This is an enormous audience your business could be losing out on if you have not yet embraced social media as part of your marketing strategy. As a small business owner, you may feel overwhelmed by the potential of social media and unsure of how to make the most of it. In this guide, we will hopefully demystify the topic and help you achieve marketing success on social media.

Start with a plan

Any marketing campaign must start with a plan. It’s important to understand what you want to achieve through social media? Whether you want to increase revenue or create brand awareness, having clear goals from the outset will help you craft the right content at the right time aimed at the right audience. It will also help you measure your performance and determine whether you are getting a return on your investment.

Some of the more popular goals that social media marketers set include:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Growing your audience
• Increasing website traffic
• Improving community engagement
• Generate leads and increase conversions

What you choose as your ultimate goal is up to you – just keep it simple and realistic and make sure that you can measure it. Refer to Hootsuite’s S.M.A.R.T goal framework when setting your goals.

Know your audience

It is critical that you understand who you are targeting with your social media marketing. Who do you want to reach and what kind of posts would resonate with them the most? Which social media platforms do they prefer and how do they use social media?

Research your target audience thoroughly before you begin. There is a wealth of information on the internet regarding social media demographics and usage that can help you make the right decisions for your marketing strategy. Dig deep into your own data as well to discover who is already buying from you and what their pain points are.

Choose your platform

Many businesses make the mistake of thinking they need to be on every conceivable social media platform. This is simply not true and definitely not sustainable. If you’ve done your homework and researched your target audience, you will know which social media platforms they frequent. Also, consider how much time you have to create and publish content. If you are only active on one platform, that is fine – as long as this is the platform where most of your audience is.

Below is a quick overview of the most popular social media platforms:

Establish your key performance metrics

Your social media goals will determine what metrics you use to determine your performance. Now you know what you want to achieve, it becomes easier to know how you will measure this performance

Just be wary of getting caught up in so-called vanity metrics. These are metrics such as likes, followers, subscribers, etc – things that make your brand look good on the surface, but can be meaningless to the achievement of your goals. Always refer to your goals when deciding on your key performance metrics.

All of the social media platforms have their own analytics data that you can delve into. If you’re tight on budget, you can start there, or you can consider using social media analytics tools to help you uncover data. Buffer has put together a list of some of the social media metrics tools available, as well as some information on how to access each platform’s native analytics. You can also find some handy tips on how to measure your performance manually from this guide created by Social Media Examiner.

Sprout Social has created this nifty Social Media Metrics Map, that links your social media goals to the Buyer’s Journey and outlines the most important metrics for each stage and goal.

Check out your competition

Take the time to check out what your competition is doing. What is working well for them and what isn’t. Are they covering content or topics that you are not? What are some of the keywords they use? Keeping an eye on your competition will help you to uncover opportunities and content ideas that can give you an advantage when it comes to your own social media strategy.

Create relevant content

In today’s market, content is king. Your goals and your audience will determine the type of content that you create. The important thing is to create quality content that will be relevant to your audience. Minimise purely promotional content and rather focus on engaging with your audience in a meaningful way. According Sprout Social, 60% of social media users are annoyed by too much promotional content from brands.

Also consider where your audience might be in the Buyer’s Journey and tailor your content accordingly. The following is a list of the types of content that you can post on social media platforms:

• Infographics presents complex information in visual format. Because we process visual information much faster than text, it makes for incredibly engaging and shareable content.
• Interactive content that allows users to engage with your content, such as quizzes, polls, Q&As or contests.
• User-generated content that you curate and publish
• Videos are a social media favourite and comes in different formats such as short form, live streams, podcasts and webinars
• Shareable quotes that reflect your brand values and inspires your audience
• Blogs that link back to your website
• Curated content that provides valuable information about industry trends and news
• Client testimonials will highlight your organisation as a trusted brand
• Downloadable ebooks and guides that help users understand topics or products
• Ephemerial content such as Instagram stories that is only displayed for a short period of time

Draw up a content schedule and consider using automated tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social that posts your content automatically according to your schedule. Make sure you post regularly and consistently and be responsive to your audience’s feedback and comments.

Measure your performance & Review your strategy

Measure your performance regularly and consistently, using the metrics you set up.

Take actionable steps on the information revealed by your performance review. Adjust your goals, your metrics or your content where you have fallen short and schedule another review after enough time to give your adjustments time to take effect.

Social media can add greatly to your marketing mix and is especially valuable to small businesses due to its open access and relatively low costs. Understand your goals, your audience and your platforms and you will soon see your efforts pay off.

The post A Social Media Guide for Small Businesses appeared first on CapriComm.

Learn about the Internet of Things and Machine Learning

During 2017, these two terms became major buzzwords in the business industry. Although these technologies have not yet been developed to its full potential it is expected that it would have a major impact on the way we live, work and communicate with each other. But what exactly is this technology?

