Marketing is everchanging, and you need to continuously adjust your strategy to the latest trends. Online marketing is even more volatile as things that worked a few months ago quickly become old news. But if there’s one thing that’s here to stay it’s content marketing. While the type of content you create and the platforms you use may change a lot through the years, the core of content marketing remains unchanged. Customers are no longer interested in aggressive advertisements and prefer companies that publish thoughtful and helpful content instead. This actually works in small businesses’ favor, as producing good content is far cheaper than running an ad on TV or YouTube. Moreover, if a customer finds your service through your excellent content, they’ll be more loyal to you than by finding your company via a random Google ad.
The challenges of content creation
Creating top-quality content isn’t a walk in the park. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes that people don’t think about when watching a video or reading a blog article. You have to do extensive research, make sure that your writing and editing are perfect, and come up with creative ideas that haven’t been done before. With so much content online already, coming up with something completely original is quite challenging. So, you need to make yourself stand out from the crowd by having more in-depth research, a unique writing style, a more eye-catching design, etc.
Additionally, you should make sure you’re creating something that brings value to your online business. For instance, imagine you run a clothing ecommerce store. It doesn’t make sense for you to share your thoughts on the last Game of Thrones episode. Instead, you need to research what your target audience is looking for and create content accordingly. It goes without saying that your product should be included in the content to generate leads and sales. Finally, you need to take the time to manage all of this, as consistency is key to growth. That’s why most companies have a dedicated marketing team to focus on how to bring your business marketing strategy to the next level.
Recommended content creation tools
Your content needs to be of the highest quality. That’s the only way for you to stand out from your competitors and rank well in search engine results. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to make the process easier.
How to use content to grow your business
The first thing you need to figure out when using content to grow your business is what your potential customers are searching for online. This can be done by using a keyword planner, like Semrush, but this type of platform can be quite expensive. So, many small business owners go with free options, such as Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner. They’re more limited, but you can get an overview of which topics you should address. For example, let’s say you sell TVs and discover that everyone is talking about the remake of Final Fantasy VII. It’s the perfect opportunity to write an article about the best TVs to give customers the best gaming experience possible.
The next step is to create content for the platforms your customers use the most. Writing SEO-optimized content and sending out a newsletter is something that all businesses should do. But depending on your industry, it may be more worthwhile to limit your efforts to a select number of social media platforms. Although you can repurpose content to publish across multiple platforms, it’s usually best for small businesses to focus on just a few outlets. Each platform has its unique features, making it difficult to focus on all of them simultaneously.
Additional advice for content creation
Creating engaging content is just the first step of growing your business online. When it comes to social media, you need to make sure content is published when your customers are online. Meanwhile, newsletters should be tested over time to check which one gets the highest open rate. Finally, a marketing strategy is only going to work when everyone in your team is on the same page about published content, branding, and your company’s tone of voice.
Daniel C.
Richard C.
User feedback