
right? That blinking cursor getsyou every time, it's hard to
write from a blank page. Sohere's a few ways to keep the
writing topic ideas coming.
Alright, number one of 15 isbrain dump memories. So just sit
(01:27):
down, type it out, write it out,whatever feels most comfortable
for you. And you can break it upinto topics too. You can say
like, early childhood, teenageyears high school, college, but
you know, whatever you want, youcan say, whatever organizations
you're in, you know, like bookclub running club, you know, you
could do like Kid memories, likeyour own kiddos, or, you know,
(01:53):
fun stuff you've done with yourpartner. So you can come up with
these different topics that fityour life. And then just write
out memories to start out with,you can just write sort of like
phrases, you don't have to gointo the entire memory, you can
always go back to that if youwant, you know, the time at the
beach, when you know, my twoyear olds took his first swim or
you know, whatever, you can justkind of do a one liner, and then
(02:17):
later, you can go back and fillit out. The second one is look
at the photos on your phone. SoI've said this one before on
different episodes, I think. Butyou know, there's so many
memories, if you're anythinglike me, you have probably a
couple of years of photos onyour phone, hopefully that are
backed up. But you can kind ofscroll through and look at
photos on your phone. And that'sgoing to kind of get jog your
(02:39):
memory of stuff that you'vedone. And you probably have both
personal and professional photoson your phone. So scroll through
those make notes as you goalong. The third one is look at
holiday photo cards. So we'rebig on our holiday photo cards
and our family we send one outevery year. No shade, don't do
that. But we love to get them.
(03:03):
So we get a bunch every year,we're so grateful for it. And we
put them in photo albums like Icannot bring myself my husband's
the same way to like throw outthese holiday photo cards,
because there's these memoriesand photos of your family and
friends. So we and when I say weI mean Joey puts these cards
into photo albums, right? So ifyou do that, or if you have
(03:24):
photo albums, look throughthose. So you know and that's
gonna jog your your mind ofmemories as well. Number four,
is look at the memories insocial media. So if you're on
social media, like Facebook, youknow, it'll say like, you know,
memories on this day. And itkind of takes you back however
many years that you've been onFacebook if something happened
(03:46):
that day. So that's pretty coolto look through. As far as what
happened, I'll jog your memory.
Number five, is scroll throughyour social media accounts. See
what are people talking about?
Right. So you might you might beconnected with personal and
professional people, dependingupon the social media platform.
And be like, you know, kind ofwrite down like, oh, so and so
(04:07):
posted about this, even if it'slike a friend got a new puppy,
like write it down, because thatwill jog your memory of other
things that kind of have to dowith that maybe you had a puppy
or maybe you will allow youremployees to take their dogs to
work. And that's something totalk about, right? And scroll
through groups if you're a partof different Facebook groups or
LinkedIn groups. See what peopleare talking about right? What's
(04:29):
resonating was kind of gettingpeople going. Number six is
scroll through your LinkedInprofile. So I broke this out
separately from the other socialmedia accounts because this
could be more of yourprofessional memories. You can
even just just scrolling throughkind of like your online resume,
different places you've worked,maybe the recommendations that
people have made for youtestimonials people have posted
(04:52):
for you that can kind of getyour mind going as well. And of
course scrolling through, youknow, your newsfeed your
contacts on there. Back at helpto number seven is brain dump
realistic goals. So these arethings you know you can achieve
in the next 3060 90 Days to ayear, I wouldn't go further than
(05:14):
that, because we really don'teven going a year. Like we've
learned in the past few years,we don't even know what's gonna
happen tomorrow. So, but theseare realistic ones that you know
that you can achieve. Okay, sonow for number eight, you want
to brain dump a pie in the skygoals. And number seven, you did
realistic goals. And then numbereight brain dump pie in the sky.
So these are, this is yourvision for your life. This is
(05:37):
like ideally, like if you couldhave anything in life, this is
what would happen, okay? Theseare goals that if you told
someone else, they'd be like,Whoa, okay, those are big goals.
Let's see if those reallyhappen. You know, so you want to
write those down, too. And thennumber nine, I want you to write
down advice that you've heardfor life, good or bad. Okay,
(06:02):
because that's really goodfodder, you know, for something
to to explore further. It couldbe good or bad advice. So
advice, there's good that youfollowed. And that worked out
really well for you, or badadvice that either you followed
and it did not work out or a badadvice that you knew you did not
follow because you knew it washorrible. But those are really
(06:22):
fun things and interestingthings to write about. Number
10, is to write about adviceyou've heard for business.
Number nine is for personalnumber 10 is for business again,
good or bad, good advice thatyou took, or maybe didn't take,
and what happened, bad advicethat you took or didn't take and
your thoughts behind that.
Number 11, scroll through yourinbox, see what headlines are
(06:44):
out there and what others aretalking about. Okay, so I'm sure
you're like me, and you get abunch of, you might even get a
bunch of kind of cold marketingemails. And those are usually
what not to do.
Or you, you know, might see newsheadlines, or even retail sales,
or all that kind of stuff, likewhat are what are people talking
(07:07):
about, write that down. Number12 is go through the podcasts,
ones that you listen to, maybeones that you know, you've yet
to discover or listen to, thatare in your niche or within your
industry. And also you can justlook at general podcast, you
know, news podcasts and see whatpeople are talking about that
(07:28):
doesn't necessarily necessarilycorrelate with your business.
And number 13 is do a similarthing, scroll through your like
news, your notifications, blogposts, to see what's going on,
what is the conversation? Whatis the narrative happening
externally, that could kind ofgive you some ideas. And number
14 is scroll through your textmessages. So you might be like
(07:52):
Erin What, like that's personal.
i You don't have to like youknow, quote, unquote, spill the
tea. But some conversations thatyou're having might spark a
topic, okay, so you don't haveto name names, or get into super
personal things, but you'll belike, oh, yeah, so and so told
me about that. And that remindsme of XYZ. And that could spark
(08:12):
a topic. And then for number 15,the final one is scroll through
movie releases events going on,in your area, or nationwide,
those could spark a topic toOkay, so that's 15 things I just
went over as far as what you cankind of look for, to get ideas
for what to write. And again,all of these can be correlated
(08:32):
to your business, but they'regoing to help you connect with
your audience along the way. Andkind of keep that two way street
of conversation thatconversational copywriting going
so that your audience feelsengaged, and like they're in the
conversation with you instead ofyou just kind of like talking at
them, they're a part of it. SoI'm hoping that helps you. As
(08:57):
always, send me a note at Erinat muscle creative comm with any
questions or you know, juststuff you want to talk about.
And, and then also, if you needhelp with your copywriting, I
have a bunch of different ways Ido that. One of them is at
muscle creative comm slash copyedits, and I call it my my copy,
edit and polish service or ifyou've written something and you
(09:21):
kind of need it, to get to thenext level to really engage and
connect with your audience forthat sale. You can send it to me
and I will kind of take it tothat next level, give it a glow
up if you will, to really makeit pop for you and engage those
customers. So until next week, Ihope you guys are doing well and
(09:41):
I'll hopefully chat with yousoon. Thanks for tuning in to
the Small Business Big mindsetpodcast to keep the fun going
check out Our Facebook groupstart and scale an online
business For even more freetrainings and resources from
fellow entrepreneurs. If youhaven't already, head on over to
muscle creative calm and clicksubscribe to join our email list
(10:05):
for weekly updates. And ifyou've enjoyed this podcast
episode, check us out on yourfavorite podcast platform to
follow us and give us a review.
As always be authentic bring aninsane amount of value and keep
crushing it
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