10 Ways Every Business Should Utilize Content Marketing to Grow their business

1
10 WAYS EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD UTILIZE CONTENT
MARKETING TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS
Content and Content Marketing Know the
Difference According to Brightedge, "Content is
the matter that you produce to market your
business and to build a relationship with your
target audience. Content marketing, on the other
hand, is using that content to engage the
audience and attract them towards your product
and brand. I know youre probably thinking,
"Isnt that what any marketing is all about?
Well, essentially yes... .except for the one
fundamental difference. Traditional marketing is
outbound marketing wherein you or businesses
reach out to the prospects and communicate about
your brand and products to them. Content
marketing is inbound marketing you bring the
audience to you by providing engaging content
that intrigues them to know more about your
business and product offerings. Getting Started
with Content Marketing So how do you start
content marketing? First things first, know your
target market and your audience. Create a buyer
persona and then create content geared towards
that particular section of the audience. Make
sure the content is high-quality, unique (not
copied from elsewhere!) and informative. It
should be written in such a language that engages
them and at the same time can be easily
understood by all. There are a variety of mediums
you can use to distribute content like social
media, emails, website, etc. (well talk more
about it in the next section). There are
different forms of content too that you can use
to entice the audience like blogs, videos,
images, podcasts, etc.
2
Content Marketing Strategies
Lets now talk about different ways businesses
can utilize Content Marketing- 1. Social Media
Marketing - Social media today is the most
popular medium to promote or talk about your
products/services because almost everyone you
know is there on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or
Instagram. Its become a great place to target
prospects.
Therefore business these days have a business
profile created and post content each day. This
content is then visible to all your followers,
friends and their connections. So the potential
is infinite. Social media advertising also offers
an excellent opportunity to convert interested
visitors into buyers through highly targeted ad
campaigns. Considering the stiff competition and
the growing user base, its not enough to share
content on social media profile each day. The
ideal way is to combine it with a bit of paid
advertising. For instance, create content and
share it on social media. Choose your best
performing post and then create an ad with the
content to target a specific section of the
audience to generate leads. 2. Email Marketing -
Another great way to feed exciting
information/announcements about your
brand/company to your followers is by way of
newsletters and e-mailers. Email
3
marketing has become an ideal medium to convert
interested followers into customers and generate
leads. Whats more, there isnt much to lose as
it is the most cost-effective form of marketing
as you dont need to spend much. You can start an
email campaign on a free or relatively
inexpensive mailing platform like MailChimp, Get
Response, etc. with a few hundred
subscribers. Through email marketing, you get an
opportunity to tell your subscribers about your
recent achievements, some new development or
announce the launch of a new product. Its not
just a way to generate more leads but also an
opportunity to drive traffic to your website
which in turn will help your SEO rankings. 3.
Organic Search Visibility - Okay, so you produce
great content, but its no good if nobody sees
it. With more and more companies producing great
content than ever before, the competition is
stiff, and its harder to rank in search
results. However, dont get intimidated by that
for even small businesses can rank high on
searches provided their content is unique,
relevant and is well-liked by the readers. Of
course, its not going to happen overnight, but
you have to keep thinking about ways to grow more
traffic gradually, so more and more people read
your content and like it. Higher the traffic,
higher will be your rankings and thus greater
chances of readers converting to leads. All you
need is to master SEO, and you will be well on
your way to the top! 4. Use of Lead Magnets -
User journey begins the moment a visitor gets to
know about you and lands on your website (again
through interesting content, i.e. ad, blog,
etc.). You then give them additional information
in the form complete blog, product/service
related info, etc. to make them further
interested in your business. You are basically
sprinkling content at every stage of the journey
so as to entice and attract the reader. You also
include excellent and prominent CTA with graphics
to encourage the visitor to fill in the lead
form. A good idea would be including a lead
magnet to persuade visitors to fill in the form.
This lead magnet is nothing but a piece of
content in the form of some helpful tips, some
discount offer or an excellent video which would
be given away in return for filling the lead
form. This content has to be something related to
what the audience is already reading and would be
curious to know more about it. For instance, if
its a blog on how digital marketing techniques
help your business grow, you could include a CTA
with a short piece on "5 Digital Marketing
Secrets that will help your business skyrocket
overnight as the lead magnet. That way anyone
who is interested in the digital marketing
techniques to grow their business will be
intrigued to know about the secrets too that can
help them succeed overnight!
4
5. Blogs - Blogs are the best ways you can
keep on publishing fresh, relevant content for
the audience. Keep publishing latest blogs on
your website and share them on social media and
social bookmarking sites etc. which will help
drive traffic to your blogs. The more the
readers, higher will be the likelihood of them
sharing your blog. 6. Create content that
answers Audience Questions - So far weve talked
about different ways we can distribute content to
reach a multitude of people.
However, a more critical question that needs to
attention is that to write so the audience would
love it and finds it of value? Well, ...the idea
is to know about most common questions that
people, in general, tend to have about your
product/service. Please make a note of it and
then create content around it to answer those
questions. It could be a blog, newsletter, or a
podcast or video. If you give them what theyve
wanted to know the audience would undoubtedly
love it. 7. Product Guides - Another excellent
content idea is to create product guides
especially if it is a technical product like
software, electronic device, etc. These guides
explain in detail each and every feature of the
product and the benefit it offers apart from
telling them how to use the product to its
maximum advantage. These guides can be put up on
the website in PDF format as a downloadable
document. The link can then be posted on
different social media sites etc. so people can
easily click on it and then visit your guide and
download it.
5
8. Case Studies - Boast about your recent
achievement or one of the complex client projects
you recently handled. What better way to talk
about it than via a case study. Talk in detail
about the complexity of the issue at hand
followed by how you and your team resolved the
issue successfully. This will help you build
credibility as a brand. Also talk about some
client stories, their feedback, how they are
happy to be with you for the long haul, etc. This
will enhance peoples confidence in your brand
and services. Feature it on the website so
visitors can easily see it. It will increase
trust as well as conversions. 9. Keep Your
Website Content fresh and Relevant - Website is a
highly dynamic medium, and therefore it is
essential that you keep it up to date and
relevant so that visitors get something new every
time they visit your site. Of course, that does
not mean you change your content every minute.
The idea is to keep updating your blogs, case
studies section on a weekly or bi-weekly basis,
so that people know that you are growing and
making an attempt to address the growing concerns
of the audience. Fresh, up to date and relevant
content will also signal to Google that your
content is more valuable over that of the
competitor. 10. Join Online Groups and Forums
- There are various online discussion forums and
groups that you can join to participate in
discussions on your niche. There are different
social media groups and web forums. However here
it is not just about dropping links for traffic.
You need to participate in discussions and
provide value to the audience looking for
answers. Of course, you can give links for
reference but be mindful that your answer should
address the question or the topic of discussion
else you might be considered spam. These methods
will help you take content promotion to the next
level. However, keep in mind the fact that these
methods dont work in isolation but the
cumulative effect of all these methods combined
together that produce desired results.
About The Author
Anupam Rajey
Anupam Rajey is a seasoned marketer and a sales
expert. He is the CEO of Acelerar Tech, a leading
KPO that offers virtual assistant services for
social media, Internet research, email chat
support, and more.