Small businesses can leverage their knowledge, the resources they have already created and the knowledge of others through content marketing. The idea behind content marketing is to use informative content to build relationships with your target market. Content simply means information in written, audio or visual form that informs, educates, inspires or entertains your audience.
Publishing content can both build your reputation and attract visitors to your website. This can change your market’s perception of you from a vendor to a resource and build trust with prospective customers.
Here are 5 content marketing tactics you can use.
Blog
Your blog can serve several purposes. First, it gives visitors an incentive to return to your website if it features useful content. Consistently publishing blog posts is essential to build traffic. Second, distributing blog posts via social media can also bring visitors to your website. Third, you can build your email list by including an opt-in box in every blog post.
eNewsletter
This gives you a way to stay in contact with customers and prospects. It should contain a combination of informative and promotional content. Make sure to include social sharing buttons and a subscriber box in the newsletter to help extend its reach and attract new subscribers.
Content Curation
You do not have to create all of the content you publish yourself. Sharing valuable information that others have created adds to your credibility. Curating content is less involved than creating content yourself, so it saves you time as well.
Video
Video can be used to establish a more personal connection between your business and your audience. People love to associate what they are buying with a person rather than a faceless business entity. Normally, videos should be 2 minutes or less and you can create a simple video without spending a fortune.
Audio
Many people consume content while walking or driving, so it is a good idea to have some of your information in audio format. This can range from a welcome message, to interviews, to technical talks and other content.
You can make one piece of content work harder for you by repurposing it in other formats. For example, take a blog post and turn it into a video, a podcast and a Slideshare presentation.
If you have found ways to make content marketing work for your business, please share your ideas with us.
Great ideas, Stan.
I’m a big advocate of website marketing as its the only marketing tool where small businesses truly own the content. While Twitter, Facebook, etc. offer much value, the trade off is control and ownership.
Small businesses tend to overlook the wealth of marketing potential in properly using their own website!
Well said Jimi! We definitely agree on the importance of owned content. Social media is a great distribution channel, offers readers a choice of how they want to engage with you and helps bring visitors to your website.