10 Tips for Effective content marketing for small business [Complete Guide]

Content marketing for small businesses is one of the best ways to grow your business in 2023. Use small business content to increase your brand’s recognition and bring new visitors to your website. 

Content marketing (for those who don’t know) is when you create and share content that grows your website traffic. Small business content includes blogs, whitepapers, ebooks, and more.

If your business has a website, you’re already doing content marketing. All you need to do now is improve your strategy. You need a good content marketing strategy for small businesses to succeed, and we’ll teach you how to build one with 10 tips for marketing a small business.

Why Content Marketing for Small Businesses?

Small business content marketing includes publishing blog posts, articles, and other helpful content. The keyword is ‘helpful.’ The goal is to provide useful and engaging information for your target audience. Doing so improves your brand image and increases the chances of website visitors converting to customers. 

Naturally, you’re wondering ‘How can content marketing help a business’? We’ll answer this question with an example. 

For example, let’s say you have a local plumbing business in New York City. You obviously won’t look for customers from India online. Instead, you’ll do content marketing for local businesses. That means you’ll provide helpful content related to the local area. 

You could publish an article about how people can reduce their plumbing bills. Or talk about how people could better maintain their pipes. Plenty of people in cities and places throughout the world search for these topics. 

By providing them with helpful content about plumbing, your online audience will see you as an authority and build a relationship with you. And naturally, they’ll turn to you for their plumbing needs, which drives your sales and increases your brand’s awareness. 

This way content marketing is an affordable way for small businesses to reach large audiences. Creating high-quality content isn’t necessarily expensive. So when done right, content marketing for small businesses can have an amazing ROI. 

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10 Practical Tips for Small Business Content Marketing

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These are things and methods any small business could start using right now, and begin creating real value with minimal investment of time or money…

1. Writing Blogs

The most effective type of content marketing is blogging. It’s an excellent marketing tip for small businesses. Companies with over 50 blog posts have 77% higher lead generation. Blogging is inexpensive, or even completely free, for a small business. All you have to do is publish useful, well-written content. 

Posting blogs in your niche establishes your business as an expert. Combine high-quality content with a good SEO strategy, and you’ll see even greater website traffic. High-ranking blogs can even maintain their rankings for years, paying long-term dividends to you. 

For these reasons, blogging is an excellent way to generate leads and increase your business’s exposure. 

2. Local SEO and Content

97% of people learn more about a local company online than anywhere else. So as a local business owner, you need consumers to see your company when searching for local services. You need to optimize your Google My Business Listing (GMB) to achieve this. 

GMB shows you relevant search engine information for your local area. You can use it to increase your company’s visibility. Regularly update your GMB profile and use local platforms like guides and social media groups to increase your website traffic. 

The goal is to make your business more discoverable online. 

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing has an ROI of up to 4,400%. That makes email marketing a staple for promoting a small business. 

It’s cheap and effective when done right because it involves directly inboxing content to your subscribers’ inboxes. For that reason, email marketing for small business owners is an excellent strategy. 

You can send different types of content in your emails, with newsletters being one of the best. Newsletters include updates about business or industry news. You could even include links to new blogs you’ve published. 

You can even use tools like MailChimp and Omnisend to automate part of the process. 

4. Use a Content Calendar

This is one of the best tips for content marketing. Use a content calendar to consistently post high-quality content. It’s not enough for your content to be high quality. It has to be posted consistently. And having a clear plan is one of the best ways to be consistent. 

A content calendar displays which content you’ll publish and when. That way, you’ll be better organized and save time and resources. It’s a massive time-saving hack because it clarifies the entire content marketing process. 

Generally, use a content calendar for an entire calendar month in advance. Include details of all the content you’ll produce when it’ll be published, and on what platform. 

5. Diversify Content Types

Content marketing for business is competitive. So you have to make yourself unique at every opportunity. Small business content creation should be diverse. 

Invest in different content types to maximize your chances of success, i.e., short and long blogs, videos, infographics, etc. Don’t limit yourself to a single content type because it will limit your reach. 

Instead, experiment with every channel. Naturally, some channels will have a better ROI than others. But you’ll never know which is right for your business until you try them all. 

Maybe your customers like long-form blogs, but you mostly publish short ones. You’d never realize this fact until you tested a few long-form blogs and compared performance. 

6. Leverage Customer Reviews and Testimonials

As we already know, 97% of consumers Google a local business online before buying from them. Positive reviews are a form of social proof and build trust between you and potential customers. That makes customer reviews and testimonials a powerful asset for marketing for SMEs. 

Improve your reviews by actively encouraging customers to leave positive testimonials on online platforms like Google My Business. Also, share your positive reviews on your website and social media platforms. 

Include photos of any high-profile reviews to further humanize the reviews. Your goal is to demonstrate credible proof.  This is one of the most important marketing small business tips. 

7. Content For Each Stage Of The Marketing Funnel

One of the keys of content marketing is showing consumers the right content at the right marketing funnel stage. Your marketing funnel is the entire process consumers go through, from learning about your business to making a purchase.

Most funnels have these four steps: 

1. Attention: A consumer discovers your brand.
2. Interest: A consumer wants to learn more about your brand. 
3. Desire: A consumer wants to purchase something. 
4. Action: A consumer purchases what they want. 

A consumer’s wants vary at each step of the process. So it’s vital to show them relevant content for the relevant stage. 

8. Choose The Right Content Distribution Channels

Not all distribution channels are equal. One or two of your distribution channels will likely dominate the rest. Focus on those. Find which distribution channels give you the most access to the most valued customers. 

The right distribution channel(s) for you is the one that maximizes visibility, engagement, and conversion. Employ analytics to achieve this. The right distribution channels will outperform the others in key metrics like engagement and conversion. 

Once discovered, invest in those channels. For example, if Instagram ads give you the best ROI, partner with influencers to increase your reach. 

9. Engage with Customers on Social Media

It’s not enough to have social media accounts for your business. You need to choose the right platforms and the right audience. And you need to build a brand image by consistently posting high-quality content and interacting with your followers. 

The best way to choose a social media platform is based on your target audience. Are the people you want to sell to mostly on Instagram? If so, focus on Instagram. 

After choosing a platform, create high-quality content suited for that platform. Content marketing ideas for small businesses include publishing tips, facts, and even memes. Whatever keeps your audience engaged. 

10. Use Performance Metrics To Improve Campaigns

The best way to ensure success is to use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track your progress. These are the three types of metrics you should track: 

• Consumer behavior metrics like page views, bounce rate, and average time on page. Google Analytics provides this data. 

• Customer engagement metrics like the number of likes, comments, and shares on your social media posts. Each social media platform’s analytics page provides this. 

• SEO results like organic traffic, backlinks, and keyword rankings. Google Analytics and other SEO tools provide this data. 

• Conversion data like the number of leads and conversions and content marketing ROI. Your CRM provides this data. 

Ready to step up your content marketing for small businesses?

Congrats, you’ve learned 10 of the best content marketing tips for small businesses. You’ve learned that content marketing is about creating and sharing helpful and engaging content. By doing so, you build credibility with online consumers, increasing their chances of conversion. 

To succeed in branding for small businesses, you need to consistently post high-quality content on the right channels and actively track performance. That’s not an easy task. But Mandala AI makes it easier by providing a unified platform to save and analyze your data. Click here to learn more.