06 Sep How to Create the Best Small Business Content Marketing Strategy

Small businesses generally have less leeway when it comes to planning and launching a marketing campaign. They have less revenue and capital, which limits the strategies that they can pursue. They also tend to have less data and first-hand experience with which to strategize in the first place.

One of the best strategies, due to its affordability, is content marketing. Although writing high-quality content is time-consuming, it is also much less expensive than running an ad campaign. Here’s a tried and true process for developing great content for your business:

Step 1: Research

The first phase is also the most important, because it will give you the information you need to plan and execute the rest of your strategy. This is where you determine the following:

• Who is your audience? First, you’ll have to conduct due diligence. Who is your target audience, and what are their spending demographics? Market research is very important, and the insights are in the details – so don’t rush through this part. What types of content are your typical buyers into? What are their needs? Where are they going to find new information?
• Look at what your competitors are doing in their content marketing campaigns. Are there some details that they have glossed over which your campaign could over-deliver on?
• Next, check out some of the dominate trends in your industry. You’ll want to ascertain both hot trends and larger trends that are happening in the content world. Right now, both video and interactive content are trending.
• Take a look at what platforms are reaching peak popularity, especially in the context of your target audience. Are there certain blogs or social media platforms that would increase your user engagement? If so, make sure to incorporate them into your strategy.

Step 2: Goals

Next, determine your goals for the campaign. You have some preliminary information that should help you understand your place in the industry, and what level of success that you could achieve. Use this information to come up with a list of specific foals for your campaign:

• Reasonable targets. What are your objectives for utilizing a content marketing strategy? Is it to increase likes on your Facebook page, or to develop better customer retention? Is conversions your only aim?
• Next, create a timeframe. Understand, that this is flexible enough to allow change, but cohesive enough to maintain deadlines. When do you need to see results? Can you speed up production to meet your goals?
• The third variable here is how much time and money you’re willing to invest in the process. If you want a huge result in little time, then get ready to spend.

Step 3: Outlines

These consist of your over-arching plans on how to achieve your   goals. This will dictate exactly how your content is to be developed:

• Create different phases for your content marketing. If you’re just getting started, understand that it may be advisable to start slow and build momentum as you become ready to scale.
• Resource allocation. Who’s going to take over these responsibilities? Will members of your team tackle it? Are you contracting or outsourcing out? Don’t be too hasty when figuring out this stem, as quality is definitely more important than quantity in content management.
• Stay flexible. Keep in mind that your strategy should be written with a great degree of flexibility in mind. Your strategy won’t be effective immediately, and it takes time for the search engines to index your content, so stay fluid and patient.

Building a successful content strategy takes time and patience, especially if you intend to do everything yourself. Content is the great leveler of the internet, if you have huge amounts of high-quality content, you can be one of the most visible website on the internet. So, take time, and realize: it’s possible to build a successful strategy by starting off with the basics.