Content marketing.
It’s just one more thing that private businesses have to take on board, plan, implement and measure.
And honestly, because it is easy for these businesses to be overwhelmed by all these new and exciting ways to market, they don’t know where to start, how to start, or even what it means. Don’t feel bad, over 65% of private business are in the same boat.
2 out of 3 companies are NOT implementing content marketing to communicate with and nurture their customers. That’s an opportunity.
Like all things that are new, and therefore seem all too hard, the best way to do is just to start. The world won’t end if you make a few mistakes along the way, and you will learn some stuff as you go.
We like to present practical advice that you can manage yourself, or if you decide to outsource it, you can do so with some semblance of understanding about the expectations. In this vein, here are 5 ways to create and publish GREAT content to start the ball rolling.
Simple ways to start content marketing.
1. Use images. Like any media, images get noticed faster. For example, tweets with images will receive up to 150% more retweets. Resist the urge to use beige stock photos, rather use images with personality, or that directly relate to your business.
2. Choose your poison. Which platforms are your customers on? Find out – and never assume you know the answer, because you may be very well surprised. Should you use the majors – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, or more, or less? Make your choice, and use the right tone for each platform.
3. Educate and curate. Content marketing has a number of over-arching objectives, including these very important two: educate your customer to position yourself as an expert, and share relevant commentary to show yourself as a reputable source of information. Show yourself as an educated thinker, someone who assists their fanbase with information that helps them.
4. Recycle, repurpose, re-use. If you try to write volumes and volumes of content, the quality will dilute – it is inevitable. Write less content, make it quality, and reshare it in different ways. Write one or two blogs a week, and use key points as posts over the days in between. Make it last.
5. Measure. Evaluate your efforts, understand your engagement, and tweak your plan to suit. Only by understanding the impact your content has will you be able to get the most bang for your buck.
Make a start. Do a plan for a week. Repeat it with a new blog. Trawl the news sites or relevant industry directory sites for interesting articles.
Just start.
Or find someone who can do it for you.
