Are you a small business interested in growing your audience and profits? If so, content marketing could be your key to success. From blog content to social media, it’s a great strategy for small businesses to get in front of their customers and build relationships. From there, it can even lead to increased sales and higher engagement rates.
Let’s take a look at what this is and how it works. Afterward, you’ll have a clear understanding of why it’s so important for small businesses just like yours.
Everything You Need to Know About Content Marketing
1. What Exactly Is It?
Basically, this strategy uses a form of content that indirectly promotes your products and services to an audience. That content could be blog posts, images, videos, or social media. The content is created with the specific intention of attracting your audience and educating them on some aspect of a problem your offer solves.
It typically doesn’t rely on costly advertising campaigns. Rather, it’s an inexpensive method that can produce a high ROI for small businesses. All that’s required is a marketing plan and engaging content. This content should be posted regularly and on a variety of content platforms, like social media. That way, your business can be found by your target audience, which leads to more opportunities for sales.
2. Why Is It so Important?
The reason any small business should invest in this is it can be an affordable marketing strategy that can produce a high return. So long as a business puts in a consistent effort, it’s likely to get them more leads, increased engagement rates, and higher sales.
3. What Are Some Examples?
The great part about this strategy is there are so many ways to do it, and you can easily pick and choose the best approach for your business. We’ll be discussing just a few of the most popular tactics you can use to grow your audience online. See if any of them seem like something you’d like to use for your own business as well.
Blogging
Probably the easiest place to start is with blogging. With a little effort, you can use this to post content to your website, then share it on a variety of platforms to build your online presence. Some things you could write about are industry news, tips on how to run a business or their life, and other relevant advice for them, too.
It’s up to you whether you personally write a blog post or outsource it to professional writers. If you’re looking to save on time, though, just find a reputable agency and let them take care of it. The most important thing is creating consistent content, so handing off this work to others will be immensely helpful.
Social Media
Once you’ve got some good material on your blog, it’s smart to go the extra mile and share it on social media. This will help you build a following and get more targeted traffic to your website. It’s very easy nowadays for people to share content on social media, so there’s no excuse not to make the most of it.
Typically, you’ll want to focus on a platform that your audience tends to hang out on the most. For example, if your small business is in the fashion industry, you might want to focus on Instagram due to the visual nature. If you have an e-commerce shop, then it would be wise to spend most of your time on Facebook, as you can use the targeting options to home in your audience better. Whatever you choose, just make sure it’s a platform where the people who matter will see it.
Paid Advertising
If you’re willing to spend some money, then you can use paid advertising to promote your content. The great thing about this is that it specifically targets people who are interested in your business. For example, you might want to buy an ad on a website that’s relevant to what you offer. Case in point, if you’re in the fashion industry, then it would be smart to advertise on a website like Style Magazine or Refinery 29.
Or if you go with Google advertising on the search engine itself, you could create an ad campaign that targets people who are searching for fashion tips. That means if a person clicks through on your paid ads, you know for sure that they’re very interested in what you have to offer, which will increase your sales.
Video Content
Another great option is to use video content. With a little creativity, you can create videos and post them on your website or YouTube channel. This is also a great way to build your online presence and make sure people who come across your videos are easily able to find out more about you. Again, it’s up to you whether or not you want to create the video yourself. If it’s a time-saving measure, then just find someone who can create it for you.
The important thing is your video content is on the same platform as your audience. For example, if you’re in the self-help industry and your audience spends a lot of time on YouTube, then it would be wise to post videos there. If you have a fitness blog, then it would make sense to post videos about workouts on YouTube or Facebook Live. The great part about videos is that they tend to get a lot of views and engagement. In turn, this will lead to more traffic on your website or blog.
4. Why Is Good Strategy Critical to Content Marketing?
In order to make this work for your business, it’s crucial that you have a good strategy in place. Without one, it can be hard to know exactly what kind of content you should share and which platforms you should focus on. For instance, if you’re a small business that offers marketing services, then it might be smart to focus on LinkedIn. This is a social media platform that’s great for marketing professionals, and also has the added benefit of displaying content prominently as well.
Or if your business sells fashion, then you might want to focus on Instagram and Facebook. You’ll get more mileage from the visual aspect of these platforms, and you’ll also get a better chance at getting your content seen by the right people.
5. What Are Some Basic Tips to Get Started?
If you’re not sure how to get the ball rolling, then these simple tips will make it easier to start building an online presence, attract your audience, and ultimately grow your profits as well.
Determine Your Audience
The first step is to figure out who your audience is. Ask yourself a few questions, such as :
- Who are you trying to reach?
- What do they want or need from your business?
- Where will these people be when they see your content?
- What platforms do these people visit and spend time on?
Once you know who your audience is, it’ll be a lot easier to create content they’ll see and enjoy. Specifically, try to figure out what kind of problem is causing your audience to seek out what you offer in the first place. Once you’ve got this information, you’ll find the content creation process to be much easier.
Choose Your Platforms
The next step is to choose the platforms where you want to create content. You should think carefully about this because it can have a big impact on your content marketing. But if you did the first step, then you’ll know what platforms your audience spends time on and chooses content from. If not, then it may be a good idea to go through step one again and find out where they are spending time.
To make things simple, focus on a single social media platform till you’ve got the basic process down. Once you’ve mastered content marketing on one platform, then it’ll be a lot easier to create content for others.
Test and Adapt Your Strategy
Lastly, content marketing is all about testing and adapting over time. Don’t be afraid to try new things or change tactics if you find that what you’re doing isn’t working. For example, if the social media platform you’re working with isn’t producing decent results, try a different one. Or if your content simply isn’t getting views or click-throughs, then try a new “hook” or focus to engage your audience. Eventually, you’ll find out exactly what your audience responds to best.
This covers why content marketing is a powerful way to connect with customers on your own terms. We understand that it can be challenging at first when you’re not sure where to start or what exactly works best for your business. Luckily, though, these basic tips and ideas can help make running your content marketing campaigns much easier. For more help with this, visit Anthem Software for an automation program that streamlines your business and marketing for you altogether.
