As a business owner, you’ve harnessed the power and influence of social media platforms to springboard your business to reach your market and gain a foothold in the e-commerce segment. Especially in these COVID-19 times, online means allowing contactless transactions and virtual communication, which enables businesses to be active.
But social media alone might not be enough to promote your products to your target market. Larger businesses utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content marketing to efficiently reach a bigger or niche audience, improve branding, and meet prospective business partners. These two terms might sound intimidating, but with the right strategies, you’ll be able to expand your business to better heights effectively.
Here are five tips small business owners like you can use for better and more effective content marketing.
Determine Your Marketing Goals
Content marketing involves knowing your audience, understanding their needs and preferences, identifying your goals for your market, and setting your plans to draw your audience’s attention to engage in your business. Having a clear picture of your goals enables you to stay relevant and build a better brand reputation.
Your marketing goals should be tailor-fitted to your business and what you want to achieve. Identify your marketing goals early on because you don’t want to waste time employing methods that don’t work or aren’t suitable for your plans and strategies.
Create a Website
While social media sites are convenient and easy-to-use avenues for you to market your business, having a website is essential for targeting your market. Your website enables you to generate organic traffic. It is also where customers can find your products, services, and content.
When building your website, take note of small details that will attract your viewers to explore more. These could include loading speed, mobile optimization, and a simplified navigation system. Research on various hosting companies so you can determine which works best for your website.
Plan Your Content
Now that you have identified your audience and have your website, it’s time to work on quality and relevant content to convert viewers into customers. There are various types of content that you can employ depending on your audience, such as written content (blog posts and articles), infographics, photos, and videos.
Your content also has to be original, informative, relevant, and accurate. You don’t want to promote your business using content based on hearsay or copied from another website. Using stale or outdated content also won’t help your business grow.
It is also essential to be consistent with your schedule of posting content. Some businesses upload every day, while others post weekly. Be patient in identifying which schedule works for you and your businesses. The last thing you want is to lose customers because you didn’t upload new content.
Maximize Online Channels
While social media is the most convenient way to promote your business, you should utilize the right channels to reach your target audience more efficiently and make your content easier to find amidst a sea of “noisy” content.
For example, Facebook has various pages specified for business owners to post their content. These pages range from food delivery services, car dealerships, real estate properties, and fashion and beauty. Instagram is also an excellent platform for you to showcase photos of your products. You can even add links to your captions so that followers will be directed to your website.
Some websites are tailor-fitted to promote listings and products of a certain industry. For example, you can find an online platform that helps developers, brokers, and property owners effectively market a house or condo unit they are selling or renting out. Suppose you have a Grass Residences condo unit you want to rent out. These property platforms help you reach a niche market to streamline renters and rent out your condo unit easily.
Utilize SEO in Your Content
SEO is crucial for successfully delivering your content to your audience. Targeting the right keywords in your content makes it easier for users to find it with those keywords. It also enables your page to generate more traffic for your website.
While SEO helps make your content easy to find, you also have to optimize how your content is written or produced. Your content should be unique and relevant, and it should capture your audience’s needs and preferences.
As a whole, content marketing is a valuable and useful tool for engaging with your audience, offering your services and products, and remaining relevant to the world of entrepreneurship. While creating good content marketing strategies is no easy feat, the right planning, patience, and persistence will direct you to the right path and springboard your business to higher altitudes.