Why Small Businesses Need Content Marketing

Con­tent mar­ket­ing is one of the most pow­er­ful tools to use as you grow your small busi­ness. Curat­ing and shar­ing brand­ed con­tent gets the word out about your brand, remains in direct con­tact with con­sumers, and helps you max­i­mize dol­lars spent on marketing. 

 What is content marketing for small business all about?

Con­tent mar­ket­ing is based as much on part­ner­ships as it is on the con­tent you pro­duce. It is a long-term strat­e­gy based on rela­tion­ships devel­oped with influ­encers who can reach your audi­ence with the con­tent you want to share.

The oth­er impor­tant part of con­tent mar­ket­ing is pro­duc­ing and shar­ing con­tent con­sis­tent­ly so that your audi­ence can rely on you as one of their top media sources.

The con­tent you share should be well-pro­duced, mean­ing­ful to your brand, and mean­ing­ful to your con­sumers. The idea behind shar­ing con­tent as a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy is not just to inform your audi­ence about what you like or believe in as a brand. The goal is to con­nect on com­mon inter­ests and become the out­let to your audi­ence when they want to con­sume this desired media.

Does content marketing work?

It does! Con­tent helps your brand in many ways. The biggest impact your con­tent has on con­sumers is the mes­sage it sends from your com­pa­ny: we care about you. When you pro­vide con­tent that offers solu­tions to prob­lems and answers to ques­tions, your audi­ence has to do less work search­ing for the infor­ma­tion and imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nizes your brand as an expert. 

This is just the begin­ning. Let’s look at a few of the ways you can help your busi­ness get to the next level.

Why small businesses need content marketing?

Boost brand awareness

As a small busi­ness, you need all the aware­ness you can get. Get­ting your brand’s name online and in front of con­sumers is the first incre­men­tal step in gain­ing trac­tion in the pur­chase fun­nel, and con­tent helps you get there by shar­ing your com­pa­ny name online through your var­i­ous influ­encers and part­ners com­mu­ni­cat­ing to your audience. 

Even if con­sumers are not imme­di­ate pur­chasers, they become more of your brand name for future instances of when they need your type of prod­uct or services.

Establish brand identity

You can use every bit of con­tent you share or have influ­encers share to com­mu­ni­cate your brand iden­ti­ty. A strong brand mes­sage and sto­ry takes time to cre­ate, so start from your first post and ask your­self before every pub­lished piece whether or not the con­tent reflects your brand. 

Drive traffic

Con­tent dri­ves traf­fic to your web­site, which is essen­tial to climb­ing search engine rank­ings, gen­er­at­ing leads, and con­vert­ing searchers into cus­tomers. The more con­tent you share through var­i­ous out­lets, the more con­sumers are prompt­ed to fol­low a link to your website.

Create lead generation

Use con­tent to gen­er­ate more leads. As soon as users vis­it your site through shared con­tent, from influ­encers or part­ners, offer pro­mo­tion (dis­count, newslet­ter) in exchange for con­tact infor­ma­tion. Use this con­tact infor­ma­tion to stay in touch with peo­ple who have already expressed inter­est in your site. Hope­ful­ly, they will think of you when they are ready or pass your info along to a friend.

Position yourself as an authoritative voice

Aim for part­ners in your indus­try who can share your con­tent with one large, sweep­ing audi­ence. Your tar­get audi­ence will begin to see you as a leader

Build trust

Shar­ing con­tent con­sis­tent­ly shows con­sumers you are there for them and that their needs come first. Build­ing trust ear­ly on in the brand-con­sumer rela­tion­ship is hard to do but will go a long way.

Maintain website relevancy

If you always upload fresh con­tent to your site and have peers gen­er­ate traf­fic to your site via new con­tent, your web­site remains rel­e­vant as a byprod­uct. Stick­ing to a con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and time­line is a great way to keep your web­site updat­ed at all times.

