Content Marketing for Small Businesses: Dos And Don'ts

Content marketing might not be the first thing on your radar if you have a small business and a limited budget.

Small business owners have so much on their plate that creating content takes a huge bite of their time and effort, so why do it?

The truth of the matter is that marketing efforts are not as straightforward anymore as they used to be.

You can't just compete on price cuts and coming up with a new formula. You need to reach out to your potential customers with relevant content that can educate, inform, and engage them. Content distribution helps you generate leads and increase brand recognition.

However, which forms of content marketing can a small business owner engage in? Valid question.

Content marketing ideas for small businesses:

• Stay active on social media channels where your target audience exists.

• Ensure you have a clearly defined audience so that your brand voice is targeted toward a certain customer segment.

• Make sure your marketing strategy is cost-effective. Do not overindulge in paid advertising when a strong social media presence can be just as valuable to you.

• Try local search engine optimization strategies and engage your audience with high-quality content.

• Make sure you try reaching your audience through multiple social media platforms and email marketing channels. Not everyone views Facebook and not everyone checks their email regularly.

• Produce content that is easy to produce, whether blog content or video content.

Source

Going deeper into content marketing for small businesses, we are going to give you a list of dos and don'ts for different types of online content.

Blog Content

Do:

1. Explore free SEO tools or engage with other businesses to start a local SEO strategy that optimizes your content for a particular locality. For example, if you are a grocery store in Texas, you can optimize your content to appear in Google Search for those looking for groceries in Texas.

2. Do some keyword research to see what your audience is looking for. Use Google Adwords Keyword Planner.

3. Brainstorm content ideas and make sure you produce educational content suitable for your target market.

4. Do not only write for search engines. Keyword-stuffed fluff is not going to get you anywhere. Your customers are human so you need to create content for humans.

5. Explore the existing content on the internet in your specific industry. Look at what people with similar business goals are doing.

6. Our attention spans are less than that of a goldfish and are now at approximately 4 seconds, so make sure you include short-form content as well for those who are not avid readers.

7. Focus on producing valuable content such as how-to guides, price comparisons, event reviews, and anything relevant to your business content marketing strategy.

8. Measure your performance from Google Analytics. Measure according to your content goals - traffic, engagement, conversion, etc.

9. Quote an industry expert to provide more authority on a topic.

Don't:

• Use free tools or cheap AI packages to produce content - it will not be valuable or personal and may not help much.

• Only rely on organic traffic to your website. If you are a small business, you may not have as many resources for content planning and content writing and your business cannot only rely on organic search.

• Operate without a content calendar as it is important to set a schedule for content production and distribution.

Social Media:

Do:

• Distribute your content on social media - blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.

• Try creative marketing campaigns on social media - memes, puns, or posts describing a concept.

• Look at what other online businesses are doing and which posts are getting the most engagement.

• Use interactive content such as polls, quizzes, surveys, questions, or user-generated content such as testimonials etc.

• Ask your customers to also share your posts to their social media accounts.

• Make sure your social media posts are well-designed and visually appealing. Emplifi establishes that since 90% of what the brain processes is visual, it is essential to focus on visual elements in content creation and ensure it is a vital part of the content strategy.

• Use free tools to post on social media such as Buffer etc. A small business may not have the resources or human and creative capital to post on different channels separately. It takes one click to share your post on different platforms.

Don't:

• Try to access distribution channels that aren't relevant to your business or your audience.

• Create a marketing strategy that is too hectic or unmanageable.

• Do not focus content marketing efforts only on engagement. Small businesses need to make a profit sooner than large businesses to survive. Focus on customer needs and create a content marketing strategy that addresses those needs.

• Only go for completely free marketing strategies. You should spend a little on social media marketing according to what you can afford.

Email Marketing:

Do:

• Engage with your audience on a personal front.

• Send emails that inform, educate, or convince - keep them short and sweet.

• Use a free tool to send emails such as Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, etc.

• Warm up your email domain before sending campaigns to ensure you don't land in spam or improve your sender reputation if it has already taken a hit. GoCustomer can help with this.

• Keep your content interesting and brief.

Don't:

• Employ a digital marketing firm to do this for you. Small business content marketing is personal and requires a direct-to-consumer approach.

• Only send discounts as online marketing is much more than a price war. Talk about quality, send testimonials, and case studies, and you can also discuss events and other important information.

Extras:

• Try multiple channels for content marketing. If you find it appropriate you can also use TikTok and Snapchat, add a podcast from time to time, produce an ebook or magazine, etc. It depends on which business sector you are in and who your target audience is.

• Small business content marketing does not have to be complicated and does not have to be dispersed everywhere. Focus on areas where you think you can entice a profitable customer action and manage according to your resources.

• A fantastic tool to use for small business content marketing help is the All-in-One SEO Pack.

Ready to start content marketing? Limited budget doesn't mean limited ideas!