9 Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
Even individual companies and small businesses can use content marketing for sustainable success
Content marketing is becoming increasingly important as purchasing behavior changes. Nevertheless, smaller companies in particular are afraid of the effort that content marketing can cause. With a few tips, however, content marketing can also be used profitably by small companies.
Content strategy and content marketing are much-mentioned terms if you currently follow the current trends in marketing and sales. Customers are changing, shopping behavior is becoming digital and buyers expect to be provided with information, reviews and above all knowledge.
Content marketing can be a great tool for this, where you can position yourself well as an expert, pass on information to customers that they need and thus gain the trust that they will then want to buy from you. But many content marketing strategies are less suitable for small entrepreneurs or even lone wolves, because they need a lot of time and also a corresponding budget to sustainably drive a successful content marketing.
We give you a few tips with which you can successfully build a content marketing strategy even as an individual or SME without losing yourself from work or the budget. Because content marketing can be used very easily and with few resources.
Index
9 tips for successful content marketing for small businesses
1. Analysis is the beginning of everything
As a small company or sole proprietor has limited time to prepare content for content marketing, it is worthwhile here specifically to make an analysis of what the target audience looks like with whom you want to communicate. The better you know the potential customers as well as the existing customers and can classify them, the easier it will be to create interesting content for them. So it can also be important for choosing the right social media channels, because if you want to target young customers, you will want to build a presence on Snapchat rather than Facebook. For example, should you be looking for a lot of customers in China, then you will hardly want to use Twitter, but WeChat.
At the end of the analysis, you should know the most important channels and also know for which audience it is most worthwhile to post content.
2. Timing is important for content marketing
In principle, of course, it is also wrong to say that you will find young people only on one channel and older people only on Facebook, for example. Nevertheless, you should estimate your own effort exactly and try to focus on the most important channels for you. Because good content marketing also includes active support of the selected channels, since it is not enough to simply post, but you also have to be active in the community, etc..
It is therefore recommended to use tools such as HootSuite or Buffer etc. to at least post the content to multiple channels without spending much time. However, actively managing you can get much more about reactions, needs and especially feedback, so you should specialize in a few channels.
3. Content for content marketing – find niches
Especially for companies with limited resources, it is highly recommended to find a niche topic in which you are strong and have little competition. If they are competing against large vendors and content producers, one will have rather little chance of ranking well in search results in Google etc. In niches it is much more likely to get good rankings and it is also possible with good content to rise there relatively quickly. High quality texts, graphics, videos and of course images can be put online for the content. It can be enough to put one well researched text per week online to get good results for this niche.
If you are not a good copywriter, there are also various copywriters that you can pay to create content.
4. Blog as a central point of content marketing
In order to be found sustainably on the Internet, it is not advisable to post content on social media platforms and leave it there. An own blog can be used perfectly to publish the information centrally and then to link and distribute it on the social media platforms.
Small tip: Installing a social sharing tool is an easy way to additionally ensure that their visitors also share content.
5. Create an editorial plan is worthwhile
If you have little time, it is also advisable to think about a plan, which content you want to post, which topics should be worked on and possibly also to collect literature already for these topics. A plan should also help to keep up and not to lose the overview. If you have the time and the muse, you can also create several articles and publish them in the future.
For a good editorial plan, it is also advisable to note general dates such as holidays, trade fairs, important events and events in order to map them accordingly on the blog.
6. Network and do content marketing together
If you actively network with suppliers, freelancers or even entrepreneurs, you can also publish posts together. This method of guest posts is particularly interesting, because usually little own manpower is needed and you can simultaneously enable the cooperation of partners and suppliers.
7. Interviews and personal as interesting content
People love something personal. Therefore it is recommended to interview interesting people, to describe something personal from the daily work or to post content that is from others. Especially interviews are a nice change for many readers and the people who are interviewed are happy about the attention about their person.
8. Content marketing strategy and media representatives
In order to become even more relevant and take advantage of your status as an expert, it is also recommended to get in touch with press outlets and media representatives. If you find relevant topics, it is also recommended to write and publish a corresponding media release there. It is important not to send any press releases unfiltered, because journalists hate to be bombarded with nonsense, just like other bloggers.
9. Maintain contacts with influencers and bloggers
As mentioned earlier, it is important to make a name for yourself in the community, as well as build it up. This also includes becoming active in groups, answering questions and also actively contributing to the community with posts. In the long term, this can lead to being perceived as a specialist, which also leads to being invited to events and people then coming to you for information first, as you are perceived as an expert.
Conclusion – Expert status thanks to content marketing
If you can distinguish yourself in a relevant niche, deliver high-quality content and share it skillfully in the community, it is possible to build up expert status in the long term. However, this takes some time, yet it is worthwhile even for sole proprietors or small businesses. With just a little effort, it is possible to stand out from the competition in the long term, strengthen your profile as a company or person, and even gain new customers through these channels.
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