Relevance. How do you show your customers that your product or service is relevant to their lives?
Genuiness. How do you reach out to them personally, even when you have so many?
Consider content marketing. It’s a buzz word that’s all the craze in the marketing world. Content marketing is a philosophy, a strategy that goes beyond the traditional “Sell! Sell! Sell!” advertising. When you use content marketing as part of your online marketing strategy, it puts your business on the digital map—and keeps it there with solid tactics:
- Updated content. What is the question that everyone asks when they stop in? Give them the answer 24/7 by posting the answer online. How is your product or service relevant to their life? Post content that gives them information and shows them how it works in their life. This is your chance to give your customer service beyond a phone call, beyond your business hours. With our virtual world, this is how you can support them when they need it. Use visuals to catch their attention, and interactive content to appeal to visual learners. In addition, search engines (which judge your content when they rank the top search results) look for the latest and greatest content with on any given topic.
- Social media marketing. Your customers are online every day, checking in with their friends. Why not give them information (or a smile) as they are browsing? Become a resource for them without them having to work to get it. This is also your opportunity to get your content out into the digital world, and get visitors to your company website.
- Genuine marketing messages. Does that website content sound like it’s written by a robot? Could be. Write your content for your audience, and personalize that content for email messages to your customer.
We can hear you asking, “why does my business need content marketing?” Well, you have customers don’t you? Customers who have questions outside of your business hours. Customers who can find your business online if you use content marketing. Customers who find your website through top search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Content marketing is a customer-centric marketing strategy that benefits your company in two main ways:
- Customer service. Updated content is available as a resource for your customers, even beyond your business hours. Studies have shown that customers expect online customer service, even through social media.
- Search engine optimization. Search engines tend to like what customers like: updated content with information that everyone reads.
If content marketing sounds out of your league, or you don’t have time for it, outsource to a marketing company that has content marketing experts. Ask your network of fellow business owners for local companies that achieve results. Put your marketing in their hands, be the perfect client (if you need advice on that, check out our Outsourcing do’s and don’ts post) and watch the results as your business shows up on the digital map.
