7 Great Content Marketing Methods for Small Businesses

It has been a long time coming, but I finally wrote my first blog on the subject of content marketing.

One of my services as a marketing consultant is to improve and/or establish a content marketing strategy for certain clients. It plays a very special role in helping create an audience for themselves as opposed to renting one with traditional advertising. Over the last couple of years, it has really taken off and with my clients alone, I’ve seen a substantial increase in spending on the subject each year.

What is content marketing exactly?

Content marketing, simply put, is the practice of producing valuable and reliable content to create an audience. Once a loyal audience is created, companies can then leverage their position as the “content producer” to advertise their products and services.

It is a form of inbound marketing which is a term coined by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan and to some it is even a synonymous term. HubSpot actually polled its readers on how they distinguish the two. While Inbound Marketing is mostly synonymous with content marketing, their are actually other inbound avenues that don’t really require content.

Content can come in many forms… blogs, videos, podcasts, magazines, social media, newsletters, contests, events and more. I’m sure you have heard from at least one person or another to “create a blog” for you brand. The reason they tell you this is that by creating this blog and writing consistent articles in your field or industry, you can attract other like-minded individuals who might find your information useful. The more useful or interesting the articles you post are, the more likely your audience will grow. Having an earned audience as opposed to renting one is extremely useful in that you save money on advertising as you have already have a listening audience, and your conversion rates are much higher. They are much higher, because they already TRUST YOU. This is huge and as long as you don’t over do the advertising of your own products and services and continue to produce great content, your audiences will continue to grow.

Below are some great ways to produce great content for your small or medium business without breaking the bank.

1. Write a Blog

Sounds easy right? Well it is, but you need to be passionate about it for it to work. Being passionate about something will make the writing easier as you have to be consistent on how often you write as well as well as the quality with which you write. Writing a blog about your industry can really help educate those who don’t know as much as you do and if you can keep producing quality articles, then you will have opportunities to grow a following.

2. Podcasts

Although this may require you to be a little more tech savvy, you can still record directly onto your computer if you are in a room with the right acoustics. A good podcast can reach a more unique audience as it is not as saturated as the blog world. Enthusiastically talking for an extended period of time doesn’t come easy for everyone but if you can find a way to put out a regular podcast, then eventually you might start building an audience a littler easier. You can reach listeners who may not have as many chances to read as podcasts provide an opportunity for people to listen to on the go or while they are doing other things. You can use great websites like SoundCloud, Stitcher and even the iTunes store to post your podcast and start spreading your brand.

3. Pictures/Infographics

Creating memes or photos of your travels or business can be fun and appeal to most of the internet. Memes are usually very easy to create and given the right picture and or context, they can be hilarious. You can go to memegenerator.net to create them or use Photoshop or other comparable programs to edit them.

Infographics are also big hits with certain industries as we as people are very visual learners and can absorb numbers and information much deeper when there is some sort of visual explanation to what is being said.

You can then promote your content by sharing to photo based social media accounts like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

4. Video blogs

Videos can be huge. Like podcasts, they may take a little technical “know-how” but they’re a much easier path to building an audience if done correctly. With sites like YouTube and Vimeo, you have a terrific platform for sharing information. As mentioned earlier, we are very visual learners and watching a video is usually much easier for the average person to consume then reading a +1,000 word blog. There is also a much greater chance of “going viral” as we consume videos like pistachios and the ones that really stand out have opportunities to be absolute game changers for some companies. See the perfect example with the Dollar Shave Club video above. Made on $4,000 budget, this eventual viral video helped this small company grow to making over $60 million last year.

5. eBooks

If you have access to a decent writer and/or editor, and you have the time, producing an eBook for your industry is a great way to establish credibility. Make it at least 100 pages, add some images, statistics, graphics or anything else to help make your case and release it. There are many websites that allow self publishing including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even the iTunes store. This is a great way to offer a bulk of information on any one subject and can really allow readers to get to know the authors personality and expertise in certain areas. You can even create a call to action form where users need to input their name and email to receive a free download of the book if you wanted to go that route.

6. Case Studies

Analyzing and researching a specific industry or one companies own success with a specific client is one way to not only share content but to work on that credibility factor as well. You might notice certain companies doing case studies for their own clients and that’s because they are simply bragging about the successful impact their services had on their client. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, studies have shown that having case studies created a higher conversion rate of visitors vs not having case studies. Now there isn’t truly enough data to support this claim yet, but common sense tells us that if done tactfully, there is nothing other than a positive outcome that can made.

One misconception is that case studies have to be on your own personal clients and experiences. This is not true. You can also establish plenty of creed by observing other companies efforts and results as well. By acknowledging other successful companies on their projects or campaigns, you not open only up another trust level with your readers by being honest, but you can adequately give a non-biased opinion on work in your field.

7. Interviews

Finding thought leaders in your industry might be easier than you think. Doing a sit down, online video chat or even phone interview can help drive traffic and again, establish more credibility for you in your field. People gravitate towards these leaders and their work and if the the interview is done decently, people will start to gravitate towards you. It’s a great opportunity to not only establish yourself as a presence in the field by getting to know the person you are interviewing but it is also a great way to build upon your slowly growing reputation. Go ahead and create a list of the 10 or so most influential people in your industry and start the process of trying to score an interview. Find out where they work, call a secretary, direct message them on Twitter or even just send them an email. These requests are not as common as you think especially since you aren’t contacting one of the Kardashians.

Final Thoughts

There are plenty of great ways to create content for your viewers or listeners. For blogs and podcasts, the key is to keep an open text file or something similar and call it your “story board,” with which you can slowly start adding ideas to it in a bulleted list format. With this, and just like they teach your in grade school, you can then create sub topics for each main topic to see if you can come up with a decent overall story arch.

What’s crucial is that you are actually offering content of value and not just throwing together a group of information just for the sake of uploading more stuff. It is also key that you are consistent with your posting schedule whether you are doing it once a day, once a week or so. This allows followers to anticipate your next release and not be disappointed when it doesn’t come. Remember, we are BUILDING an audience. You can’t post once a week for 5 weeks and then start posting every two weeks. If possible, try to get those releases to land on the same day every week.

Once you have a decent content strategy, promoting your content is the next step. Make sure that you have at least some kind of email subscription form on your website that allows you to email users whenever you post new content. Also make sure that you share this information on all of your social channels as well.

It is very rare that you will see drastic results from starting a content marketing strategy, but if executed properly, then you will at least gain some reputation and some more credibility in your field while you attempt to build an audience.

Good luck!

If you have any questions regarding content marketing or digital marketing in general, shoot me an email! – mike@thismarket.blue