Let’s explore step by step how you can achieve long-term business objectives with compelling content that resonates with your target audience. From defining your goals to analyzing your content, everything you need to know about creating a winning content marketing strategy for small business can be found in this post.
As a small business owner looking to drive growth and success, having a solid marketing strategy is crucial for your business. One of the best and most cost-effective way to establish your brand’s reputation and generate more leads and conversions is through content marketing.
What is content marketing strategy for small business?
Content marketing strategy for small business involves creating and sharing valuable, relevant and consistent content that attracts and engages your target audience, and ultimately driving profitable customer actions.
Why content marketing strategy for small business is important
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing to reach customers, and 97% of marketers surveyed by Semrush achieved some degree of success with their content marketing.
There must be good reasons for so many marketing professionals to allocate their marketing dollars in content marketing. Here’s why you should consider doing it for your small business too:
1. Your competition has it
First and foremost, your competitors are likely doing it.
According to a survey by HubSpot, 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. By not having a content marketing strategy in place, you risk falling behind and losing potential customers to your competition.
2. Get compounding results
One of the greatest benefits of having a content marketing strategy for small business is its compounding effect.
Unlike traditional advertising that has a limited lifespan, content marketing has the potential to continue driving results long after it’s been published. For instance, blog posts have a compounding return, which means that over time, they can generate more traffic and leads than they did when first published.
3. Achieve explosive growth
Content marketing can also lead to explosive growth for your small business.
By creating content that resonates with your target audience, there is a chance that it will go viral! And when it does, you can quickly and effectively increase your brand awareness and customer base.
Dollar Shave Club, a company that sells razors and other grooming products, grew to over 3.2 million subscribers within five years of launching, largely due to their viral video that received over 26 million views in its first three months.
4. Gain brand recognition and authority
Based on a recent survey by Demand Metric, 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content.
By consistently producing valuable, quality and informative content, you can establish your brand’s recognition and position your small business as a thought leader in your field, increasing your credibility and trust with your audience.
5. Increase conversions
With your carefully crafted marketing content, you can guide your potential customers towards making a purchase by moving them down your marketing funnel. According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing methods.
By creating content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and interests at each stage of the funnel, you nurture your leads and guide them from awareness to consideration to conversion.
5 steps to create a content marketing strategy for small business
1. Define your goals and target audience
What are you hoping to achieve with your content marketing efforts? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, generate leads, or boost sales?
The first step in creating winning content marketing strategy for small business is to define your goals. Once you have done that, you can then identify your target audience and create content that speaks directly to their needs and interests.
2. Conduct keyword research
As 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, conducting keyword research is essential for ensuring that your content is discoverable by your target audience.
By identifying the keywords and phrases that your audience is searching for, you can create content that aligns with their search intent and increases your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages.
3. Develop a content strategy
Once you’ve defined your goals, target audience and identified keywords, it’s time to develop a content strategy. This includes creating a content calendar, brainstorming content ideas, and deciding on the format and distribution channels for your content.
Keep in mind that your content should be valuable, informative and engaging, and align with your brand’s messaging and goals.
4. Create and publish quality content
Creating quality content is key to success in winning content marketing for small business. Whether you are creating blog posts, videos, infographics or social media posts, your content should always be informative and visually appealing and informative.
Once you have created your content, be sure to publish and promote it on the appropriate channels to ensure that it reaches your target audience. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect – because nothing in this world is perfect! Just make sure your content is relevant to your audience so they will react to it.
5. Analyze and optimize your content
Analyzing and optimizing your content is essential for ensuring that your content marketing strategy is successful.
By tracking your content’s performance through metrics such as page views, engagement and conversions, you can identify what’s working well and what needs improvement. Use this data to optimize your content and improve your strategy over time.
Wanna know how to to track the performance of your content? Read on!
How to measure success of content marketing strategy for small business
Measuring the success of your content marketing efforts is essential to determining the effectiveness of your strategy and plan. Here are some key metrics to track:
1. Website traffic
This metric measures the number of visitors that come to your website through your content marketing efforts.
To track this metric, you can use tools such as Google Analytics, which provides data on the number of sessions, unique visitors, and page views.
