If you are a content creator, a copywriter, you have your own blog you have probably faced writer’s block several times.
But what is Writers Block?
Writer’s block is the phenomenon of writing and hitting a mental block that stops you from coming up with new words, sentences, ideas, and content.
Every writer will experience it at some point. It’s completely normal.
However, there are ways of battling it and in this blog post, I will share 3 secret tips you can start implementing today to avoid it.
The idea for writing this blog post came from a conversation I had this past weekend with Anna, a good friend of mine who is a nutritionist.
While we were drinking a delicious hot cappuccino under the rain on a cold winter day in Darmstadt, she told me about some of the fears she has regarding a new project she is about to start.
Basically, what she wants to do is create her own blog where she can share her experiences, her journey, and the knowledge she has gathered as a nutritionist that she thinks can be helpful and beneficial for other people who want to improve their eating habits.
However, she told me that 2 years ago she also tried to start a similar project posting content on Instagram while she was at University, but at the moment of writing, she experienced mental blocks that didn’t allow her to enjoy what she was doing and ended up leaving the project in standby after a couple of months.
She also told me…
I’m scared that I will not have enough ideas for my content or that while I’m writing something I just get paralyzed.
Could you please help or give me some tips on how to avoid writer’s block?
We’ve all been there.
You’re typing away and writing one of the best pieces of copy in the history of the world.
Then it happens.
Yes, it.
It is writer’s block.
Luckily a few months ago my copywriting mentor, Carmine Mastropierro, taught me a very powerful formula that has helped me a lot at the moment of battling against writer’s block that I shared last week with my friend Anna and that I also want to share with you.
This formula consists of 3 practical things you can do before and during your writing process that will help you have a clear structure and let your ideas flow.
Is content important for my marketing strategy?
Content, in my opinion, is the foundation of any long-term marketing strategy. If you want to build trust with your ideal customer, if you want to educate and ultimately sell something of value to them then writing and posting content on a regular basis is the way to go.
But how do you do this? How do you organize yourself?
Where do you get the ideas to post content?
And more importantly… how do you avoid or battle writer’s block?
In this blog post, I want to focus on the last question and share with you 3 secret things I personally do to avoid writer’s block, that you can start implementing right away.
3 practical things you can do today to avoid writer’s block
1. Research
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do your research before writing about something. Even if you have a lot of knowledge about a specific topic, I believe it is always good to do some research or review on the topic before writing, just to have more clarity and write down some ideas.
In the past, I didn´t believe that researching was an important piece of the puzzle, but now I know that if I want to produce a great piece of content I need to do some research beforehand.
For research, you can collect tons of resources online.
Things like industry reports, blog posts, competitors’ websites, social media, reviews, testimonials, in-house documents, past experiences, videos, etc can be very helpful at the moment of researching and gathering key ideas for your next piece of content.
2. Organize the skeleton of your piece of content
Once you have done your research on the topic, it’s time for you to create the skeleton (structure) of the piece of content that you want to create.
For this, you just need to write bullet points with the key ideas you want to communicate in your writing. Bullet points help you organize different points and sections of the copy. When you begin writing that section you will have plenty of inspiration planned ahead of time.
They could be 3, 5, or more subtopics that you consider important to develop where you can combine examples, stories, and of course some CTA’s.
Having said that, now I want to share with you a
skeleton framework you can model and use when writing your next piece of content (landing page, blogs, emails, advertising campaigns) that has the goal of helping people with the desired action you want them to make.
Bullet Points Framework to avoid Writer’s Block:
- Headline
- Open
- Credentials
- Offer
- Bullets
- UVP
- Price
- Guarantee
- Summary
- Signature
- P.S.
3. Go for a run or walk
Something that has personally helped me a lot when feeling stuck without ideas on what to write about or while writing is to simply go outside, change environments, and start running.
Just the fact of going out, doing some exercise, changing your environment, and forgetting about everything for a couple of minutes will give you the clarity you need to come back and continue doing your work.
If you combine these 3 best practices.
Doing your research, organizing your bullet point framework, and going out for a run
It will be very difficult that you to get writer’s block.
Finally, once you have your ideas clear it’s time for you to start writing as fast as possible your first draft.
Then, you will have the time to proofread and edit the final piece of content you will deliver.
