Why YOU Need To Think About Content Marketing for Your Business

Which aspect of your business do you think most contributes to your success?

Your marketing? Your branding? Your customer service?

The services or products that you offer need to come first, obviously. If you don’t have a high-value offer that people really want, then it won’t matter how good your marketing is. People won’t buy it.

It’s the same with marketing campaigns.

If a marketing campaign is just empty words, not offering your customers any value, then they’ll just tune it out. But if you’re providing your clients with valuable content built into your marketing where they really get some benefit from reading what you have to say, that’s going to catch their attention!

Which is why your marketing needs to be just as exquisite as your product or service.

So, why is content marketing so important for entrepreneurs and small business owners? Here are four reasons why you should be offering your customers only the best content in all of your marketing campaigns.

1. Content Marketing Builds Trust

Your marketing content should be highly valuable (even though it’s free). This might require a shift in your thinking. Most people worry about giving away too much for free; that it will negatively impact their bottom line. Which is a reasonable fear, but surprisingly groundless.

Just look at Gary Vee. Absolutely every lesson and every thought he’s ever had about business is available free. You just have to collect it through his podcast, social media, guest appearances, etc. It’s all there. Yet, his books still sell.

Why?

Because by being generous with his content he was able to build a tribe of people who love his open, honest, and sometimes controversial outlook on business. People that love him and trust him and are eager to be a part of the Gary Vee bookclub.

Of course, not all of us are Gary Vee and I don’t expect you to share all your expertise for free. Just make sure what you’re putting out there is worth something.

That something can be anything.

It could be valuable information your audience needs, or it could just be a fun story to make them laugh. Both of those things are valuable. Don’t be afraid to mix it up.  

Offering your audience valuable content doesn’t just help increase the know, like, and trust factor for your audience but it also helps to increase your reach. People share what they enjoy and what they find valuable which is a boon to your traffic.

So skip the pitch three-quarters of the time and instead focus on offering something of value with no strings attached.

2. Content Marketing Reinforces Your Knowledge

The best way to learn something is to teach it. So while you’re offering valuable content and setting yourself up as an expert in your field the mere act of creating the content actually helps you become even more of an expert than you already are.

Teaching what you know helps to not only reinforce your knowledge but it gets you thinking about what you know and allows you to see it in a new light as you find different ways to explain what you’re trying to share. In fact, it’s pretty common for teachers and coaches of all kinds to have epiphanies while teaching.

3. Google, Social Media & Email Marketing Love Great Content

Whenever you update your business blog with a new post, you’re providing new keywords and content for Google to index, and fresh content to share across your social media channels.

That means that with every new blog post, you’re improving your search engine rankings on Google and making it easier for people to find you.

The more often you update your website, the more Google will recognize your relevance, especially if all that great content is rich in keywords to help Google direct potential clients to your website first.

Plus, every time you write something new and share it on social media, you’re strengthening your relationship with your followers and giving them another reason to click and visit your website; because they know when they get there you’ll be serving up something they can sink their teeth into.

Don’t forget to leverage your blog content by repurposing it. Why not make it the centrepiece of an ongoing email marketing campaign, like a monthly newsletter? Even better, if you write your blogs with an “evergreen” mindset (avoiding dates, current events, and seasons), you can reuse them whenever you have a gap in a marketing campaign that needs to be filled.

4. Content Creation has a Terrific ROI

As far as return-on-investment goes, it can be difficult to beat content marketing.

When you write a great article, especially one that’s “evergreen” meaning that the content isn’t tied to a specific date or event that will soon become obsolete, you can get incredible marketing mileage out of just that single piece.

Unlike running a single ad that expires when your budget runs out, your article is a gift that will just keep on giving. A blog post can live on your website for years… Forever in fact!

Because you fully own the content you create, you can reshare, retweet, and repurpose it whenever and however you want.

At first, you may only have a blog or two at your disposal. But if you decide to do a weekly blog post for just one year, you’ll soon have 52 pieces of quality content on your site.

And believe me, Google will notice.

Google loves new content (the glutton!) and will reward your consistent contributions to its table by pushing your site higher and higher up the search engine results.

How to Create Quality Content

So many people have asked me if they really need to bother doing a blog. And the answer is, no. Say whhaaat!?!

Really, you don’t have to write a blog. You can provide content to your audience in any number of ways but I will tell you that a blog is one my fav ways to do it because:

• It’s a great place to house all kinds of content
• I own it, it lives on my site
• Blogs are easy to repurpose and reuse
• It helps my Google rankings
• My blog gives my audience a consistent place to go to access my most valuable content
• I can use it as an opportunity to encourage my audience to join my email list (you know you want to ????).

Remember that writing great content is all about telling stories and solving problems. Identify challenges that relate to your business and your clients and offer solutions that will help them.

And don’t forget to make it relatable and fun to read. As Laura Belgray would say – “Write like you tawk!”. Infuse your content with your unique personality to keep your reader engaged.

Here are some tips to start writing your own content:

• Identify a problem that you know how to solve.
• Write down the main points that the blog post will cover.
• Write a shitty first draft (The first draft is not the time for perfection!) – explain the problem you’re addressing and the solution you’re offering.
• Walk away – close your first draft and take a break (at least an hour).
• Do a rewrite – this is where you’ll go through and add in any story elements, personal anecdotes, etc. Add your personality and make sure your language is clear.
• Edit your draft – look for any unintentional spelling or grammar issues, remove any filler words. Maybe even run it through the Hemingway app and double check you’re using an active voice as much as possible.
• Give this second draft to someone else to proofread (if possible), otherwise take another break and come back to it.
• Read it out loud – fix any spots that are hard to read or put you to sleep

You really should write your own stuff, but if you find it difficult to come up with that first draft you might consider getting some help from a ghostwriter (I know some great people. Let me know if you’d like some referrals). Having someone create an outline for you or write that first draft can be hugely helpful.

The important thing is to start. Don’t let fear and self-doubt hold you back from creating quality content that will have your audience stalking your every move and clammering to click the buy button.

So what are your thoughts? Do you already have a blog for your business? How has content marketing played a role in your overall marketing strategy so far?

Let me know in the comments below.