7 Content Marketing Tips for New Entrepreneurs

Wel­come to the dig­i­tal age, where con­tent mar­ket­ing is a must for any­one start­ing a new ven­ture. The idea of con­tent mar­ket­ing can be over­whelm­ing for some, espe­cial­ly for those who have lit­tle or no expe­ri­ence with it. My advice has always been to read as much as you can before jump­ing into the field; how­ev­er, that would take decades based on all the infor­ma­tion avail­able online.

In order to cut through some of the clut­ter, I reached out to peo­ple in the indus­try in hopes of com­pil­ing some quick tips for new entre­pre­neurs learn­ing con­tent marketing.

I received advice from more than 250 mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als, influ­encers and busi­ness own­ers. The infor­ma­tion is every­thing they wish they knew when start­ing out as new entre­pre­neurs. Here are the sev­en most use­ful tips.

1. Create a company blog

Mar­ket­ing Pro­fes­sor Kim Sax­ton from the IU Kel­ley School of Busi­ness says that hav­ing a com­pa­ny blog is a great way to ensure you have a steady stream of content.

“One way to more eas­i­ly have a con­stant stream of con­tent is to devel­op a com­pa­ny blog. Hub­Spot sug­gests that you real­ly need to be pub­lish­ing a blog­post near­ly every week­day (that is, four days per week or 16+ times per month). That means you need to think cre­ative­ly about what can be a blog post,” Sax­ton said.

2. Use the right tools from the start

“Ulti­mate­ly it’s not about the num­ber of tools but rather the selec­tion of the right tools suit­ed for your agency,” Mat­tan Dani­no, Founder & CEO of WEBITMD, says. “It makes sense to be fru­gal dur­ing the start­up phase but mak­ing a point to allo­cate a bud­get toward the prop­er man­age­ment tools is bet­ter for clients, employ­ees and ulti­mate­ly your bot­tom line. I see most mar­ket­ing agen­cies make the mis­take of using a slew of low cost tools and soft­ware as ser­vice plat­forms to accom­plish every lit­tle com­po­nent of their offer­ings. Those tools have seem­ing­ly no end, and new ones are always pop­ping up. I believe a cus­tom CRM solu­tion, mar­ket­ing automa­tion suite and inter­nal task man­age­ment app is nec­es­sary for any agency to run smoothly.”

3. Quality content leads to better engagement

Sto­ry­telling mar­ket­ing is one of the best tech­niques you can use to keep people’s atten­tion. It also helps with the over­all qual­i­ty of your arti­cles, and it leads to more shares and engagement.

“Do not write con­tent just for sake of writ­ing,” Anas­ta­sia Sid­ko, Con­tent Man­ag­er at SEM­rush, said. “Always pro­vide val­ue to the user. Share your own expe­ri­ences — hacks you’ve dis­cov­ered, tricks you’ve used and even fail­ures you’ve had. If you don’t have enough knowl­edge yet, you can also use expe­ri­ence of the indus­try influ­encers. Choose the most engag­ing top­ics and suc­cess­ful con­tent, and make it even more valu­able by using Bri­an Dean’s Sky­scraper Technique.”

4. When you can’t create, repurpose

“It can be hard to come up with new con­tent all the time,” Emi­ly Sid­ley from Three Girls Media, said. “So re-use what you cre­ate in mul­ti­ple places. After you’ve writ­ten a few posts, you can eas­i­ly com­bine them into a white paper that you offer your read­ers, or if you have some sta­tis­tic-heavy blog posts, con­sid­er using the data to cre­ate an info­graph­ic. For every piece of con­tent you cre­ate, think about ways you can re-use what you’ve already devel­oped in a new way to make your con­tent cre­ation efforts eas­i­er in the future.”

5. Find the right platform and influencers

Where you post your con­tent is impor­tant. It is also impor­tant who inter­acts with your con­tent. These are things that peo­ple research before they do busi­ness with you. Peo­ple want to know who trusts you, who endors­es you and who is will­ing to pro­mote you. Do your research to find the right plat­forms and influ­encers you want on your side. Then you have the daunt­ing task of reach­ing out.

“Take the time to engage with the blog or influ­encer,” Julia Anghel of WallSt.io, said. “Get on their mail­ing list. Under­stand their writ­ing style and what top­ics they like. Then write to see if they are real­ly a good fit for you and the new audi­ence you seek. Engage with them and their con­tent. Share their stuff across your social net­works, and engage with their’s. Leave mean­ing­ful com­ments on their blog posts, and begin to facil­i­tate a rela­tion­ship with the blog or influ­encer you are seek­ing out.”

6. Start everything with cornerstone content

Cor­ner­stone con­tent is a sin­gle piece of con­tent that you can build all future con­tent from. It can con­sist of a land­ing page, white paper or any­thing sim­i­lar. It can also help keep you from becom­ing over­whelmed Michael Pas­sanante, senior direc­tor of mar­ket­ing for BESLER Con­sult­ing, says.

“To keep from being over­whelmed by the demands of con­tent cre­ation, focus on devel­op­ing one or two pieces of cor­ner­stone con­tent, such as a white paper or ebook that will be the go-to resources for the top­ics you are explor­ing. Ide­al­ly, these assets should be com­pre­hen­sive, and explore the core themes that align with your con­tent strat­e­gy,” Pas­sanante said.

7. Use rich images and videos in your content

Images and videos can help hold read­ers’ atten­tion and help con­vey your message.

“Engag­ing your read­ers is an impor­tant part of con­tent mar­ket­ing,” Eitan Zimer­man, CIO at Act Bold Media Group, said. “There are many ben­e­fits to increas­ing your aver­age time on site. A great way to do this is to add as much infor­ma­tive, sup­ple­men­tal and high qual­i­ty media to all your con­tent. Use high res­o­lu­tion prod­uct images, or embed a ben­e­fi­cial video for users to view. Any type of mul­ti­me­dia addi­tion to your con­tent will help users stay inter­est­ed and increase your over­all con­tent quality.”

SOURCE: Entre­pre­neur