Content Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: 9 Steps to Cut Through the Noise

As a small business owner juggling a million things, you’ve thought about playing the content marketing game, but it either overwhelms you or you are wondering where to start. With the right strategy, you can cut through the noise, boost your brand visibility and rake up sales.

Here’s a step-by-step approach for building a kickass content marketing strategy:

1. Nail the basics

2. Get into the right mindset

3. Create an ideal customer profile

4. Conduct competitor analysis

5. Define goals and metrics

6. Set realistic budgets

7. Define your content style

8. Use effective distribution channels

9. Define benchmarks and monitor progress

NAIL THE BASICS

What is content marketing? All the digital activities that you do as a business to drive profitable customer action. Think of it as a journey of attracting, engaging and converting customers. In the sales life cycle, a buyer’s decision lingers at one of the stages in the sales funnel and your job is to nudge them swiftly to become a loyal customer.

The Sales Funnel:

• Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

  • This is where you first introduce your brand. Focus on creating valuable content that solves problems and educates your audience. Refrain from pushing your sales agenda and focus on creating awareness about your product. Make a striking first impression through blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts or videos. 

• Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

  • Now that your audience is interested, nurture them with more targeted content. The second stage in the funnel is about building rapport and nurturing the leads. This is where there is an interest and desire for your product and you position yourself as the best one to deliver it. You can do this by providing targeted content through podcasts and webinars, e-mails or ads. 

• Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

  • Your potential customer is ready to buy! This is the stage where you’ve converted your lead into a customer and generated sales. Provide them with the final push, such as special discounts, testimonials or case studies. 

As a small business, your potential customers are at the top of the funnel, you will need to cosy them up to your product or they will flee from your services if you rush them in the cycle. That is why you need a content marketing strategy: to navigate a buyer seamlessly through the sales funnel.

A successful content marketing strategy is about reaching your audience; think of it as speaking their language and meeting them at their go-to spot. So if the majority of your audience is listening to podcasts, you create content that speaks to them and distribute it in a way that finds them quickly. The same age group is also on Facebook and Instagram. Run ads for your podcasts. 

GET INTO THE RIGHT MINDSET

You want to skip to the part where it makes YOU money by simply selling more of your products and services? Right? I do.

Imagine yourself as a consumer who loves productivity apps and fashion.

• Scenario 1 : You are scrolling through your social media feed, bombarded with ads for fancy jackets and self-help books. Result? You end up clicking a random ad on a random day, you explore and exit without buying anything and the cycle repeats. You get saturated and this constant noise leads to ad fatigue.

• Scenario 2 : Now imagine seeing a popular fashion influencer create a fun reel about the "Worst Fashion Trends of 2024" while sporting their own limited-edition merch. Or, perhaps you watch Ali Abdaal recommend a productivity app that promises to boost your efficiency by 80%. These engaging and relevant pieces of content pique your curiosity and draw you in. Further, the limited availability of the influencer's merch and the free trial for the productivity app create a sense of urgency, making you more likely to make a purchase or sign up.

For small businesses, awareness is everything. If you are not even on the map, who will be inclined to travel and give you their money? 

Content marketing is a long-term journey with rewarding short-term destinations. Now that your mindset is right, let’s understand your customers better.

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE? 

An ideal customer profile (ICP) defines who your ideal customer is; if you are selling to everyone, you are practically bleeding money and selling to no one.

To deduce your ICP, answer these:

1. Who are my current clients? Which age group and occupation do they belong to? What are their pain points and motivations for buying my product?

2. Go beyond your assumption: Interview your clientele, ask them relevant questions about your niche and dig into what more you could offer them. Identify the gap in your market and use it to create a unique value proposition. 

3. Talk to potential high-ticket clients and identify their desires. 

4. What does Google Analytics say about your demographic’s online activity? 

5. What channel are they most active on and where do they shop?

CONDUCT COMPETITOR ANALYSIS 

If you could just get into the mind of your competitors and know what works for them, wouldn’t that be wonderful? There are tools for conducting competitor analysis that will accurately tell you what is working for your competition. 

1. Semrush 

   Complete website analytics and search engine optimisation.

   Semrush tells you everything about your competitor’s website, from analysing their ads to blog hits. It does a lot more with its dynamic offerings; it's an excellent choice for narrowing down on keywords and building content pillars.

2. Kompyte

   This tool allows you to scan through your competitor’s online activities without  having to manually put in data every time. It’s an AI-POWERED tool that successfully delivers real-time data by tracking and analysing multiple data points such as product launches, pricing changes, campaigns and reviews. This aids in sales tactics, marketing strategies and product development. 

3. Meta Ads Library 

   Know your competitor's ad strategy for free. This Meta tool helps you in creating your first campaign by providing a digital database of your competitor’s ads. It is especially useful in tracking ads on Facebook and can further analyse the trends, graphics and copy style followed by your competitors. 

If you are a solopreneur with budget constraints, choose your tools in sync with your marketing goals, take a trial to familiarise yourself with their core offerings before paying for subscriptions. Check out YouTube videos and backtest them simultaneously. 

