I’ve brainstormed with hundreds of small business owners who were stumped about the best content to provide that benefits them and their customers using posts on social media, blogs and email newsletters. Here are a few tips I suggest to help them find the right balance. Remember the best content will benefit your followers and your company. If you need help finding content marketing that makes sense for your company—give us a call at 310-791-6300.
Tip 1. Who is your target audience? Know their demographics and interests before you determine the best content. Find out what questions they have in common that you can address with your content using tips, checklists, pictures, coupons, events, videos, articles, ebooks, news and other tools.
Tip 2. Start with the goals your customers have for following your company. What are you giving your fans, followers & email subscribers that makes them glad they follow you? I suggest you provide something that does one of the following:
- Saves them time
- Saves them money
- Provides them content they would be challenged to collect themselves
- Entertain them with Images, Videos & articles related to your business
Tip 3. Don’t just provide content, ask them to take an action within that content. Add links, documents, video start buttons, subscribe links or connections to events, workshops or ebooks that you provide. Make sure that link is trackable and above the swipe point on a smart phone—don’t make them swipe for it.
Tip 4. Use blogs, keywords, descriptions, categories & tags as well as hashtags to reach more people beyond your followers and your lists. Content marketing is about keywords. What are yours? Use the terms people search for in your product, service or non-profit industry.
Tip 5. Write about what you know. The good news is that you know your organization and industry well and you can easily provide ideas and tips on how your customers can educate themselves. Use your membership, professional journals or application photos of how your product or service is used to share what you know. This is an opportunity to share your knowledge and raise your profile as an interesting organization and an expert in your field—otherwise known as an Influencer.
Tip 6. Here’s some content ideas:
Tip 7. Use one of the following resources you have to see if there is content already created that is uniquely related to what you do.
- Manufacturer or Industry Stats or Stories
- Infographics or White Papersto simplify advice
- Events they can sign up for or attend
- Customer experience stories or testimonials
- Lists they can use to accomplish their goals
- Content that is worth sharing and would give them some likes.
If you need help creating custom content that meets your goals, contact us by email or 310-791-6300. Get more done with your digital advertising efforts.
Liz Harsch is a media planner and trainer for small business owners with Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, SBA, Cities and MWD and County outreach partners, APICS plus many Chambers of Commerce since 2008. She owns Tailor-Made Advertising in Torrance, California and provides marketing, training and consulting to identify marketing and media alternatives for business owners. She can be reached at her Torrance, CA office at 310-791-6300 or by email at liz@adteamla.com. You can also see her upcoming training workshops calendar at http://adteamla.com/facebook.
