One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is marketing their company effectively. Content marketing is a great place to start as it can be done fairly cheaply. On the other hand, you still need to know some things to be successful with it. Hence, here are the seven steps for successful small business content marketing.

#1 Understand your brand and your audience

This goes without saying, but you still need to remember this: understand your brand and your audience. Before you do literally anything with your content marketing strategy, you need to understand what your small business is all about and who your audience is. Only after you lay all of this out on paper will you be able to move forward.

Start with the basics like your industry and your products and/or services. Then, move on to details like what sets you apart from other similar brands. The same goes for your audience. Start with the basics and move on to details. Then, segment your audience to make it easier to market for different customers you could have.

#2 Create a content strategy and posting schedule

Using the information you have written down, you should create a content strategy for yourself. This strategy needs to contain information on the types and formats of content you will be creating, the topics you will be covering, the platforms you will be using to publish this content, quality requirements for your content, and so on.

In addition to the strategy, you need to create a posting schedule. This schedule ensures that you publish certain pieces of content at particular points in time on the platforms you have selected. For example, you could publish the same announcement on social media and on your website at the same time while publishing something else at a different time.

#3 Align content marketing with your customer sales funnel

One thing every business owner should remember is that content marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. On the contrary, your content marketing needs to be aligned with your customer sales funnel to maximise the outcome of your marketing actions.

As experts from the writing service reviews of companies explain, “Many small businesses fail to align the two and it’s a huge mistake. Content marketing is meant to find an audience for you that you can then convert into customers – isn’t that what having a customer sales funnel is all about?”

#4 Diversify your strategy with different content types

When you were creating your content marketing strategy, you probably made a list of the content types and formats you will be creating. If you only listed one or two, it’s time to diversify. The more diverse your content types are, the more potential customers you will reach. Here are just some of the content types and formats you can start creating:

  • Blogs, articles, guides, and reviews
  • Images, illustrations, and photographs
  • Infographics, charts, and diagrams
  • Videos, animations, and GIFs
  • Podcasts, presentations, e-books, and webinars
  • Social media posts and email newsletters

#5 Use reviews and testimonials as user-generated content

UGC or user-generated content is pretty much the content created by your customers, particularly reviews and testimonials. Using UGC in your content marketing strategy will help you connect with your audience and show that you value their loyalty.

As experts from the custom writing reviews and ratings websites put it, “UGC lets you connect with your audience, but it also lets you create less content. This means that you have more time for other things. You just need to find and curate UGC.”

#6 Send out email newsletters on a regular basis

Content marketing is an umbrella term that includes many different types of digital marketing that involve content. One of such is email marketing. The foundation of email marketing is usually an email newsletter that your potential or current customers can subscribe to.

Having an email newsletter allows you to attract attention (to events, sales, new product releases) and keep your customers loyal by reminding them about yourself among other things. There is a lot to say about creating an email newsletter, but one thing is for sure: you need to send it out on a regular basis so that your subscribers don’t forget about your brand.

#7 Promote your brand on different social media platforms

Last but not least, you need to use social media platforms to promote your brand. Social media is the perfect way for finding an online following for your small business and gaining a good reputation for your brand.

Create at least one brand account on social media and start publishing content according to your strategy and schedule. Interact with customers and other businesses. You can even consider offering customer support through social media.

Final thoughts

To summarise, promoting your business with the help of content can be incredibly effective, especially if you know what you are doing. Use the tips in this article to help you get started with content marketing and successfully promote your small business.

Frank Hamilton has been working as an editor at essay review service Writing Judge . He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.