Everything You Need to Know About Producing Content Marketing for Small Business.
Have no doubt, creating content marketing for small business is a powerful weapon in your online marketing arsenal. Want some figures to back that up? Consider:
- Businesses that blog receive 97% more links to their website. When your brand produces consistently insightful industry news to your visitors, it increases your inbound links which in, turn increase your reputation as a credible and valuable resource.
- Consumers are growing increasingly more comfortable with non-personal interactions, and by 2020, they will manage 85% of their online relationships without once talking to a live person. That means your target audience will be doing their own research about your products and services before you even make initial contact with them. One of the best ways for you to get relevant and useful information to them, and influence their purchasing decisions, is through content marketing for small business.
- If your small business blogs on a regular basis, you are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. The value of the leads you reach through blogging cannot be underestimated, and the great news is you gather those leads without the added cost of advertising and/or sales reps. Your content marketing for small business is a 24-hour lead targeting machine.
Connect and Share
Your company blog is a simple way to connect with your audience to share timely, relevant and useful information they need in order to make informed decisions. It’s your own direct communication channel for your company’s voice, and it’s where your brand’s personality can really shine. Every piece of content you post to your small business blog is fodder for other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as for your eBooks and direct email list. At its best, your blog creates an ongoing conversation with your targeted audience and industry peers.
Fun and Functional
Content marketing for small business can be serious fun. Whether you write your own content or hire someone else to do it, creating valuable content for your audience can stimulate your own creativity and energize your imagination to come up with ideas that offer your customers an enjoyable online experience.
Various sources estimate that 60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers. Since your small business blog fuels SEO, search engines will reward you with higher rankings, which translates into more leads. Once you start performing data analysis, you’ll find that your blog is an extremely cost-effective marketing investment, with every post you publish a long-term asset that builds your brand’s awareness and establishes your business as an industry leader.
Blogging as Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy
Like every element of your overall marketing plan, you need to devise an effective blogging strategy. No matter what your niche is, without a plan, you’re just writing for writing’s sake. While your business’s strategy will differ from others – even in your same industry – there are some common traits which apply across the board for content marketing for small businesses:
- Long & short term goals are established, with a clear idea of what’s to be achieved within a defined timeline.
- A specific strategy is developed that lays out the entire blueprint of your blog, with common themes and purposes defined that serve to build your brand’s image.
- You must be willing to invest not just time, but money, to create, promote and maintain your blog.
- The content you create and how you promote it is a reflection of your brand, and great content is part of what is known as deliberate brand building.
Related: Top Best Practices for Optimizing Your Content
Your content marketing strategy will grow and evolve, but your brand’s mission and business goals should remain constant. There’s no better place to do this than with your content marketing for small business, where your distinct voice will help you build a following of loyal customers. Just remember: having a blog and writing content for it is not a strategy. Strategy entails using small business blogs to inform audiences and convert them into long-term believers and buyers. This is what the top small business blogs do and so should you.
If you’re a small business owner new to blogging, there are plenty of small business blogs out there for you to follow and draw ideas from. For your personal best results, start slowly, analyze your data, tweak your content accordingly, and watch your audience – and bottom line – grow. Or, if it is too much for you to handle, check out our white paper about deciding between hiring freelance small business blog writers or using in-house content writers.