The Internet of Things (or IoT for short) refers to the way in which all our devices are becoming connected to the internet and with each other. Think, for example, about your FitBit device that tracks your physical activities and wirelessly syncs with computers and smartphones to transmit your data in understandable results.

Way back in 1959, Arthur Samuel started proposing the idea of giving computers the ability to learn without explicitly being programmed. This has become known as Machine Learning (or ML). By connecting them to the internet, these machines have access to a vast library of data that helps them analyse even complex data and make certain decisions based on the results.

Both IoT and ML will have a major impact on the data we collect about our customers, buying behaviour, website use, etc., as well as how that data is analysed and the information it will provide. As a business, you would need to prepare yourself for the number of opportunities that IoT and ML will present and make a strategic decision as to how you will make use of these opportunities. Another important consideration would be securing all your connected devices and protecting the data you collect on your customers.

Additional Resources:

5 Ways the Internet of Things (IoT) Can Help Your Small Businesses (Chris Sylvester)

5 Reasons Machine Learning is the Future of Marketing (Chindike Samuelson)

How Small Businesses Can Leverage Artificial Intelligence (Felipe Cornejo)

Apply the Pareto Principle to your marketing efforts

The Pareto Principle is a common business principle that can be applied in many ways in the business world. For example, it was found that 80% of a company’s sales normally come from 20% of its clients. In terms of Content Marketing, make it your goal this year to create 80% content that is engaging, relevant and helpful and only 20% that is directly promotional.

Why? As a society we have become wary of the sales pitch. Just think about how many times you have skipped over the magazine article that is indicated as a promotional piece. Or how many times you fast forwarded past the television ads on your PVR.

People are far more willing to listen to what you have to say if it is relevant to their current situation or helps them solve a problem or gain a better understanding of a topic. Don’t be tempted to always blast your audience with ‘me-me-me’ content. Rather make the focus of your content about them.

Additional Resources:

The 12 Essential Elements of High-quality Content (Jayson DeMers)

How to Create Better Content For Your Customers (Neil Patel)

22 Tips For Creating Content When You Don’t Have a Clue (Zach Bulygo)

Go Local

Competing with big brands can be hard for smaller businesses, particularly when it comes to marketing. And competing in terms of content marketing becomes increasingly difficult every year as more brands realise just how effective content is in reaching customers. The good news for small and medium businesses is that you don’t have to compete on a national level. As a local business, you have the advantage of targeting your content geographically. In addition, you would have better insight into what resonates with the local market and what type of content would be relevant to them.

That means posting more local content in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, anything that targets a specific geographic area.

In a recent study, Google found that 76% of smartphone local searches end up with a store visit. Not only that, but according to Moz, the quantity of inbound links to your website from locally relevant domains is a significant ranking factor. In 2017, ‘Proximity of Address to the Point of Search’ overtook the usual suspects for number one ranking factor, indicating the importance search engines give to local relevance.

So, in 2018 focus on creating more local content and work on getting more inbound links from locally relevant domains. Also make use of Facebook Advertising features to target your ideal customers in a specific location. You can also use Facebook pixel to help drive your Facebook ads. The pixel is a piece of code you place on the backend of your website to help track visitors to your site and allows you to run highly targeted campaigns on Facebook.

Additional Resources:

4 Ways to Win at Local Content Marketing (Aaron Agius)

The Crazy Egg Guide to Facebook Advertising (Rakesh Kumar)

How to Install and Use the Facebook Pixel: A Guide For Marketers (Tammy Cannon)

Get Personal

“Marketing is becoming increasingly personal and this trend will keep going as we move into the new year. No longer will stock images, generic nurturing campaigns or impersonal call to action convince consumers. In order to succeed, you’ll have to provide high-value and personalised content every step of the way” (Harrison Doan, Director of Analytics at Saatva 20 Small Business Trends and Predictions for 2018.

In 2015, research company Gartner predicted that by 2018, companies that have “fully invested in all types of personalisation will outsell companies that have not by 20%” (Gartner). Personalisation in marketing is all about content that is tailored to appeal to individuals based on their needs and interests.

And it has direct benefits to your business too.

• It increases conversions. According to an article by Econsultancy, Co-operative Travel saw a 95% increase in conversions and 217% increase in revenue once it implemented personalisation on its website.
• It increases sales. According to MarketingProfs, companies using a personalised content marketing strategy saw an increase of 19% in their sales.
• It reduces bounce rates on your website because you have targeted the right people in the right way.
• It reduces costs, by reducing marketing waste.
• It improves customer retention.

In 2018, commit to getting more personalised in your marketing. You can do this by sending your existing customers personalised offers, tailored to their preferences and buying behaviour.

