11 Small Business Content Series - Part I (Introduction)

How to create content to market your small business online?

This is one of the most common questions and one simple answer that I've found is - Write for your audience.

This is the success formula and secret.

We'll discuss about audience later in the blog post.

But first, what is content and how can I develop small business content?

Content comes as Content marketing and it comes in a variety of types, models, channels and platforms.

What suits for one may not be appropriate for another.

You really have to understand the 5Ws and 1 H.

What - When - Where - Who - Why and How?

What is content marketing?

"Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."
(Source: Content Marketing Institute)


Is we break down the definition and discuss about it - we  can understand it as -

Having a strategic approach - is what you mean by having a great content planning of what you would like to write and how you organize it giving a logical structure to your content.

Focus - Not just by mere publishing, you can derive results, but by keeping the norms of writing that is entirely focused on goals, objectives,  purposes, mission,  vision and results you would like to achieve.

It is also essential that you share and distribute most valuable and relevant form of content online and this could be on social media channel or any other platform.

This helps in reaching wider audience and also content is further shareable.

Further, content need to be consistent - content flow that is consistent with every format delivers maximum results.

Produce quality content that maximizes results for your business.

Retain clearly defined audience - Demark your target audience with personas.

Personas are semi-representation of actual buyers.

For example  -

Jim is a Senior IT Manager in a company in California, U.S.

Age : 45

Income : $100,000 per anum

Education: Graduate degree in sales management

Married

Have two children

Has a car

Owns a house

Owns a landscape business

Hobbies & Interests: Travel, holiday, swimming,  walking

Shopping : Prefers reputed brands. Does online shopping

The Persona of Jim helps in understanding his spending,  lifestyle and needs.

You can craft content based on your Persona.

Profitable customer action is all about enabling your audience to make certain actions like - make a purchase,  free download,  subscribe or any other.

Some of the popular content formats for content marketing are -

1. Web content

2. Blogging

3. Press Release

4. White Paper

5. Ebook

6. SEO keyword content

7. Article promotion

8. Video script

9. Infographics

10. Social media post content

11. Video content

Take up each task as a writing project with strategic approach and apply the CMI definition and persona.

That is the proven method to establish your business online.

In the next post  - we'll discuss about how to write web  content.

Thanks for Reading!