You can also use social media analytics to track the number of clicks or visits to your website from your social media channels. By monitoring your website traffic, you can determine which types of content are driving the most traffic to your website and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
2. User engagement
This metric measures how engaged your audience is with your content. It includes track metrics such as time on page, bounce rate and social shares.
Time on page measures how long visitors spend on a particular page before leaving. A high time on page indicates that your content is engaging and valuable to your audience.
Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. A low bounce rate indicates that visitors are interested in your content and are exploring your website further.
Social shares measure the number of times your content has been shared on social media platforms. This metric indicates the level of interest and engagement your content is generating on social media.
3. Conversions
By tracking conversions, you can determine how effective your content is in driving the desired actions and adjust your content strategy to improve conversion rates.
This metric measures the number of leads, sales, or other desired actions generated by your content. For example, if your content includes a call-to-action (CTA) to sign up for a newsletter, you can track the number of newsletter sign-ups generated by that particular piece of content.
Sales, form submissions and downloads are some of the other conversions that you should track, so you know whether your content is effective or if adjustments are needed.
4. ROI
Return on investment (ROI) measures the financial impact of your content marketing efforts. By tracking ROI, you can determine the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy and make data-driven decisions on how to allocate your marketing budget.
ROI compares the cost of your content marketing strategy to the revenue generated by that strategy. To calculate ROI, you need to determine the cost of creating and promoting your content and compare it to the revenue generated by that content. Revenue can include sales, leads or other desired actions generated by your content.
So what is a good ROI for content marketing strategy for small business? While it varies from one campaign to another as the number can be impacted by multiple factors, most digital marketers use a 5:1 ratio as a rule of thumb. i.e. making $5 for every $1 spent on marketing.
Powerful tips to content marketing strategy for small business
1. Focus on quality over quantity
One of the biggest mistakes that small business make when it comes to content marketing is focusing too much on quantity and not enough on quality.
By prioritizing quality over quantity, you’ll build a loyal audience that trusts your brand and is more likely to convert into customers.
While it’s important to publish content regularly, creating high-quality content that provides value to your audience should be your top priority.
- Taking the time to research your audience’s needs and interests
- Craft well-written and informative content
- Use visuals and multimedia to enhance your message.
2. Be consistent
Whether you publish new content every day, every week or every month, make sure that you are consistent. This will help you build trust with your audience and establish your brand as a credible source of information in your industry.
Consistency is key in content marketing strategy for small business. The following tips can help you build momentum and keep your audience engaged over time:
- Set aside a dedicated time for content creation on your calendar
- Establish a regular publishing schedule and stick to it
- Repurpose existing content
3. Be authentic
In today’s crowded digital landscape, being authentic and genuine in your content and showing your audience the human side of your brand will make your brand more memorable to your audience.
Whether you use humor, empathy or a more serious tone, make sure that your brand voice and personality are consistent across all of your content channels.
- Clearly define your brand value to create a unique personality
- Avoid copying others and trying to be something you are not
- Share your experience to connect with your audience
4. Embrace storytelling
By using stories to create emotional connections with your audience, you can make your content more relatable, engaging and memorable. Storytelling is a powerful tool in winning content marketing strategy for small business.
Whether you’re telling the story of your brand’s origin, sharing customer success stories, or using a narrative to explain complex concepts, make sure that your stories are well-crafted and resonate with your audience.
- Use the hero’s journey framework
- Use vivid and descriptive language to paint a picture in your audience’s mind
- Tell stories about how your brand solves a problem or improves people’s lives
5. Use data to guide your strategy
Data is a powerful tool you can use to gain insights into your audience’s demographics, interests, and behavior, identify high-performing content, optimize your marketing channels, and measure your ROI.
By using data to guide your content marketing strategy, you’ll be able to make smarter decisions, improve your content and grow your business over time.
- Choose KPIs that align with your goals and are measurable
- Use tools like Google Trends or BuzzSumo to identify trending topics
- Continuously A/B test and optimize your content to improve your results over time
Key takeaways
It may sound overwhelming, but creating a content marketing strategy for your small business is totally doable! It just takes some careful planning, execution and analysis.
You can start by defining your goals and target audience, then identify topics and keywords that are relevant to your audience and align with your business goals. After that, decide on the type(s) of content you will create and how you will distribute it. Keep an eye on your audience’s response and optimize your content over time to ensure that it is driving the results you want.
Still got questions? I am happy to help! Let’s have a chat!