Additional Resources:

How to Inject Personalisation Into Your Marketing Strategy (Digital Marketing Institute)

5 Incredible Examples of Personalised Marketing (Shauna Ward)

5 Tips to Personalise Your Marketing (Without Looking Like a Creep) (Lisa Lacy)

Get to know your customers

If you want to make the most of out of your local searches and personalisation strategies, you have to know your customer. Part of this is understanding the Buyer’s Journey and then crafting your marketing strategy to appeal to your ideal customer at each stage of their journey.

Buyers differ tremendously in terms of what content they are looking for, depending on the stage of the journey they are on. In the Awareness Stage, for example, they are looking for a solution to a problem, an answer to a question. At this stage of the journey they are not ready for the sales pitch or to close a deal. During the Consideration Stage, they have found the solution or the answer is only now deciding which option is best for them. This is where you want to nurture the lead and build a relationship of trust with them. It is only during the Decision Stage, where the buyer is ready to make a purchase decision. This is where they decide whether they are going to buy from you and where you need to make the right offer to get them to take that final conversion step.

I would add to the above journey the post-purchase group. Don’t forget to continue to engage with your existing customers to show your appreciation and to ensure that they keep coming back to your business.

Another way of getting to know your customers is to invest the time and effort into creating Buyer Personas. I know that this might seem like an academic exercise, but it is well worth it to ensure that you fully understand who your ideal customers are and how to best market to them.

A Buyer Persona is a fictional and generalised representation of your ideal customer based on validated commonalities. It takes into account aspects such as location, age, industry, gender, personal interests, job title, income group, job challenges, etc.

These exercises help you to better understand your target customer and therefore able to provide quality content that is highly targeted, relevant, engaging and personalised. It also helps your business create an effective and documented marketing strategy that is based on accurate data and reliable insights – a more proactive approach than the normal knee-jerk reaction to the market.

Additional Resources:

How to Create Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey (Andrew Raso)

The Beginner’s Guide to Defining Marketing Personas (Digital Marketing Institute)

Make My Persona (Hubspot)

Invest in Video Marketing

Video consumption continues to grow year-on-year and at this stage it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. According to a Cisco forecast, video will represent 80% of all consumer-based traffic by next year. In addition, Facebook receives 8 billion video views per day and has already launched it’s Facebook Watch – a platform that provides personalised recommendations of long-form live streams and original content. Even Quora has jumped on the video content bandwagon by introducing the ability to post video answers.

This year, it is expected that Live Video will become even more important. According to Cyberclick, about 13% of web traffic comes directly from live video. This format creates an intimacy, a feeling of being there, that is very appealing to audiences.

Make 2018 the year that your business fully embraces video in your marketing strategy:

• Create brand awareness by telling your company’s story
• Use Live Streaming to share breaking news, give a background tour or cover an event
• Create Product Explainers to show people how your products or services work
• Create Video Blogs to complement your written blogs

There are a number of ways in which to use video to attract and engage with customers. And the great news is that with today’s technology, video has become very affordable to any size businesses.

Additional Resources:

How to Leverage Social Media in 2018: A Video Marketing Guide for Brands (Bill Carmody)

7 Strategies for Getting Video Marketing Right in 2018 (Pratik Dholakiya)

15 Ways to Use Video Marketing in Your Small Business (Ilana Visser)

Diversify your content

“In 2018, I expect to see more diversification of content formats. More live streaming on social. More audio/podcasts. Alexa skills. Brands will continue to invest in content, as they have been over the last few years; but that investment will shift from mostly writing services and paid distribution/promotion to a whole host of services – production, more animation and video-related graphics, voice talent, etc. It’s no longer just about words – content is about creating experiences” (Amanda Todorovich, Content Marketing Director at Cleveland Clinic) – 20 Small Business Trends and Predictions for 2018.

This year, instead of focusing all your marketing effort on only print advertising, or your blog or video, look at ways in which you can diversify your content. Decide which channels would suit your brand or product the best and appeal to your ideal customers. This is where your Buyer Journey and Buyer Persona becomes critically important. If you have a clear picture of your various Buyer Personas, you can begin to think about what would appeal to them most in terms of content and distribution.

So, how can you start to diversify your content? Start with a strong base. SnapApp began their marketing strategy with a strong blog base. From here they can repurpose a lot of that information into video, podcasts, infographics, templates, etc. And the comments you receive on any of these channels would give you a unique insight into what customers would like to know more about, giving you even more ideas for future content.

But don’t feel you have to make use of every single content type. Rather identify two or three that will appeal most to your customers and would fit with your company brand. You can read more about how Content Marketing Agency Brafton increased their client’s organic leads by 94% in the Additional Resources section below.

