Content Marketing: 7 Tips for Small Businesses

Content strategy and content marketing are much mentioned terms, if one pursues at present the current trends in marketing and sales. Customers are changing, shopping behaviour is becoming digital and buyers expect to be provided with information, reviews and above all knowledge.

Content marketing can be a great tool to position yourself as an expert, to give customers the information they need and to gain the confidence they want to buy from you. But many content marketing strategies are less suitable for small businesses, because they need a lot of time and a corresponding budget to run a successful content marketing.

As such, here are a few tips to help you as an individual or SME to successfully build a content marketing strategy without losing yourself in work or budget. Because content marketing can be used very simply and with few means.

1. Analysis is the beginning of everything

Generally, it is worthwhile to make a first analysis of the target group with which you want to communicate. The better you know the potential customers as well as the existing customers, the easier it will be to create interesting content for them. So it can also be important for the selection of the right social media channels, because if you want to address young customers, you will rather want to build up a presence on Instagram rather than on Facebook.

At the end of the analysis you should know the most important channels and also know for which audience it is most worthwhile to post content.

2. Timing is important for content marketing

In principle, good content marketing also includes active support of the chosen channels, because it is not enough to just post, you also have to be active in the community etc. Active management allows you to learn much more about reactions, needs and especially feedback.

3. Find content for content marketing: niches

Especially for companies with limited resources, it is highly recommended to find a niche where you are strong and have little competition. If you are competing against large providers and content creators, you will have little chance of getting good rankings in search results, for instance. In niches, it is much more likely to get good rankings and it is also possible to get up there relatively quickly with good and high-quality content.

4. Blog as a central point of content marketing

In order to be found on the Internet in the long term, it is not recommended to post content on social media platforms and leave it at that. Here your own blog can be perfectly used to publish the information centrally, and then link and distribute it on social media platforms. Installing a social sharing tool is an easy way to additionally ensure that your visitors also share content.

5. Creating an editorial plan is worthwhile

If you don’t have much time, it is also advisable to make a plan of what content you would like to post, what topics should be worked on and maybe also collect literature for these topics. A plan should also help you keep up with your work and not to lose track of what is going on. If you have the time and the muse, you can already create several articles and publish them in the future.

6. Networking and joint content marketing

If you actively network with suppliers, freelancers or even entrepreneurs, you can also publish contributions together. This method of guest contributions is particularly interesting, since usually little own manpower is needed and at the same time one can enable the cooperation of partners and suppliers.

7. Content marketing strategy and media representatives

In order to become even more relevant and to use the status as an expert, it is recommended to get in contact with press distributors and media representatives. If you find relevant topics, it is advisable to write and publish a corresponding press release there.

If you can distinguish yourself in a relevant niche, deliver high quality content and share it skilfully in the community, it is possible to build up expert status in the long run. However, this takes some time, but it is still worthwhile for individual entrepreneurs or small businesses. With just a little effort it is possible to stand out from the competition in the long run, strengthen your profile as a company or person and even win new customers through these channels.