Why Should I Use Content Marketing for My Small Business

Why Should I Use Content Marketing for my small business

Why Should I Use Content Marketing for my business I’m often asked. Content marketing gets all the credit for where my business is today; it put us on the map. Many of our clients are initially sceptical about Content marketing. I often get the question, why should I use content marketing for my small business? As a business selling digital marketing services in South Africa, content marketing let me pick who I wanted to work with as clients and charge a lot more for that too. So in this article I’m going to show you how you can do the exact same thing in your business, build your influence, and attract way more clients than you can probably even ever work with, which is a great problem to have because that’s when you know that you can actually finally raise your prices. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Let’s talk about what content marketing means and the four steps you need to take to get all the benefits that content marketing can bring to your business.

If you decide to stay with us until the end, I will show you how you can put your content marketing on hyperdrive and reach times as many people without a lot of extra effort. 

So what is content marketing exactly and why should I use content marketing for my small business? While traditional marketing is basically just advertising. You know where you talk about your business and your offers and why people should choose to work with you or buy from you.

Why Should I Use Content Marketing for My Small Business

Content marketing flips the script on that and aims to educate and show what’s possible. In doing that people are going to come to think of you as the expert they want to work with is it a bit of a slower process this way sure but it’s a hell of a lot more efficient too and the reason for that is because the way people make buying decisions has changed a lot over the past or so years now that they’ve got the internet most of your best clients are going to put in the research they know their options and only the most trusted businesses are going to survive and that’s where content comes into play so content marketing is less expensive than other marketing methods out there and it’s generally responsible for three times as many leads.

The content you produce as a business is what’s going to bridge the gap between those cold audiences who are finding that content for the first time. They’ve never heard of you before and your warmer audience is over here and finally you’re paying clients and customers over here so when you provide good quality information that helps them either make a decision or get a quick win on their own. Even something that just inspires them to see what’s possible that’s going to build trust. Trust sells way more efficiently and successfully than selling does. Here’s the thing. Most of your competition won’t do any of this for a few reasons. First of all, it’s not easy being totally honest.

Content marketing is a commitment and it’s not going to pay off overnight. But I’m not lying when I say it’s the single best thing you can do as a business. The fact is that it’s only going to become more important in the future. Another reason they won’t do it is because it’s a shift that many business owners just never get comfortable with. You basically have to make the shift from being a sales person to becoming a teacher or how-to guide or mentor figure.

So many business owners have a really hard time with this because they think if they give away too much free knowledge. They’re basically cannibalizing their own business. The question we are discussing however is, why should I use content marketing for my small business? I’ve found in my own content marketing journey that actually it’s the opposite. Once I started talking about website optimization and digital marketing strategies right here on YouTube, demand for my services blew up. The reason is that a lot of people are going to start by looking for information or a solution to their problems. But once they find you and you’re talking about the solution to the challenge they are facing, they start trusting your advice and they see that you know your stuff. They’re going to be more than happy to just hand it over to you and pay you to do it for them. Sure, there’s always going to be those people who will never turn into customers. This part of the market was never your customers anyway. They were never going to buy from you anyway, so just give them the free information. Who cares! At least you get your name out there, right?

Four Main Content Marketing Approaches for Small Business

So now let’s get into the four main parts of content marketing so that you can start to form your strategy to grow your business through all that amazing content.

First of all, you need to decide on the overall content format that makes the most sense for your business and for your potential customers. What I don’t recommend doing here is you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, because that is a recipe for getting overwhelmed. There are a bunch of content types that you could choose. I’m going to break it down into the big three, which are blog articles, podcasts and videos. I want to give you a bit of a rundown of the pros and cons of each so that you can make an easier decision on which one you want to go with.

Let’s start with blog articles. This is probably going to be the easiest type of content produced because there’s just not a lot of production involved. Not to mention you can get multiple team members involved in it and you can even outsource some of the writing. If you ever wanted to go that route, and since it’s written text on a page, you can probably get good search engine traffic out of it if you do your keyword research right. This can lead to new visitors over time without a ton of extra effort. The downside of focusing on written content is it’s just way less likely that you’re ever going to build the I feel like I know you factor with your audience. If you were producing weekly podcast episodes or YouTube videos, however, your audience would get to know you far better.

Let’s talk a bit about podcasting. This approach certainly increases difficulty levels. There’s definitely more production involved. You still need to outline or possibly even script out what you’ll say. Then you need to record and edit that into an episode. But the benefits of people getting to hear your voice and gain a sense of the personality behind the brand are invaluable. One of the other things we really like about podcasting is that you can go longer and be even more human than you could in a video. Let’s face it, people are generally more willing to put up with those tangents and the detours in a Podcast. All the more personal aspects of your business because they’re multitasking when they’re listening.

With video, however, you’re expected to get more to the point because people are more actively watching. Video is also harder to produce than podcasts because now you’re dealing with visuals as well as audio. Again, the benefits of video are significant. Whether you’re doing a podcast or a video series on YouTube people will watch or listen to a few, then they’re going to feel as if they know you at least a little bit. You become a little bit famous, or at least very familiar to the people that you want to work with.

When it comes to closing deals and charging more for your services, having a sense of knowing someone, makes a big difference. I’m not really talking about social media in my big three content marketing types, and that’s because we’ll address social media a little later in this article. It definitely plays its role in content marketing, but I highly recommend thinking about your content in a more long-form way. Content can really live on your website in one way or another. Of course, there are exceptions. You could go all in on video and maybe tick-tock is where you want to do that, but most of you should be thinking about either written articles podcasts or videos.

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