Opportunity for analysis

Mea­sur­ing your con­tent mar­ket­ing trac­tion and suc­cess against goals is a per­fect way to ana­lyze how your small busi­ness is get­ting on in its pre­lim­i­nary stages. Aim to check in quar­ter­ly or month­ly (if not imme­di­ate­ly) to deter­mine which posts and types of con­tent your con­sumers respond to the most.

Promote your value

Your val­ue is not lim­it­ed to the prod­uct or ser­vice you pro­vide. There is so much more you are doing behind the scenes to keep con­sumers enter­tained and sat­is­fied. New, engag­ing con­tent is one of these ways. Keep to your time­ly sched­ule to show users you are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing this infor­ma­tion, which, in turn, projects your ongo­ing val­ue to consumers.

Non-advertising selling

Mar­ket­ing through con­tent is one of the best ways to pro­mote your brand and ser­vice or prod­uct with­out feel­ing con­fined to the eye-rolls of adver­tis­ing. Adver­tis­ing is effec­tive, but it can car­ry ener­gy that turns many con­sumers away. Reach these audi­ence mem­bers through con­tent that is engag­ing, infor­ma­tive, and entertaining.

Be yourself

This is the most fun part about con­tent mar­ket­ing — you get to be your­self, all the time! Take cre­ative lib­er­ties, take risks, be open to oppor­tu­ni­ty, and have fun. Con­tent can show your con­sumers who you are while also giv­ing you the chance to relax and show the world who is behind the brand.

Marketing strategies for small business

Mar­ket­ing strate­gies shape up dif­fer­ent­ly for every brand, but espe­cial­ly for small busi­ness­es. Each step you take is a crit­i­cal first move, an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be cre­ative, a chance to mess up with­out any­one notic­ing too bad­ly (unless..), and a per­son­al touch point with poten­tial con­sumers. As you devel­op your small busi­ness growth strat­e­gy, include con­tent marketing.

Remember the vast types of content

As you start craft­ing your con­tent strat­e­gy, you might be won­der­ing what to upload or include as rota­tions out­side of blogs and arti­cles. There are so many forms of media, and the future is bound to see more. 

Keep an eye out for evolving content and consider the following as you round out your uploading timeline: 

• Blogs
• Info­graph­ics
• Tweets
• Pho­to
• Video
• UGC
• Prod­ucts
• Ser­vices
• Comics
• Phys­i­cal space
• Ads
• Com­ments
• UI
• Data
• Press
• Ani­ma­tions
• Print
• Tools
• Slides
• Events
• APIs

The most common and effective types of content marketing in small businesses are:

• Blogs
• Social media
• Email newslet­ters
• Video
• Info­graph­ics
• Webi­na­rs
• Ebooks
• Live events

Tips before you get started

Before you get going on your con­tent, keep the fol­low­ing advice in mind so that you get start­ed off on the right foot and exe­cute your strat­e­gy effi­cient­ly and most of all, effectively.

• Iden­ti­fy the audience
• Deter­mine con­tent scope
• Estab­lish a reli­able timeline
• Incor­po­rate keywords
• Fix goals
• Decide met­rics
• Mea­sure and analyze
• Auto­mate

Hire an expert

If you are new to con­tent mar­ket­ing, hir­ing a pro­fes­sion­al team is your best bet for cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the poten­tial ROI that this dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing arm has to offer. 

Even if you’ve been curat­ing your own con­tent for years, opt­ing for an auto­mat­ed pro­gram for part of your strat­e­gy or tak­ing advan­tage of a pro­fes­sion­als’ years of expe­ri­ence is the clear­est route to con­tent mar­ket­ing success.

Rosy Strate­gies is your go-to resource team for all of your dig­i­tal mar­ket needs. We offer guid­ance along your mar­ket­ing jour­ney, curate strate­gies spe­cif­ic to your brand, and have soft­ware pro­grams you need to auto­mate cer­tain exten­sions of your strategy.

To learn more about our ser­vices or get start­ed with your con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for 2019, reach out to our team, today.