While many businesses focus on paid advertising as their main source of reaching new and existing customers, savvy business owners are using a tried and true method to grow their business results online – content marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating blogs, Google My Business posts, videos, press articles, and social media postings to promote and grow your business.
Why Is Content Marketing Critical for Small Businesses? The Local Expert
When content is created with Google and your potential customer in mind, the online exposure is extremely profitable.
With the right strategy, small businesses can dominate their market as the local expert. The result is trust and credibility.
Take Cogent Realty Advisors in NYC as an example.
Cogent is a boutique office space leasing agency. They create niche blogs once per week. Their strategy is to write blogs about office buildings in NYC such as the World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and One Penn Plaza.
The owner also writes about specific areas in NYC such as office rental rates in the Grand Central District, Penn Station area, Greenwich Village, Union Square.
The result is Google exposure for many buildings and areas. He has positioned Cogent as a market expert. The content marketing strategy is one that is replicated over and over.
Every business has a unique opportunity to develop a content strategy to dominate their market as the local expert.
- Create Your “Why” – Simon Sinek, the author of “Start With Why”, explains that customers don’t buy what you do and how you do it. They buy “why” you do it. Content marketing is the ultimate way to build your brand by explaining why.
- Replicate Content Marketing Strategies – Once you define your strategy, replicate the content in different forms targeting the different keywords that your customers search. You do not need to recreate the wheel every time you create new content.
- Trust and Credibility Create a High ROI – The typical consumer searches many times before they contact a business. Ranking on page #1, especially at the top of the page for many searched keywords, creates tremendous credibility and trust.
- Sell by Educating Your Customers – One of the best ways to gain trust is to educate your prospects. With content marketing, you can write blog posts that educate your customers about the products you offer.
- Blogs are Content Marketing – Blogs are a form of content marketing. You can create a year of blog topics in less than 30 minutes. Then by following a template, write them in using the same format over and over.
- Google My Business – You can post blogs on your Google My Business page to grow your business exposure.
- Videos Market Content Too – Videos are simple and quick to make. They do not need to be Hollywood quality. Convert your blogs into videos and then rank them on YouTube and Google. Videos are an amazing way to sell your “why” and educate customers.
- Facebook and Instagram Posts – Facebook and Instagram posts are also a form of content marketing. If you follow a blog template with a 50-word introduction, 5 main points each with 50 words followed by a 50-word summary, you have a 350-word blog. Now you have 5 social media posts. If you created a video from the blog content, that’s another social media post.
- Linked In Content Marketing – Post blogs and videos on Linked In. There is no need to constantly create new content. Develop content topics around niche markets and services within your business. Then use the same content for all your online channels.
- Content Marketing Can Dominate Markets – You’ve probably seen huge websites with big budgets appear on Google repeatedly. With the right strategy, you can replicate similar results in your local market. By local markets, I mean a single town, multi-town, city, county, or state.
Content Marketing is Online Marketing
Content marketing is a form of sales. It’s the ultimate way to educate and presell your prospects. You can reach hundreds if not thousands of potential clients in the same amount of time it takes to reach one prospect with old school tactics, such as cold calling and in-person networking.
Using a step-by-step content marketing formula is the best way to build a profitable business without spending money on paid advertising.
NicheQuest is based in Fairfield County CT near Greenwich and Westport, 1 hour from NYC.