10 Effective Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

How many times have you heard - “Content is King”. I am sure we often hear this in the field of marketing.
Do you wonder, Is content really the king? Or, What makes content the king?
Indeed, Content is the king for a reason.
Content is basically a magnet, which helps you attract an audience.
Content helps you connect with your audience, it helps you build a brand, it helps you to educate your potential audience about your brand or services you provide, which eventually helps in conversion.
Content Marketing is one of the most effective & affordable ways of marketing.
But, the biggest myth about content marketing is “It is for Big Brands”, No, Content Marketing is for Every Business irrespective of the “Business Size”
People don’t buy until they trust Business, until they feel connected with the Business/ Brand.
Content helps you bridge the Gap.
Consistent, Valuable, & Relevant content distribution on the right channel helps you grow.
If you’re a small business owner, struggling to find content ideas then this blog is definitely for you.
Here is the list of “10 effective content marketing ideas to boost your small business and to build a brand authority in your niche”.

10 Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses    

Here, we are presenting you top 10 Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses.

Write Blogs

Blogging is one of the old & feasible ways of content marketing.
You can either blog on platforms like Medium, Linkedin, Blogger and other content sharing platforms. Or you can create a Website.
Creating a website is highly recommended because it gives you more control over the content management. Also, you can use your website for other Business purposes.
Creating a website and posting relevant content helps you build authority, gain trust, and build a relationship with your potential audience.
If you’re an E-commerce brand, it will help you convert the audience into your buyers.

Showcase Your Case Studies

If you are providing services, then you must write case studies to build up your authority in your Niche.
Your work samples will let people know how you can help them, what you can do for them.
Create case studies of what client approached you for and how you helped him resolve the issue.
This type of written content will bring a lot of exposure to your business. It also acts as social proof for your business, which eventually helps you build your Brand Authority.
It will help you showcase your Skills & Strengths.

Give Out Freebies

Who doesn't like Free Stuff?
Giving out freebies can help your audience understand about your Business & Brand better.
I remember reading the first chapter of the Ebook available for free on the website. This eventually made me purchase the book of a New Author to finish it.
If you’re a SaaS company, you can give out a one month free trial of your software for the patron to make them understand what it is about and how it can help them.
If you have services to offer you can offer a FREE consultation call.
If you are a designer, you can give away a few of your design templates for your audiences.
Wait, do you know, when you offer any freebie you get to build an asset?
Wondering how?
When you are offering a digital freebie in exchange for a customer's email id, or scheduling a consultation call in exchange for a telephone number is helping you create your own “Customer Data.” This will help you create a long-term relationship.
Mark my words, “Customer Data is your Biggest Asset”.
You can use this data for Retargeting Ads in the future.
As the user found the free material useful, you have a good chance of converting him into a loyal customer.
This is the best way of converting your passive audience into potential customers.
You can create many forms of informational content like Ebook, White Paper, Templates, Checklists, Excel tools, etc. Based on your business, you can create a small info product that helps your audiences to get an actionable result.
Try these ideas and use them to build your customer data from scratch.

Create Interactive Posts

Simply having a social media presence will not help your business to grow. You need to be active on the platforms your audiences are active.
You need to plan and post your social media content in such a way & time that your audience interacts with it.
Creating content on social media should be strategic, your audience should be able to relate with it. Using Social Media Platforms efficiently will help you build authority.
It will work as a public relation & branding strategy for your business.
Always have a CTA to your post where your audience gets a chance to comment or like the post.

Show your BTS

Connecting with your audience on a personal level is very important. In today’s time it is very important to keep transparency in your business to gain your Audience’s trust.
If you’re a service-based company, you can show your office videos, activities, award or appreciation posts because your audience is always excited to see what happens Behind The Scene.
If you’re a product based company, you can show the manufacturing or packaging process of the product.

Follow Topical Spot

Follow trends to stay on top.
One of the biggest advantages of using social media is that you can come across the latest trends instantly.
You can use these latest trends to create engaging content.
Topical Spot is basically bringing a news story, a recently happened event or anything current into people’s notice by embedding your brand into it.

7. Leverage Live Streaming

Just like I mentioned earlier, it is very important to connect with your audience on a personal level.
Plan and go live on your social media handles, it will not only help you gain your audience trust but it will also give you a chance to interact with them.
You will get to know and understand what they expect from your brand.

8. Create Instructional Videos

To create a video, you don’t need any professional camera or premium editing softwares to shoot and edit a video. The smartphone you have is enough to shoot and edit an Instructional video.
Sometimes, it becomes difficult to understand how to do a particular task through an user's manual. In such cases, videos make it super easy to understand.
In case if you are selling a SaaS Product you can just use a screen recording software to record your screen and voice.
You can use OBS Studio, which is a free streaming software along with screen recording feature.
For making a presentation, I recommend an online free designing tool called Canva. I use it personally myself, and it is very easy to use.

9. Webinar/ Workshop

Content Marketing is not restricted only to online marketing.
A good content marketing involves both online and offline strategies for effective marketing. There are many offline content marketing strategies, out of which, we are going to see a couple of cost-effective ideas for small business.
The biggest offline platform to showcase your work is attending conferences. Start attending the business conferences, meet new people and let them know your expertise. Then break your barrier and start speaking at conferences.
When you connect directly with your audiences, you can easily sell yourself to the attendees. This helps to build up trust and a good business relationship, which will reap fruits in the future.

10. Email Marketing

Email Marketing is basically the only way to connect with your audience more personally. When you post content on social media handles you address to the group of people who are your followers, but when you write an Email, it is mostly personalised and gives a human touch.

Conclusion

All these content marketing strategies help you increase your brand awareness, trust, sales and to retain your customer base. But you need not rush all these ideas at once.
Just concentrate on one idea at a time and then expand. For example, you need not spend time on creating a blog post and a free ebook. Just combine four or five blog posts you wrote and create an ebook out of it.
Remember, you cannot build authority and boost up your sales overnight using content marketing. So be patient and be consistent in creating good content. Keep the audience engagement as a priority, before your sales conversion.
You will see your organic results for sure in the long run.

Author’s Bio:

Sravani Sundeep is the CEO and Founder of Apna Writer that provides fully managed content writing services in India. She is working in the Industry for several years and has helped many businesses in getting the content that fulfills their needs and provides completely managed content writing services in India.