Your Small Business Guide to Create a Content Marketing Plan

As per the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a technique that underlines the creation and broadcasting of quality content. The primary argument is that a targeted audience will more likely shop with your brand if you regularly provide them with relevant information. 

According to The Manifest, about 53 percent of businesses use content marketing to approach customers. Content marketing has been remarkably fruitful for small businesses as it does not annoy customers, is affordable, and has greater chances of conversion. However, small businesses face overwhelming odds amidst the growing competition, which is why you must create a well-devised strategy.

Set Your Goals Straight

Content marketing must serve a specific purpose in your business and have clearly outlined goals. Your goals must be attainable, measurable, significant, and time-based. Some common goals that SMEs often strive to achieve are:

• Land on the first page of search results within three months.
• Gain 1,000 email subscriptions or social media followers in 30 days.
• Boost sales by 20% within a set timeframe (two weeks, two months, a quarter, etc).

Your goals also dictate the level of engagement that you will have to generate with your content. For example, if you are a newly established brand and are looking to gain a head start, you should consider hiring a professional branding agent to spread the word.

It is also essential that you employ the appropriate advertising tools, such as business cards, displays and custom t-shirts, to quickly spread word of mouth or set up catchy banners outside your retail store to entice passersby. 

Audience Targeting and Segmentation

The success of content marketing strategies relies on accurately defining your target audience. Recklessly approaching buyers will drain your financial resources with little to no ROI. Content marketing involves creating a message that delivers value to a specific target audience that comprises buyers interested in your brand and its products or services.

Another crucial step is to gather demographic data from your website or social media using tools like Google Analytics. The data from such analysis will provide you with insightful information, which will help you segment active readers from the less interested ones and build a strong brand identity.

Such data provides information about who is legitimately following your brand and who isn’t, which is a reliable indicator of where you have successfully expanded your online presence.

Stay Consistent Without Overloading

Upon learning about your audience and your preferred social channels, do not recklessly 

start flooding them with brand insights, articles, or giveaways. Instead, kick start audience engagement with a basic posting schedule to avoid content overload. 

If you write blogs, create an audience expectation by sticking to a consistent weekly posting schedule. If you post on social media, post once daily or a few times every week.

Research suggests that posting too frequently can be equally damaging to a brand as not posting enough content. 

There are some reasons why you must stick to a schedule:

• Stay consistent without overloading customers with content that they might not enjoy. Being consistent ensures that readers revisit your channels and search for new and relevant content.
• You can establish a content marketing roadmap by working on a schedule. This way, you can efficiently manage time and resources while ensuring appropriate audience engagement.

Content Broadcasting

Once you have successfully gained insight into your target audience, your next step should be to spread the word about your brand to attract a loyal following.

You must broadcast your content to your target audience only when they have followed up with certain gestures, such as signing up for a newsletter, following you on social media, and more. The content you create must be SEO-rich and optimized enough so that you can land the front page in your search results. Use in-store prompts on banners and decals to encourage customers to connect with your content channels too. 

Monitor and Measure Results

It will only take a few hours since you have broadcasted your content to notice peoples’ responses towards it. Some of the relevant measuring metrics that you can employ to measure your progress include page views, likes, and shares. 

In addition, you can employ measuring tools to monitor traffic sources, page views, keyword performance, and more. Some popular tools include Google Analytics, Excel, Databox, and more.

Final Words

Small businesses have begun leveraging content marketing and making it their primary strategy for engaging audiences and boosting brand awareness. When content marketing is used with traditional advertising tools like signs and flags, small businesses can see big results. Content marketing helps improve search engine authority and widens your audience reach. In addition, you can market to a broader audience cost-effectively via content marketing channels, including social media, newsletters, follow-up emails, and much more.