5 Effective Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
Content is designed to achieve a wide number of goals, fromimproving search engine rankings生成新线索和增加收入。一个ccording to one study,89 percent of respondentssaw positive results from content marketing, regardless of their particular goals. It’s clear that content marketing works—but only if you know what kind to create.
Good contentcomes in a variety of formats. Here are a few that work well for small businesses, and can be a good starting point for your owncontent marketingstrategy.
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Blogs posts and articles
Written contentis the obvious starting point for your strategy. If your topics are relevant and the content is optimized for search engines, new visitors will come to your site. However,blog postsand articles are only effective in attracting readers if they are useful and well-written.
The Internet is a big place, so the fact that your blog simply exists isn’t enough to make it stand out. You should aim to write posts and articles that present new information, help your potential customers in some way, or entertain them—and the best content does all three.
如果你有麻烦来了up with topics to write about, try asking your current customers what they’d like to know. For example, if you sell a product with complicated instructions, write a step-by-step guide complete with photos. If you are a clothing retailer, write about current trends in the fashion industry and make suggestions for incorporating new items into your readers’ wardrobes. If you are a family restaurant with an interesting backstory, explain it in detail. Coming up with topics can be difficult, but every business out there has something to offer their customers.
Infographics
Think back to the last time you read a blog post or article with a lot of complex information. It was probably hard to make sense of it all.Infographics, on the other hand, make statistics easier to digest and remember. They’re also more colorful and easier to share than text.
Don’t worry if you don’t have design skills—hundreds of customizable infographic templates are available online if you want to do it yourself. You could also hire a designer to put it together for you. Whatever the topic, remember to cite references within the infographic and give it a searchable title withrelevant keywords.
Most of all, remember to include your business name and website somewhere on the infographic. Internet marketing for small businesses requires branding content, and an infographic provides an easy way to do so.
Lists
人们总是喜欢列表,是否David Letterman’s Top Ten List or the latest list on Buzzfeed. In fact, lists are among the most-shared content on the internet, generating as many as25,000 shares per month. Create lists that are relevant to your target audience, and they’ll help you spread your message.
The great thing about the Internet is its capacity to present lists in a variety of formats, including animated GIFs, slideshows, and text lists. Find the format that works best for you, or create lists in a variety of formats. The topics should tie consumer needs to your business. If you sell tax software, for instance, a list of, “10 Reasons Why Tax Software is Better than a CPA” will generate interest—though maybe not from CPAs.
Interactive content
One way to engage potential customers is to ask them to do something. Content should always contain a call to action, but some content works because the content itself requires action. Create a series of interactive tools on your website to keep people on the site longer and generate more leads for your business.
Many small businesses rely on a contact form on a landing page. These forms are useful, but they don’t keep people engaged for very long. By contrast, a tax calculator on a financial site or a project estimate generator on a contractor site motivates visitors to think about what they want and need, what they have to do to get it, and how your business can help them achieve their goals.
Podcasts and videos
Content marketingis most effective when new content appears on a regular basis. However, it should also be available when and where the user wants to access it. This is especially true with the popularity of mobile devices, which allow users to engage with your business wherever they are. However, that requires you to produce content that’s as portable as they are. Podcasts andvideosfit the bill nicely.
Loyal followers can access these audio files bysubscribing to a podcastand receiving new files as soon as they’re available. You can also make these files available on on-demand sites like iTunes, where anyone can download them. Videos can be posted in a variety of places like social accounts and YouTube. Both channels are great for generating new leads, presenting your insights, and keeping staying relevant to your customers.
We can create a content marketing strategy for your small business
Content marketingcan mean the difference between struggling to attract new customers and booming into a successful business. Whether you create the content yourself or hire freelancers to do it for you, a well-executed content strategy will give your small business the boost it needs.
If you need help putting together a strategy, free tocontact us! Our talented team of Internet marketers has all the expertise you need to start attracting new customers with content today.