5 Ideas for Successful Small Business Content marketing
Why does your small business need content marketing ?
If you are the owner of a small business, content marketing is a tool you probably need to leverage to grow your followers and increase your brand equity.
Content marketing is the creation and dissemination of online copy that helps increase visitors to your company's website. Different Content types that you can use for this purpose are blogs, infographics, videos, podcast and whitepapers that are aimed at creating buzz to sell your products or services.
A more permanent benefit of content marketing is potential non-perishable content you end up creating. This refers to content that does not become outdated, like blog posts about an industry and its beginnings or evolution.
You can also leverage content marketing when you create copy or content that can be utilized across multiple channels and campaigns. Eg. If you were to create an article about the requirements and wishes of a certain segment of population, you could create a small video on that subject and use it in your article. Then you can also post this video on your social media accounts. This leads to cost savings while driving results for you.
Small Business Content Marketing: 5 things to do
We will describe in the next few paragraphs the 5 things a small business owner can do to be successful at content marketing.
1. Blogging
Blogging is a totally free channel to promote your products and services. Plus it is really cost effective. In setting up your blog you also set yourself or your company as an industry expert.
If you cross 30-50 blogs count on your website then you can increase your website traffic by roughly 20-30 %.
You might say, all that is great but what does a blog really do for me ?
Answer is a lot !
A blog can :
improve your SEO rank
provide answers to your customers about their key questions
increase the eyeballs your website gets
create inbound leads ( where instead of you reaching out to people, people reach out to you)
We will shortly give you a post about what a small business blog should contain. But for now, here is a list of things that a typical business blog should contain:
Answers to your customers' questions : For example, a Plastic surgeon's blog should guide patients about symptoms, cost of surgery, time needed to heal from surgery, precautions to be taken after surgery etc.) .
Impact on the lives of your customers: For example: a Divorce Lawyer's blog can contain sample cases of how they were able to help their clients get a fair alimony, child support etc.
Value proposition : An fair-trade organic product brand can contain details of how their product is good for their customers but it also helps the workers that help produce the product by providing them with fair wages.
2. Promote yourself on the Social Media sites that your target customers use
These days, a social media presence is mandatory for any business. However, the difference between being present and actively engaging with your customers on these sites is what makes a difference .
Which Social media website should I target ?
You can determine this in many different ways:
Check out your competition. Sometimes instead of doing a whole lot of leg work it might be easier to check what your top 10 competitors are doing. This will give you an idea of what works for them
Use Google Analytics to find what your customers are doing
Read articles about content marketing for your industry. Sometimes, a google search might easily give you available data and information about what works for your industry.
What kind of content should a business post on Social Media?
Before and after pics: For example , a business like a gym or personal fitness instructor can post before-and-after pictures of their clients ( with their permission, off course). to show potential clients what to expect
Differentiation : Your post on social media needs to clearly tell potential clients why you a better choice for them than the competition. For example: a low cost airline posts content about how they help their client save money on the journey so that they can spend more bucks at the destination to have fun.
Feel good story: One way for a small business to become popular with its customers is by blogging about how they went out of their way to help a customer. For example here is the story of an Edmonton woman who was helped by volunteers to fix her ant infested house
3. Launch an email Newsletter
Email newsletters are great for small businesses to begin email marketing. They promise to provide relevant information to your target customers about new products launches, upcoming Sale or events, industry specific news, and other relevant/notable news.
It has the highest return on investment (ROI), among all online marketing tools. Email marketing is an excellent tool for small businesses to use.
We will shortly write an article about how to collect emails for your email newsletter and what to write in your email newsletter.
4. Aggregate Customer Reviews and Testimonials
More than 90% of customers admitted to using and being influenced by online reviews to find out local products and services. If you’re a small business, your reviews might very well be driving your customers towards or away from you.
You have to make customer reviews work for you by bringing to the fore the most positive ones and making sure that people read what your happy customers said about you.
Your positive customer reviews and testimonials are a source of trust and one of the best marketing tools for your business.
5. Create different types of Content
In the dog-eat-dog world of online marketing, it is vital to differentiate yourself from your competitors. One way for a small business to pull this off is to by using content marketing strategy.
Do a thorough comparison between your existing content and your competitors’ content. Find successful themes and capitalize on those trends and topics. Drop those topics and subjects that do not work from your content to do list.
Don't restrict yourself to existing information and topics only. There are many different ways to present the same information like info graphic, white papers, case studies etc. Sky is the limit for the type of content you can create.