Small Business Content Marketing Strategies

There are many different content marketing strategies for small businesses that can make some big differences for a business just starting and looking for how to achieve continued success. Some of the best content marketing strategies for small businesses focus on the specific needs of a small business. These are things like establishing the business’s brand, customer base, and initial revenue. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the current top marketing ideas, some specific marketing strategies for a small business or startup, and the best ways to use these top strategies to achieve success with your unique business.

small business content marketing

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing type that involves creating and sharing material content. The content is most often created and/or shared online, making it digital content marketing. Good content does not inherently advertise or promote a specific product, a brand, or a company’s services. The content rather stimulates or increases interest in one or more of those things. Content marketing’s online material often involves blogs, videos, and posts to social media platforms. Digital content marketing has quickly become one of the most successful means of increasing brand exposure, customer base, and revenue.

Content Marketing Ideas

Before considering the top content marketing ideas, take the first step to define your target audience including their various demographics. This will inform your content marketing strategy overall, including the content itself, its formats, distribution, budgeting, and needed or desired resources. Then, take care not to limit your business to single formats. Rather, use various formats for their unique benefits and the diverse exposure of the content, product, brand, and/or services to the widest possible number of target audience members. Diverse content promotes consistent engagement, which is one of the top keys to a successful content marketing strategy. 

Post your diverse content regularly and maintain a connection and a conversation with your audience. Asking for questions, suggestions, and feedback encourages continued engagement. Other top content marketing ideas include keeping up with your analytics, utilizing available research tools, and always being up-to-date on current marketing trends as these are always changing. SEO-friendly analytics and content will also increase engagement by keeping your content at the forefront of searches and feeds. There are many advantages of social media content marketing and posting content marketing online in addition to high business exposure.

Also, be aware of other successful content marketers for their useful strategies, branding, and content. Consider what improvements could be made to their approaches and use these to inform your content marketing. Take specific note of content marketers of similar content, promoted business type, and business size. When posting yourself, also maintain clarity in each post to ensure tone, message, and desires are communicated to the audience moving forward with the objects marketed. Express expertise toward the objects as well as the object’s quality and the brand and/or the company’s values. After posting, continuously review how posts perform, consult your analytics, and adapt.

content marketing ideas

Small Business Content Marketing Ideas

In addition to the aforementioned top content marketing ideas overall, other content marketing strategies will provide a higher level of success for a small business specifically. The best strategies for content marketing for small businesses are those that focus on the highest exposure and engagement for the lowest possible costs. Some of the cheapest or free small business marketing ideas include starting a blog, building a presence on various social media platforms, creating an email newsletter, creating content aligned with a customer sales funnel, creating and following a content calendar, and focusing on reviews and testimonials.

Start a Blog

Blogs are one of the most effective small business content marketing strategies. Through a blog, you can establish your expertise in your given field, show your skills and capabilities, and the work you’ve done. Having upwards of 20 blog posts on your website can drive up to 30% higher traffic to your business’s website. Blogs help increase your exposure, deliver value to customers, boost SEO rankings, generate leads, and help increase conversion. Some of the top platforms to help you create a blog include Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Web.com, and Weebly. Once you have chosen a platform, customize the look and content, register a domain name, and purchase web hosting.

Maximize Social Media Presence

Once you’ve defined your target audience, you can begin posting your diverse content to a wide range of social media platforms. Each platform has its different content marketers and audiences. Posting to various platforms will diversify competition and exposure while increasing your audience. Audiences tend to have higher regular engagement with one or two specific platforms. So, the more platforms you post to, the greater your chances are of reaching them. Remain active, engaging, continue to analyze your performance on individual platforms to determine where your target audience is most active, and adapt your focuses. It also helps to see which platforms your competition posts to most, indicating your target audience’s presence.

Create an Email Newsletter

An email newsletter is a worthwhile means of content marketing for small businesses that allows you to notify customers when new products, content, or services are available, continue diversifying content, and maintain contact. Include coupons, sales, and the most current news and events in the field and with the brand or company. This strategy is well worth its value, with an average return on investment of $42 for every dollar spent. Start by building your email list through a signup form on your website, social media, and others. Segment list contacts into smaller lists of specific interests including demographics, purchase behavior, and brand loyalty to tune your emails’ content. Include a clear call-to-action button.

content marketing for small business

Produce Sales Funnel Content

Your content marketing strategy should include content that corresponds to a basic customer sales funnel for more attuned content and customer sales efficiency. A marketing funnel is a process to achieve customer conversion. It includes attention, interest, desire, and action expressed by a customer pre-sale to sale. Aligning this customer sales funnel with your marketing content involves targeting customers at each stage to not overwhelm them with the full spectrum of content and business information. Begin by creating a detailed buyer persona, document the customer journey steps, have content for each, and create a content catalog.

Create a Content Calendar

When content marketing for a small business, a content calendar is a valuable tool to help figure out how to consistently post engaging content and continue to be engaging by posting regularly. A content calendar allows you to keep track of and determine what you’re posting and when for a given week, month, or even year for a higher plan-ahead strategy. You can include your blog posts, social media posts, emails, and other marketing content. Including timelines for completion also helps you stay organized and better meet your goals and deadlines. Google Sheets, Monday.com, Hive9, Asana, and StoryChief are a few good platforms for creating a calendar.

Focus on Reviews and Testimonials

Product, brand, and/or company reviews greatly inform and influence audiences and customers. Focus on positive reviews and testimonials and highlight them in your content. Respond to positive reviews with positivity and a tone of customer value and quality. Focus equally on less positive reviews to discern problems, including recurring or common problems, and develop a plan of action. Reflect value, quality assurance, express your plan of action, and highlight solved problems. Testimonials are equally valuable to produce, encourage, and even seek out from team members and customers. Customer testimonials are generally more effective.

small business marketing ideas

Content Marketing Your Small Business

There are many different content marketing strategies for small businesses in addition to the top strategies for all businesses. Successful content marketing for small businesses begins with defining your target audience. Use various platforms, including various social media platforms, and make your marketing content diverse between copy, photo, and video content. Produce marketing content that engages your target audience with a clear tone, message, and call-to-action. Analyze other similar content marketers for tips and competition familiarity. Post regularly, monitor and adapt your posting, and make it SEO-friendly for the greatest outreach and exposure.

As a small business, take advantage of free or cheap tools for organization, scheduling, and analysis. Start a blog to expose your content and content marketing and use tools such as a created content calendar to organize and schedule content to avoid overworking yourself or missing deadlines. Continually email customers and connect with them at all stages of the customer sales funnel with marketing content, news, and deals reflecting their current relationship to your business. Use reviews and testimonials to inform your content, express value, quality, and monitor and adapt performance. 

SEO Design Chicago is here for your small business to provide higher engagement, customer conversion, and revenue and to continue to bring you the latest tips, tools, and suggestions to inform your content marketing journey.

FAQ:

  • What is content marketing?
  • How do blogs help a business?
  • What are the best marketing strategies for a small business?
  • Why is an email newsletter a good content marketing strategy?
  • What is a content calendar?

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