To withstand and thrive in a competitive environment, every business needs to focus on marketing, both traditional and digital. While the former works primarily if you have a big budget and a large audience to cater to, the latter is for everyone. This is especially true if you run a small business and have a defined target audience. Once you decide to make a foray into digital marketing, opt for content marketing.
Why choose content marketing?
Implementing content marketing comes with a plethora of benefits. Here’s what you stand to gain.
- You can reach out to your audience in an effective and efficient way through a format they relate to. For example, if you want to advertise a concert and your target audience is college students or young professionals, content marketing on social media platforms may be the best way to reach them.
- You can increase traffic to your website and improve your visibility on search engines.
- You can build your credibility as an expert and educate your audience.
Take a look at the various tools you can bank on when you chalk out your content marketing strategy.
Blogging
Blogs are one of the most important cogs of any content marketing wheel and form the core of all your efforts. Blog about what’s current, your core competencies and areas of interest to your audience to make sure that your posts are relevant to both parties—you and your readers.
To ensure that your audience isn’t experiencing a sensory overload, author short, well-spaced blogs over ones that are lengthy and comprise copious chunks of text without any relief. There are different types of blogs that can get you clicks. Study them to improve your traffic.
Thereafter, you can round off your strategy by sharing blog posts through social media channels, emails, newsletters and more. Bear in mind that your blogs must have a consistent tonality and voice, and tie in with the product or service that you offer.
Social media marketing
To drive home your expertise, engage in conversations with your target audience and build a relationship based on interactions, dabble in social media marketing as well.
Your approach to social media can be creative, witty, funny or informative depending on what will resonate with your audience while being true to your brand. This exercise also ensures that you’re not just talking at your audience but instead talking to them.
The nature of social media allows you to adopt a conversational approach and establish yourself as approachable.
Infographics
Infographics are an underutilised tool and serve your interests in myriad ways. They make mundane information exciting and catch the eye of the person who reads it, making it easier to stand out in a sea of social media feeds.
By presenting information in a simple, snackable way you can increase absorption, retention and recall.
Videos
Videos, much like infographics, amplify the content that you’re looking to disseminate making it more interesting and much easier to digest. In fact, video is key to content marketing, and the numbers prove this sentiment.
You can deliver your message to your target audience in a more effective and exciting manner and thus hold their attention for longer.
E-books
Another way to establish your company as an expert is to work on an e-book. Apart from communicating to your audience that your advice is worth its weight in gold, it acts as an incentive that you can use to your advantage.
For example, if you’re an image consultant, you can offer an e-book on grooming and dressing the part to clients who register for a one-week programme. It not only helps educate your customers but by offering free information you also establish that you’re putting their interests first. In addition, you can use it to generate leads as well.
Whether you’re helming a start-up, running a business single-handedly or looking to give your brand a much-needed refresh, don’t forget to give content marketing your attention! For more advice and a detailed strategy that will help you set the ball rolling, get in touch with us today. For more information, read this.
