Beyond just writing, the goal of copywriting aims to create engaging marketing content that persuades your audience to take action. So, when you’re experiencing writer’s block, it can impact the success of your business.
No pressure, right?
Writer’s block is often referred to as the inability to form words, and there are entire scientific studies behind it.
Fortunately, the following are seven tips to help beat writer’s block so that you can effectively represent your brand, engage your audience and help grow lead conversions.
Maintain a content calendar
If your writer’s block centers on the lack of ideas for the content itself, creating or maintaining a content calendar can help you keep the momentum going.
It’s all about having a plan.
If you’re just starting out with a content calendar, aim to plan out one month ahead at a time. You can make note of both national holidays and social media “holidays” (like National Puppy Day) that are relevant to your brand and your audience. Look ahead for any other events or product launches as well. Then, you can start brainstorming content around these events, holidays and so on.
Once you get comfortable with maintaining your calendar one month out at a time, you can start increasing it. Ideally, the further out you can plan, the better. That way, you won’t find yourself in a day-to-day rut trying to figure out what kind of content you should be creating each day.
See our eight tips for creating and maintaining a content calendar.
Keep a backup list of ideas
As great as advanced planning can be, it’s always possible to not be inspired by the topic you originally planned to write about. Or, perhaps the topic no longer works for when you planned it.
That’s OK!
As you plan out your content calendar, be sure to maintain a list of the ideas that don’t make it onto your calendar. Think about your target audience. What problems are they facing? How can you help them overcome those problems?
This can be a great resource of back pocket options to potentially inspire you when you do hit that writer’s block.
Lean on your colleagues
Brainstorming alone can get difficult and (honestly) a little soul-draining at times. If you’re looking for some inspiration, ask a colleague to brainstorm ideas with you.
Better yet, pull in your team.
Group brainstorming sessions can bring up ideas that might have never happened on your own. Just make sure to document all the ideas flying around. Even though they aren’t all going to make it onto your content calendar, they could easily end up on your backup list of ideas for reference later.
Revisit past content to defeat writer’s block
Just because you’ve covered a particular topic before doesn’t mean that you can’t revisit the topic in a new or more in-depth way.
Remember that you can easily break up various angles of a topic across different and separate pieces of content.
For example, if you have a past list of tips, is there one tip that you can spin off with? The possibilities are endless.
And of course, for an SEO (search engine optimization boost), be sure to link related pieces of content to each other. While you’re thinking about your SEO, see if you’re making any of these 13 common SEO mistakes.
Don’t just write … read
Any good copywriter isn’t just writing constantly but reading, too!
It doesn’t matter what:
- Industry-related publications
- Various blogs
- Your competitors’ content
- Local or national news
Doing so regularly will naturally inspire you with topics that will likely be relevant to your audience. Always record those ideas as soon as you have them, whether you’re in planning mode or not.
Write out of order
In the simplest sense, know that you never have to write the first sentence first. Whether you start in the middle, with the conclusion or whatever aspect is inspiring you, you do not have to write in order.
Sometimes, even just roughing out a loose outline first can help funnel your thoughts.
When we can’t write what we actually want, an ideal option is to use generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, or Claude and use them as assistants. The downside is that the content is mostly robotic and tools, like AI checker, detect easily that it isn’t written by a human. But, you can still humanize that content and ensure that your writing is plagiarism-free.
Mix up your approach
If you have all the right ideas, but the words still aren’t flowing, try mixing up your approach to beat writer’s block.
You can work in a different place, at a different time, for different lengths of time and so on.
In fact, simply taking breaks and doing something else briefly can make a world of difference as well. A break might sound counterintuitive if you’re on a deadline, but think about how much time is wasted when you’re facing writer’s block. A break of any kind doing something else can be just what you need.
Beating writer’s block will help you reconnect to your audience and boost your brand’s presence, so be patient with yourself and work through your process.
Take your content to the next level with these seven content marketing tips.
