The system of marketing you’re most common with as a small business owner is probably paid advertisement. Pay someone or a brand for a quick ad, and in return, get customers and then sales.

However, this method is now proving less effective. You probably know too and you’ve heard about content marketing in your quest for better options.

Content marketing is a method of marketing that involves sharing of online materials such as(social media posts, visuals, blogs, or social media posts, et.c) that do not exactly promote your brand but helps to grow interest in your brand. Content marketing is a quite slow strategy compared to paid advertisements but it leaves long lasting impression on your audience.

The internet is overcrowded. People don’t want to be distracted with ads they probably don’t need. Content marketing goes extra mile to solve this. You can easily convert someone who doesn’t need your product to need it in a matter of time.

Content marketing is known to deliver 3 times the lead you’ll get on any other strategy. How then do you go about it? Well, this is not so hard as it sounds. Read on. I’ll be sharing a few steps and strategies to use for your business.

Note: This post was created for small businesses running on social media who probably don’t own a website yet. Content marketing requires a more explicit process for businesses running on a large scale.

Don’t Sell Your Products

It’s understandable that you’re impatient and want to quickly showcase your products to your audience. Slow it down, consumer researches show that at any point in time, just about 3% of your audience will consider buying your product at that present moment. What then do you do about the left 97%? The idea of content marketing is to get your audience familiar with your brand. Sell your brand. Solve their problems. Enlighten them, because some don’t even know they have problems and will need your products. And as bonus, entertain them.

Study Your Audience

This is usually not common with most of the social media businesses you see today. They tend to be more concerned about growing followers and higher views. The target of content marketing is a more effective method that can help you gain 3 times leads and sales. Studying your audience means knowing your potential customers on a more casual level. This basically requires that you gather information on the age range, gender, average income of your audience. It entails putting yourself in their shoes, to know the kinds of contents you’ll be sharing.

Content Creation & Curation

This is the main strategy to getting your audience very comfortable with your brand. Creating contents means that you’re pushing out original materials while curating means that you’re sharing other people’s contents which you have to give them credit for. Create contents relating to your brand. You could share how-to contents of a certain product you sell. Share a list of benefits, things to avoid, and must-do lists. Share outsourced contents with your audience mainly with the idea of educating them on what your brand does. Contents help to engage your audience, generate leads, and consequently sales.

Ask For Customer Feedback

This is very necessary to measure your progress. You could even compare your results— your conventional style of marketing and when you started using the methods of content marketing. This helps you assess your audience and gives you a lot more insight. You’ll find out which of your contents your audience likes the most and helps you find a sense of direction. It subsequently helps you in creating personas.

Create Personas

Since you have information and demographics of your audience, it’s easy to create buyers persona after getting customers’ feedback. Buyer Personas helps you have a deeper understanding of your customer. You’ll get to know their preference, pain point, and you can target this into subsequent content marketing efforts.ConclusionThese strategies of content marketing are versatile and you can employ creative approaches of content creation and curation to promote your brand. What is pertinent to note is the essence of the strategy. Sell your brand, not your product.

@CREAT.NG