You want to be seen. So, do something.
Something big.
If you want to catch people’s eye in your content marketing endeavors, you have to do three things: Be bold, be relevant, and be impressive. If you want to make an impact and get your business noticed you have to go the extra mile.
To reach and engage your audience use these 5 tips to nail your content strategy:
1. Know Who You Are
Knowing who you are takes a deep understanding of the product or services you offer, why you offer them, and a bit of the roadmap that lies ahead of you. Once you understand your business, you have to create a brand around it – and this is the tough part. You know who you are, but does your audience? Branding is how you communicate; it’s your face to the world and while it may change over the years, it should remain a version of itself. Think of Q-Tips, Kleenex, Xerox. These companies are so inextricably linked to their product that most time people don’t know whether you are talking about the company of the item. That’s what you want for your business.
2. Know Your Audience
Knowing who you are also means knowing your audience. Successful businesses don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, they are super intentional about putting their stake in the ground and defining their audience.
Herb Kelleher, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, took this exact approach. He decided that his audience wasn’t everyone. It wasn’t even the business-class flyer. Instead, he set his sights on the family flyer. He appealed to them by offer low fares, painting his planes like whales, and implementing a hiring strategy that focused on hiring attitude before skills. And this targeted approach paid off. Today, Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded.
When your demographic is defined, you can get to know your audience intimately. What are they interested in? How are they finding information? What are their pain points?
Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your message, taking a personal approach to your marketing to stay super relevant to your audience, and create raving fans of your business.
3. Be Where They Are
After you’ve defined your niche, go find them. Does your ideal buyer hang out in specific geo locations? Do they participate in certain communities online? Are they urban or suburbanites? Are they looking for a specific resource that you can provide for free?
Take a multi-level approach to meeting your ideal buyers where they are by:
- Driving top-of-mind awareness with ads.
- Delivering value through helpful resources.
- Nurturing with personal email marketing.
Especially for smaller businesses that have to do more with less, being targeted with your audience means that you can allocate resources efficiently and effectively.
4. Use Technology
Marketing technology used to be reserved for big businesses with big budgets and lots of technical know-how. But today, there are a ton of free or budget-friendly resources that are easy for small businesses to implement and use.
Try these examples on for size:
- Create a blog on your company site. Share your expertise, show off your company culture and feature guest posts from others in your niche. Blogging displays your authority, builds up a reserve of content you can share, and helps your ideal buyer find your business online through search.
- Leverage Youtube to connect with your audience. Produce your own video, or better yet, leverage your customers’ video testimonials to share with your audience. In fact, Offerpop revealed in a recent report that brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to professional content along with user-generated product videos.
- Create buzz on social media sites. With social media, you can take word-of-mouth marketing one step further and get your audience talking about your brand. Focus your efforts on the channels that your ideal buyer engages with the most.
5. Make Sure They Can Find You with SEO
Creating useful, relevant content for your audience is the first step to getting found online. Then, reach out to your partners, influencers in your space, and your customers to share and exchange content, helping boost your reach. As you build content on your site, you may also want to hire a SEO consultant to help make sure your website is structured properly for ultimate optimization. For a few more ideas on how to get found online, check out our Small Business Guide to Online Marketing.
You want to make a big splash, right? Try these ideas and watch as you reach grows exponentially.