How to grow your business with content marketing
What is content marketing?
In the modern world, where so many of us spend time online, content marketing is more important than ever. To understand how content marketing can be used to grow your business, you first need to understand what content marketing is.
To put it simply, content marketing is creating and sharing online content with your desired audience. Content is usually digital, consisting of social media posts, videos and blogs. Having a strong content marketing strategy allows you to create and share content that attracts customers and helps you meet your goals.
Without a well-thought-out content strategy, you might just be making content for the sake of it. If it’s not benefiting your business, then you’re not taking advantage of what online content can do for you.
Here, we’ll break down exactly how to grow your business using content marketing - and give you the questions you need to consider to create your very own content strategy.
What do you want your content to do?
Before you start creating content, ask yourself: What do you want this piece of content to achieve? Don’t just post for the sake of posting - post with purpose!
Here are some common goals that you might want to consider:
Retaining current customers
Attracting new customers
Driving people to buy from you
Offering guidance or solutions
Once you know the purpose behind your content, you can plan your next steps…
Who is your target audience?
So you know WHY you’re posting, but WHO are you creating this content for?
Likely, you will already have a clear vision of your business’s usual target audience - but don’t be afraid to dig a little deeper.
Speak to members of your sales or customer service team, to find out any prominent pain points that your customers may be facing, or what makes them more likely to purchase a product.
This is a great way to shape your ideas and ensures that your customers are at the heart of every one of your posts.
What type of content should you be creating?
The type of content you create will depend on your target audience, and exactly what you want them to do. It’s best to begin with a little research, so you can understand what your audience needs from you…
A great place to start is the Google results page - type a question relevant to your field into the search bar and then check the ‘People also ask’ box. This will show you a handful of related questions that your target audience is actively googling, that you can use to build content topics around. This way, you will create content that will directly address the needs of your audience.
When it comes to the medium of your content, don’t be afraid to experiment! You can tailor the content to what best fits the information you’re sharing. For example, ‘How-to’ content might be best digested as a short YouTube tutorial or TikTok video. Alternatively, a more complicated topic may work well as a blog. There are lots of different formats to choose from…
How will you measure your results?
To ensure that you’re meeting your goals and that your content is doing what it was intended to do, you have to measure the results of your online marketing campaigns.
You can use a variety of tools to do this, including Instagram Insights, Facebook Pixels and Google Analytics. The latter tracks what actions your customers take after viewing content on your website.
Organic engagement alone (likes, comments, saves and shares) will give you an idea of what content is performing well. The key to success is to adapt and make changes when you feel as though your content isn’t resonating with your audience - monitoring your results is the best way to grow.
Once you’ve worked your way through these questions, you’re ready to start planning your digital content strategy. If you have any questions, you can get in touch by filling in this short form or dropping us an email at hello@theunderdogagency.co.uk. We’ll be there to guide you through your digital marketing journey.
