Content marketing can be an easy and useful tool for small businesses to help grow their audiences and increase brand awareness.
So what is content marketing? Content marketing is a strategic tactic that focuses on creating and distributing relevant, valuable and consistent marketing materials as means of attracting or retaining an audience to drive engagement and increase brand awareness. There are multiple forms of content marketing including, blog posts, infographics, and social media posts.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
- Expand brand awareness
- Define brand identity
- Increase engagement
- Increase organic traffic
- Converse with customers directly
- Guide customers through their decision process
In this blog post, we are going to share some hints and tips on how to get started with content marking, if you are a novice or just want to brush up on your skills we hope this post will help you.
Where to start?
The easiest way to begin content marketing is through social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook or even Twitter. Whilst many businesses might already have social media presence this is not always enough; you need to be active on these platforms and push valuable content to reach your audience and increase their familiarity with your brand.
The number 1 secret to successful content marketing is to add value. For this, it is important to know who your audience is so that your content can be tailored to their needs and wants. After all, you don’t want to spend time and effort creating and developing your content for it to not reach the intended customer base.
Once you know your audience it’s time to think of your content. As a rule of thumb quality content should be:
1) Actionable
For your content marketing to be effective it should offer the customers a call to action. What is the next step for your customers? This could be a link to a product or event.
2) Informative
Your content must be informative to your audience. What is the message you’re trying to convey? Is there an offer on a particular product? An event in your shop? A new launch? What value does this content have to the viewer?
3) Accurate
The information must be accurate, fact-checked and reliable to help build brand trust.
4) Thoughtful
To help your content stand out it should be inspiring and thought-provoking.
5) Original
To create good brand awareness, your content should be original and specific to your business message and brand image. How do you want your business to be seen? This will help your content and your business stand out.
What are the types of content?
Content is a very broad term and can include several formats and types. Most popular are blogs or social media posts. However, effective content marketing should be diverse and offer a range of formats for the consumers.
1. Video
Over the last few years, video content has skyrocketed in importance and value to consumers. Take Tik Tok for example, over the last year or two the app continued to increase in popularity. In fact, in September 2021, Tik Tok surpassed 1 billion users. Instagram and YouTube have also jumped on this trend with their versions of Tik Toks format of ‘short videos’ with Reels and YouTube shorts.
These short videos have risen in popularity not only as they are entertaining, but they can be informative. Not only this but it is easier from a consumer perspective to watch a 60 second or so video than to read an article, blog post or look at images on social media.
If you are unsure what to post here are a few ideas to help get you started:
- Product or service promotions
- About the company
- Product packing videos
- Behind the scenes
- How to use products or services offered
- Meet the team
- Look around X store
2. Written content
When creating written content for your blog it is important to mix up your posts. Try and include informative posts on your business such as weekly newsletters. As well as interviews or Q & A with people or customers about your business. Variety is key!
3. Social media post
Social media posts can include a variety of forms including, but not limited to; infographics, short videos or reels, high-quality product images etc.
There are several tools you can use to help create your social media content. One source we suggest using is Canva, which offers free or paid memberships with a host of pre-made templates for you to use. You can also create your content with its easy to use design tools.
We hope this blog post has been informative and given you an idea on how to implement content marketing in your business, as well as some ideas of posts to create. Our final tip to help with your content marking is to create a content calendar of what posts you’ll be posting at what time and on what platform. The best way to help your content marketing be effective is to be consistent!