Getting Started With Content Marketing in Small Business

If you?ve been paying attention to the business world, you know that content marketing is hot right now. In fact, it might even seem as if this specific branch of marketing emerged from thin air: one day you?d never heard of it, and the next, it was all anyone could talk about.

Like many other businesses, you?re probably wondering how you can make content marketing work for you ? especially if you?re a small or medium-sized business. Sure, the big guys might have more resources to play with, but that doesn?t mean the process is any different.

What is content marketing?

First things first. Before you can start using content marketing and building a content strategy, you?ve got to know what it means.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, equates content marketing with thinking like a publisher. It?s taking those ideas and principles of publishing, and applying them to marketing.

Content marketing is connecting your target market to your brand through various kinds of content (think blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics, videos, images, and so on). When this is done well, your content will sell your products and services without ever actually selling your products and services (more on that in a minute).

The purpose of content marketing, in short, is to educate. Education is about differentiation, so your content must appeal to a range of consumers.

What?s the catch?

In order to be an effective content marketer, you have to get good at selling without selling. What does that mean? It means that, through blog posts and other forms of content, you answer questions about your industry, educate your visitors, and establish yourself as an authority. Throughout all of that, though, you never go in for the hard sell (and if you do, it?s very, very rare). In fact, you hardly even discuss your own business.

It seems counter-intuitive at first, but think of it this way (and it?s a lot like social media): when you?re at a cocktail party and there?s a person there who only wants to talk about him- or herself, that?s not a terribly interesting conversation. You have to offer the other person something of value without making it all about you.

As you do that, you start to position yourself as an authority and a trusted source. Those who are consuming your content know, then, that you?re reliable in your knowledge, and so when they?re ready to do business, they?re far more likely to do business with you.

How can small businesses make a big impact?

A living, breathing example of the power of content marketing is Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion. Marcus was in the business of selling pools in and around Virginia for River Pools and Spas, and he knew that his customers had a lot of questions about his products, as well as their care and upkeep. He took all of those questions and made them titles of blog posts. Within the posts themselves, he answered their questions.

The result was that Sheridan became the authority in the industry, and business started to boom because of it. Today he sells pools without ever meeting people face-to-face. They visit his website, watch his videos, read his content, and find the answers to all of their questions. During that process, trust is built, and leads are converted.

It?s important to remember here that Sheridan?s company, River Pools and Spas, isn?t a global brand. It isn?t a major corporation. It?s a business that serves a specific region, which just goes to show that small businesses can see tremendous success with content marketing.

Also worth noting? Sheridan?s personal brand as a content marketer has been established. Because he?s done it so well, other content marketers look to him as a shining example, and he continues to be invited for interviews, speaking engagements, and writing contributions, among other events.

What?s the best way to start with content marketing?

If you?re ready to give it a go, get yourself set up with a business blog. This is the corner stone of content marketing, and it?s a good platform on which to house other kinds of content (such as video, infographics, charts, and so on). The blog isn?t the be-all and end-all of your content strategy, of course, but it?s where much of the content is published, and thus where you make your first impressions.

How are you using content marketing for your business? What questions do you have about this particular branch of marketing that we could answer for you?

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Source: http://nextprinciples.com/2012/08/getting-started-with-content-marketing-in-small-business/

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