A few decades ago, small companies had no chances to compete with big corporations. But everything has changed with the appearance of digital technologies. Today, every company has equal opportunities to succeed.
If you own a small business, you should consider content marketing as a powerful tool. If used properly, this tool may help you to gain more customers and boost sales. Here are a few essential content marketing tips that you should apply.
Start blogging
Blogs are important not only for big businesses but also for small ones. And if you haven’t started your blog yet, it’s time to do it. You can write blog posts on your own. Or, if you have no spare time, you can hire a freelance writer. Don’t worry, it will not cost you a fortune, but will greatly benefit your business.
With the help of blogging, you will start building an online presence. It will allow you to reach a wider target audience, promote your brand, and market your products more effectively.
Write guest posts
The point is that you can create posts not only for your website but also for popular blogs and sites in your niche. Here is how it works.
You write an article and incorporate a link to your website in the text. After that, you reach out to a popular blog’s editor and ask him to publish your post. Once an article is published, you get the following benefits:
- Your website gets a backlink from a trustworthy source. It helps to get your site to the top of Google search results.
- More people read your article. Obviously, if the audience of a popular blog is much wider than the audience of your website, it will help you to reach a wider audience with one post.
- The guest post attracts additional traffic to your website. Blog readers click the link that gets them to your site.
Be active on social media
Today, every business owner understands that it’s important to grow social media presence. But not everyone knows how to do it in the right way.
Today, it’s not enough just to start a Facebook account and post one update weekly. If you want to make your social media marketing strategy effective, do the following:
- Find out which social media platforms your customers use the most: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or YouTube. Select two platforms to focus your marketing efforts at.
- Create different content for different social networking sites.
- Publish new content daily.
- Define at what time of the day your target audience uses social media more actively. Find a perfect moment to publish your posts.
- Reply to all comments and all messages as soon as possible. Your customers will appreciate that.
- Use stories, live streaming, and other features to boost engagement.
Run giveaways
People adore getting something for free. And if you start a giveaway on social media, you can be sure that your prospective customers will agree to participate. Here is a short step-by-step guide for you on how to create a successful giveaway contest:
- Come up with a gift idea. Keep in mind that the gift must be valuable for your target audience.
- Offer more than one gift. For instance, the first winner will get your product for free; the second and the third winners will get 50% and 25% off on the next purchase.
- Clearly state what social media users should do to get a prize: to like a post, to tag a friend, to follow your account, etc. It should depend on content marketing goals you have set: to raise brand awareness, to grow social media following, etc.
- Collaborate with influencers in your niche. Ask them to inform their followers about the start of your giveaway. It will help you to reach a wider target audience.
- Select a winner using a reliable online random giveaway picker. Videotape the process of winner selection and post it online.
In conclusion
The success of your small business is in your hands. So don’t hesitate to invest your efforts in building an effective content marketing strategy.
Create high-quality blog-posts, be active on social media, run giveaways – and internet users will notice your company. As a consequence, you will get lots of new customers and will reach your financial goals.