Apple devotees rose to the challenge, driving more than 50,000 posts daily on Instagram alone in a bid to get featured by Apple. This ‘Shot on an iPhone’ campaign is an excellent example of successful content marketing in action.

What is content marketing?

“Great content is the best sales tool in the world.” – Marcus Sheridan

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of high-quality, relevant and useful content to help people to solve a problem. Unlike advertising, which is a push model, known as outbound marketing, and works by advertising products or services, content marketing is a pull model, known as inbound marketing, that draws in customers through compelling organic content.

Great content can connect with an audience, convert them into leads, and nurture them into long-term customers or brand advocates. A successful content marketing strategy involves creating powerful content that helps your target audience to move through their customer journey by removing barriers to purchase. Content marketing comes in various forms and may include:

• Videos
• Webinars
• Podcasts
• Articles and Blogs
• Social media posts.

The importance of content marketing for small businesses

A strong content marketing plan consists of creating and distributing high-quality content to generate brand awareness and engagement with your target audience so that they trust and remember you. Small businesses often work with a constrained marketing budget and can’t afford to advertise. That’s why content marketing, which can often be produced affordably in-house, is a great solution. This Digital Marketing Agency on the Central Coast recommends that small businesses should create share-worthy content that resonates with its target audience by delivering high value.

Your content should focus on these three fundamental aspects.

Awareness

It starts by deeply understanding your audience’s needs, fears, interests and desires and tailoring your content to serve them during their awareness phase.

Consideration

The content you serve should provide valuable information to educate your audience about topics that you have expertise in. For example, if you work at a digital marketing agency, you may publish a helpful video about how a small business can optimize its Google Business profile.

Decision

Ultimately, the end goal of content marketing is to convert potential visitors into successful leads. At this stage, all your focus should be on driving sales. Your primary message here should be your USP, expertise, and benefits of buying your product. Using special offers, Free trials, demos, Testimonials, and reviews may help to get your customer across the line.

Why Should Small Businesses Invest In Content Marketing?

Here are the six benefits of content marketing for small businesses.

1. Improve Brand Recall

Powerful content marketing helps people remember you and your company’s name. It helps to share your story and why you’re different. It improves brand recognition, and more people will be able to recall your product or service. They’ll connect with your story, which builds trust. Identify your audience and research where they spend the most time online. A great way to share your story is to  write meaningful blogs representing your brand’s USP and distinctive features and promote these on your website and across your social channels.

2. Attracting Prospects

Online shoppers’ behaviour indicates that most want to know about a company or product in detail before making a purchase. That means an advertisement can lead them to your website, but the final decision will be made on the detailed information acquired from blogs and website content, so ensuring your content tells the right story and connects with your buyer is key.

3. Build Credibility And Trust Among Customers.

The more you inform and add value to your audience, the more they will trust you over time. Blog posts are an ideal way to educate your audience. Regularly posting blogs to your website and content to your social channels keeps your audience engaged. Moreover, every message should be consistent with your brand’s voice. Ensure you post creative and engaging content; remember, you only have 10 seconds to capture your audience’s attention.

4. Increase Organic Traffic On Your Website

Relevant content synchronizes with people’s needs, making your brand known to them. SEO and content marketing helps to maintain a constant flow of organic visitors. When users relate to your content, the more likely they will find or return to your site. Including keywords in your website content improves your chances of ranking highly for them in search and can help boost organic traffic to your website. Create meaningful content that adds value to your audience so that they keep coming back.

5. Building Authority

Having a reliable and reputable website is very important for small businesses. People want to know your experience in the industry, read testimonials and check user ratings to know that your business is not only legitimate but effective with real people. Small companies should provide extensive and up-to-date information on their website to educate their audience and thus establish their authority.

6. Survive The Competition

Strong content marketing can help you stand out from the competition. . Serve your audience your distinctive features and emphasize your USP. Don’t just sell; connect with your audience and engage with them. Content marketing is also the best way to improve your rankings in search engines and other online platforms.

3 Tips To Follow For Great Content Marketing

KEEP

Check your content constantly. Keep what’s relevant and create new campaigns with the already persistent content.

DELETE

Any content which didn’t meet your goals (rise in web traffic, increase in revenue, leads, etc.) and contains irrelevant information can be removed.. Add new, updated, and accurate information in it’s place.

REFRESH

Google favours an updated website.  Keep optimizing your content for the search engines to improve your rankings and chances of being found by your customers.

Final Words

Content marketing takes time and is an ongoing process.. However, small businesses can benefit significantly from the right content marketing. It can solidify your brand’s image, add value to your product, increase sales, establish credibility in the industry and help you stand out from the competition. Content marketing is what lies in between the transformation of your small business into big business. Lastly, as John Buscall said, “Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign“.
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by Guest Writer
source: itwire.com