content marketing for small businesses
How to Use Content Marketing to Boost Sales for Your Small Business?
Scalability, affordability, diversity, cost-effectiveness…there are a lot of reasons that content marketing reigns as the top go-to approach for many brands and businesses online.
According to the Search Engine Journal, content marketing is used by 73% of B2B marketers and 90% of B2C marketers as a part of their overall marketing strategy.
Among others, content marketing provides excellent ROI. You can use zero to little investment approaches, such as blogging and email, to generate qualified leads, which can later become loyal customers.
However, if you want to get the real benefit of content marketing, you need to make sure that you do it right and that you do it by the needs and capabilities of your business.
In this post, we will be looking at some of the different ways you can employ content marketing to boost the sales of your small business.
Ways to Utilize Content Marketing for Boosting Sales
In the ensuing sections, we will discuss different types of content marketing, and then we will discuss how they can be used to boost sales for a small business.
But before discussing how to utilize content marketing, let’s first list and describe the different techniques.
1. Blogging
Blogging means creating and publishing blog posts regularly for a readership.
2. Emailing
Emailing, in content marketing, refers to reaching out to leads and customers with information about your brand.
3. Podcasting
Podcasting means sharing information about your brand/business via a podcast, i.e., an audio broadcast.
4. Publishing newsletters
Newsletters are regular publications that are sent to subscribers to enlighten the readers about the sending brand/business.
5. Providing information on brand websites (via content other than blog blogs)
This type of content/text involves landing page texts and product descriptions. Now let’s discuss these techniques in detail and talk about how you can leverage them to boost the sales of your small business.
Mind you, we won’t be talking about all of them. Instead, we’ll talk about some of them comprehensively so that you can get a good idea of the overall process.
Publish Blog Posts About Your Products/Services and Their Benefits
A blog can be a handy platform to promote your products and services. But, instead of talking about them in a boring advertisement, you can educate your readers about what they (the products/services) are and what benefits they provide.
By regularly publishing such blogs, you will be able to increase the sales of your small business. When your readers learn more and more about the products/services you offer and their benefits, they will be more inclined to make purchases and get quotes.
When writing blogs, you must focus not only on touting your offerings. Instead, you should talk about their benefits. For example, if your business deals in selling smartphones at budget prices, you should create blogs with titles like:
Why you can’t find smartphones at better prices than at (Brand Name)
Benefits of a 24-hour delivery system when buying smartphones
And the list goes on.
If you want to get help in creating effective and valuable blogs for your audience, there are several different online tools that you can use. For example, you can…
1. Use online analytical tools like Ahrefs to conduct keyword research, look up popular FAQs and other helpful information to make your blogs SEO-friendly
2. Use grammar checkers like Grammar Check to ensure no grammatical mistakes in your content.
3. Use paraphrasing tools like Paraphraser to make your written content look unique and more engaging.
4. Use design tools like Canva to create and insert visuals in your content.
1. Send Emails to Leads
Leads can be defined as the people who show or have shown their interest in purchasing or knowing more about your business.
In many cases, you can call a lead back and convert them into a lucrative customer, thus improving the sales for your small business.
And one of the best ways to do that is to reach out via email. For example, if you have an online store, you could keep track of customers who add items to their cart but don’t check out.
Then, sometime after they’ve left, you can send them a mail reminding them about their almost completed purchase. Chances are that they will come back and finish the check-out process.
Just as there are many online tools you can use for writing and publishing blogs, there are many of them you can use for your emailing campaign. Mailchimp and Sendinblue are two famous examples.
2. Start a Podcast About Your Offerings
Just as starting a blog can help educate your prospective buyers, the same goes for podcasts. The difference between blogs and podcasts is that while the former is based on written content, the latter is based on audio broadcasting.
Many people can opt for podcasts instead of blogs since they can be easier to follow and consume. Reading stuff can be somewhat time-consuming. On the other hand, podcasts can be listened to even when driving, walking, etc.
So, if you want to target the busier section of your target market, you can start a podcast about your products and their benefits. This can help draw more leads to your brand and convert them into customers.
Conclusion:
Content marketing comes with many benefits, but to get the most out of it, you have to be particular about which techniques you employ and how you employ them. For starters, you can try out the stuff we discussed in the post above.