3 Steps to Create a Powerful Small Business Content Marketing Strategy

What makes a powerful small business? A powerful content marketing strategy designed to generate consumer demand, entice engagement and create revenue.

Create a Powerful Small Business Content Marketing Strategy

 

Small businesses face several problems when they are trying to develop their content marketing strategy. These problems, although small, can cause any business to suffer greatly. The problem with small businesses is that they do not have a team of experts to help them build a marketing strategy. In most cases, there is just a small group of people who are taking care of all the tasks.

Fortunately, content marketing has become a tad bit easier with the ease of accessibility to the internet.

Moreover, content marketing strategies have evolved and leveled up to a great extent. But the real question is, with the limited amount of resources.

How will a small business create a content marketing strategy?

That is exactly what we will discuss in this article today. Keep reading to find out 3 steps to develop a powerful content marketing strategy for small businesses.

Step # 1 – Do Your Research

Research is a very important element for any business or powerful content marketing strategy.

Research plays an important part in building a marketing strategy. The first kind of research that you would want to do is figure out who your target audience is. Your content cannot be targeted towards everybody. It has to be directed towards a particular audience. Every product has a particular marketing niche. If you are marketing for an air freshener, you cannot allow your Content Writing Services provider to write about toothpaste.

Try to make sense of who might be your target audience. Once you know your target audience, it will be easier to address them. Before you develop your strategy, ask yourself questions like:

“Is my product/service providing a solution?”

“Is my product/service helping people in any way?”

It may not be necessary for you to find out the answers to these questions right away. But the more questions you ask yourself at this point. You will have a clearer picture of the future.

Another important aspect of research is finding out about your competitors. Try to get as many statistics you can that would help you judge them in a better way. Your content should at the same level or better than your competitors. Try to find the edge to your product or service and use it to enhance your content marketing strategy.

You can sort things out by having clear cut answers to the following questions:

–       What is the purpose of your content?

–       Who will invest their time reading it?

–       Who is your competitor and how can you perform better than them?

–       What edge do you have over your competitor?

You can also formulate other questions, depending on what your product/service is about. Factors such as geography will also have an impact on your target audience. The product or the services you are offering might only be suitable for people living in a particular area/region.

Step # 2 – Formulate your Goals

Once you have done your research, the next step is to define your goals.

As a small business owner, you should be aware of your limitations. Setting realistic goals is extremely important if you would want your venture to be successful. You and your team must be aware of the time, money and resources that are at stake. Unfortunately, small businesses have lesser flexibility and are not at a position to experiment. Therefore, each step that you take towards your goals should be well defined and formulated to avoid any hassle later.

Your objectives need to revolve around two categories:

–       Increasing Engagement: The term revolves around factors like how you can engage your audience and improve the overall reception of your brand. Brand engagement also includes developing strategies that would increase customer loyalty towards your brand.  Moreover, it is also part of the process to become a thought leader.

–       Generating Demand: This category is more linked to the technicalities related to content marketing such as improving the SEO ranking and the traffic that is coming to the website. The process of generating leads and nurturing them also plays an important role in demand generation. All this plays an important role in increasing the sales of the product/services and generating revenue.

As a small business, you don’t have to focus on all the objectives initially. Your strategy should be a fair balance between increasing brand engagement and generating demand. Moreover, it is important to keep factors like time and cost under consideration too. Especially if you are the owner of a small business.

Step # 3 – Developing Content

This brings us to the next step that is developing content.

Tip number one – do not take the platform that you have for granted. Try to create content that is valuable to the readers. Talk about issues that surround the product or service that you are offering. Moreover, use simple language so that you can reach a wider audience. Unless your product/service is super high-tech and your target audience is only those people who will be able to understand technical terms.

However, even if you are hitting simple topics like lifestyle do not be a total bore. Be interactive with the audience. You can engage the audience by asking questions or taking suggestions. Another important tip for you is about the length of your posts – DO NOT elaborate extensively. Nobody has that kind of time anymore. People usually skim through articles and social media posts. Make sure that your headings have valuable content. This is what will keep the readers engaged and they will keep coming back to your website or social media.

Experiment with different types of visual content

Variety is essential when it comes to visual content. There’s not a really a one-size-fits-all type of mantra with it, and you should always be open to new ideas.

The type of content you implement will vary from industry to industry, and from niche to niche. You have to decide what would be best for you – that also keeps on-brand.

We highly recommend a variety of approaches, which is the same method that the majority of companies also use. This can be anything from:

  • Videos
  • Gifs
  • Pictures
  • Infographics
  • Diagrams
  • Illustrations
  • Boomerangs (almost like a GIF)

From the perspective of someone who isn’t a designer, creating an infographic or other type of image that’s both beautiful and effective can seem like an impossible task… but that’s far from the truth, just take a look at this infographic from Venngage on How to Make an Infographic in 5 Easy Steps.

Conclusion

Whatever you do, always have room for change. An agile marketing strategy works best for most businesses – no matter what their size is. This is probably because of the ever-evolving marketing industry. Marketing strategies are changing more frequently than ever in the over-competitive market. It is not possible for content creators to simply stick to one strategy. The right marketing strategy can change the entire dynamics of a small business. If done right it can be the stepping stone to achieve something bigger and better.