What’s your New Year’s Resolution? If it’s to build a kick-ass marketing plan, you’re in luck.
We’re hitting the ground running for the first blog of 2024 and sharing effective content marketing tips that work really well for small businesses.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all plan either (‘cause those never work). Instead, we’ll show you how to create a tailored strategy for getting more eyes on your products or services. So, keep on reading!
Create a ‘bare-minimum’ content marketing plan
First, let’s get this out of the way – you cannot create a killer content strategy by just winging it. Period.
You wouldn’t build a concrete house on a slab of mud, right? Same thing with your content strategy. Small businesses that are most successful with their content lay the right foundation.
This includes understanding your audience, defining your brand voice, and deciding on effective content pillars to communicate your messaging.
After laying that foundation, you’ll need to define your big goals. Do you want to double your email open rates? Triple organic website traffic? Increase sales page conversions by 5%?
Figure out your business goals and how to track the success of your content marketing efforts in helping you reach them.
Finally, you get to the good part – implementing your bare minimum marketing plan. Take your biggest goal and use the power of one to create a plan that supports it.
Maybe that means creating a single long-form blog post one time a month and then repurposing that content on one social media platform. Maybe that means showing up more consistently online. Whatever your goal is, get a plan in place!
Match your content strategy with your capacity
One common content marketing mistake is focusing on the quantity of content, versus quality. To avoid this, you need to be realistic about your content plan.
Choose a strategy you can stick to, even in the busiest of times. But also one that you can easily expand when you have more time and resources.
Look at the time you have allotted to create content and consider what resources are available to you right now. Are you creating it all on your own, using a team, or outsourcing to a top-notch content marketing agency?
Consider what you have available to support your plan, or you may end up feeling way in over your head!
Pick one piece of content to focus on
Remember what we said about a bare minimum strategy? Well, for it to work, you need to choose a core type of content that will be the center of your strategy. This means focusing on one of the following types of content:
- Youtube content
- Podcasts
There are a few things to consider when deciding on the core content, including your audience’s needs and preferences, your likes and dislikes, and the time and resources available for creating each type of content.
For example – What type of content does your audience consume the most? Is it something you want to or are open to creating? Do you have a team or plans to outsource strategy and/or implementation?
The answers will be different for every business, so make sure you pick what works best for YOU.
Decide on your social media channels
Now it’s time to decide on which social media channels to use for your content marketing plan.
Why?
With over 4.89 billion users, social media is without a doubt how you can quickly reach and attract waaaayyy more ideal customers to your business. Besides, social media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Small businesses typically hang out on:
- TikTok
- X (formerly Twitter)
Remember, you don’t need to be active on every social media platform. But it is a good idea to show up somewhere. Algorithms may be annoying and it can feel like things are ever changing, but you need to be present for your audience!
Effectively using your email list
There are many reasons you shouldn’t overlook email marketing as part of your content strategy, but we’ll narrow it down to just one.
You’re not competing with ever-changing algorithms or millions of other businesses for attention. You’re getting the information straight to the people who need it without much interference.
Which means this is a super effective way to market yourself.
For example, the week you post your core content (say, a YouTube video), an email can go out to drive traffic back to that video. If it’s a promo week, then you’ll know that it’s time to schedule relevant sales emails. And yes — this is also in conjunction with your email newsletters!
And please, talk to your audience consistently! They want to hear from you, otherwise, they wouldn’t have subscribed to your list (plus, there’s always the unsubscribe button if they change their mind.)
That could be either weekly, monthly, or quarterly – whatever works best for your audience, industry, and business. But remember that ultimately, email marketing should build relationships with and sell to the people subscribed to your list.
How to plan ahead
If you want to master effective content marketing for 2024, it’s time to plan ahead. Decide on your core content type and platforms, dust off your email list, and build your content marketing strategy.
And once you have your strategy, lay out a plan to actually make shit happen. Review the timelines for each step in the content creation process, consider the time required for each task, and enlist the help of your team if you have one!
But if you’re not sure where to start with all this content strategy stuff…we got you. Grab a strategy intensive and get an easier, more effective, and stress-free way to master that content strategy!
Let’s kick off your best quarter yet, shall we?