DEFINE YOUR GOALS

When you are trying to market yourself in every way, through every channel, your marketing funnel will resemble a typhoon: destructive and all over the place.

Let’s understand what your goals should look like:

1. % increase in sales within 3 months 

2. ‘x’ number of email subscribers

3. A definitive amount of website traffic in a stipulated time

Don’t just define your goals by aiming to increase sales, every business aims for that, make your vision as articulate as possible. You can use the common denominators from your competitor analysis to set realistic goals and benchmarks. 

SET REALISTIC BUDGETS

A standard budget can be up to 8% of your revenue, depending on your content vision. 

From writing content to creating an all-round strategy, are you outsourcing? If not, are you willing to put in the time to write, design, test, edit, monitor PPC campaigns, create videos and engage with influencers all on your own? 

You may be skilled at one or even three of these areas, but you will need professional help to handle all of them, eventually delegate and expand your budget as per your content marketing goals.

• Do I need a website?

A common dilemma that every small business faces is the question of when to create a website.

For businesses that rely on digital channels, like SaaS companies or online stores, a website is a must-have. It's your digital storefront, where customers can learn about your products and services. A well-optimised website, with landing pages and SEO-friendly content, is essential for attracting and converting visitors. When your sales depend on reaching the consumer through the internet, a website becomes a priority.

However, if your business is primarily offline, like a hardware or appliance store, you can work towards creating a storefront on Amazon or eBay while marketing on YouTube shorts and descriptive videos before needing a website. You can also consider running Facebook ad campaigns. If you are targeting to run Google ads, you will need to create a basic landing page through your Google Business Profile.

The key is to assess your specific needs and determine what makes the most sense for your business. There's no one-size-fits-all answer, so consider your goals, target audience, and available resources when deciding whether a website is right for you.

DEFINE YOUR CONTENT STYLE 

Start by establishing what you can offer through your content:

1. Use the pain points of your consumers to craft content and establish authority in a specific domain. Use storytelling and personal experiences, voice your opinions and provide useful industry insights. 

2. Competitor analysis will help you understand what type of content is dominant in your niche and which channels to choose for distribution.

3. Where does my user stand in the marketing funnel? One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is ignoring what their customers need. A snippet that will help you understand the basics of a marketing funnel.

If your niche runs on word of mouth, you’d be wondering if the hassle of going digital is worth the pain, it is. Your existing clientele is your fairy godmother, enabling exponential growth of your business. Set up your store on Google, provide a template to your customers to make their work easier, follow-up for testimonials. Even without a website this will help you rank as the top profile on Google, resulting in new leads and conversions.

• Create an effective content strategy

Once you’ve ruled out whether you need a website or not, focus on the type of content you want to create, a strong competitor analysis would have shown you which of these garners the most traction in your niche:

• Podcasts

• Videos

• Blogs

• Newsletters

• Ads and campaigns 

• E-mails

• Social media (organic and paid)

• Influencer marketing

• PR

Create a combination of the types of content you want to run parallel on specific channels. 

•   Storytelling and thought-leadership

  • Content that shows your brand’s personality and evokes a desired reaction from your consumers is essential. Storytelling is the beating heart of a brand, the reason to connect and act. Your content should be customer-centric, address their wants and desires, provide value through educational content, and be a consistent market leader. 

  • If that’s a lot, start by documenting the behind-the-scenes of your efforts to achieve a set target. Repurpose that on LinkedIn.  Your content strategy has to be smart, not draining.

• Content calendars

  • An editorial calendar assures you are three steps ahead and prevents you from having a meltdown while creating content. It's equivalent to having a timetable for your content, when and where you are going to post. You can manually do it in a spreadsheet or modify it from a template. It is vital for building consistency and maintaining quality. 

USE EFFECTIVE DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS

According to Semrush’s data, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn are the top four social media platforms for sharing content for small businesses. Managing to show up on all the channels by yourself will feel like jumping through fiery hoops and landing without a foot. So use your competitor analysis and focus your content towards where your audience is, where they spend most of their time, break that data down. If it is emails - send out monthly newsletters along with e-mail marketing. If it is social media - repurpose your reels into ads, test these campaigns and note the progress in a Google sheet. 

Basically, pick two channels based on your research. Then create content that targets your users’ likes and behaviours. Finally, repurpose it on another distribution channel. Say you sell handicraft hourglasses and you’ve identified your target audience is most active on YouTube and LinkedIn, so you create a YouTube video on “The Truth Behind Productivity Apps.” Now refine the same content and make a post out of it on LinkedIn. Aim to use one content idea on more than one distribution channel. 

DEFINE BENCHMARKS AND MONITOR PROGRESS 

Measuring your progress is essential, set your KPIs based on your content type and distribution channel. 

Keep a track of these measures and note down changes you make. These include refining website copy, adding a blog and every little change that has made an impact. 

For my clients, I use Google Sheets to add links to the documents and assets. It makes it easier to track progress and streamline workflow. Content organisation is key for monitoring progress. 

Creating and executing a content marketing strategy on your own can be daunting, but if you see the potential, there is no turning back. Either DIY it or let the professionals handle it. Your stage is set, chug a coffee and start performing

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