Additional Resources:

Why Diversify Content? Success Story – 94% More Organic Traffic & New Leads (Molly Buccini)

How to Use Multiple Content Formats to Diversify Your Traffic (Sujan Patel)

Refresh your SEO strategy

The SEO game is never an easy one, and even less so for small businesses. Getting on the first page of Search Engine Results is a long and difficult journey for most companies. Here is where you Local SEO is going to make a big difference. We covered much of that in the previous section of this article, but here are some tips (courtesy of business2community.com):

• Get your business listed on local third-party directories and review sites
• Localise your content strategy
• Work location names into your anchor text, URLs, headings, etc.

Focus on your website speed. This will become even more important as an increasing number of people access website on their mobile phones. There is nothing more frustrating than waiting ages for a website to download and the effect is exacerbated when trying to do this over a mobile phone. Start by analysing your website with Google’s PageSpeedInsights or GT Metrix and then follow the recommendations to fix all of those issues that are affecting your site speed. The best practice is a site load speed of three seconds.

Check how your site performs on the other SERP features, such as local packs (local SEO), knowledge panels, featured snippets, etc.). They are becoming more and more popular, so track your rankings within these features. Rank Tracker will help you track 15 Google SERP features, as well as organic results.

Take a fresh look at all your on-site SEO factors and make sure that your keywords are optimised, that your title tags and heading tags are formatted correctly, that your images have alt-tags, and that your meta descriptions are in place for each page of your website.

Additional Resources:

The Beginner’s Guide to Small Business SEO (Ilana Visser)

SEO Checklist for Website Owners (Neil Patel)

Match Your Local SEO to Your Business Type with the Local SEO Checklist (Miriam Ellis)

Put it in writing

Now that you have a clearer picture of what you would like to achieve in the New Year, it is time to put your strategy down in writing. If you’re a small business you may think this does not apply to you, but, believe me, it does.

Having a strategy gives you the momentum you need to consistently produce great content that will get you more traffic and keep you existing customers coming back for more. It’s your roadmap for the year ahead, helping you to keep focused on your goal, deliver in your objectives and, ultimately, realise a return on your investment. In it’s 2014 B2B Content Marketing Study, the Content Marketing Institute found that marketers with a documented strategy “are not only more effective but also less challenged with every aspect of content marketing”.

Your Content Strategy should include the following:

• Your content marketing goals – the reason you are developing content and what you would like to get out of it.
• Your target audience – using Buyer Personas to help you identify your ideal customer
• Your content audit – reviewing your existing content to see how you can refresh, repurpose or improve on it and investigating other content types that will be a good fit for your business and your target audience.
• Your distribution channels – decide which distribution channels you will use (social media, directories, third party websites, etc.)
• Your content calendar – a flexible annual calendar indicating what topics you would cover when through which content type and through which distribution channel.
• Your content – brainstorm ideas for the actual content and start putting it together in advance so that you can distribute on time.
• Your ongoing analysis – consistently track and analyse your content and your website to see how your content strategy is doing.

Additional Resources:

Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing: Chapter 2 – Content Strategy (Moz)

Google’s Consumer Barometer (Google)

The Periodic Table of Content (Andy Crestodina)

Sources:

https://blog.capterra.com/ten-biggest-small-business-trends-for-2018/

https://moz.com/blog/local-search-ranking-factors-survey-results-2017

https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/10-marketing-trends/

https://insights.newscred.com/how-to-create-personas-and-map-content-to-the-buyer-journey/

https://www.cyberclick.es/numericalblogen/top-10-video-marketing-trends-for-2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2017/09/06/17-stats-about-video-marketing/2/#22f9a8b01e11

https://www.snapapp.com/blog/4-brilliant-ways-diversify-your-content-2016

https://searchengineland.com/8-game-changing-seo-trends-that-will-dominate-2018-286023

http://www.iab.net/media/file/B2BResearch2014.pdf

The post 9 Practical New Year’s Resolutions to Grow Your Business appeared first on CapriComm.

1. Not updating your content

Besides the fact that Google gives higher rankings to websites that are regularly updated, it also helps to draw more people to your website if you are consistently uploading high quality, relevant content.

Remember that people come to your website to find useful information that will help them make a buying decision. This means that, at the very least, your website should have updated information about products, services and pricing. If your content has not been updated in a while, people may assume that you are no longer in business. Or worse, they may get the impression that you simply do not care enough to keep your site interesting and informative.

In addition, search engines may view static websites without any updates as ‘dead’ entities, whereas fresh content gives search engines more opportunities to search for relevant information.

The easiest way to keep your content fresh and interesting is through regular blogging. Research by Adobe has shown that websites with a blog tend to have 434% more indexed pages than those who don’t. Every time you create an article, a new page is added to your website. This means more opportunities to be found online.

Other areas you should periodically check are product information or service details; your FAQ section; contact details and team member information.

2. Everything and the kitchen sink

Don’t be tempted to overstuff your website with every single product, client or project you have ever done. This can make your website slow, confusing and difficult to navigate.

Rather focus on the most relevant and recent content. The purpose of your website is to provide people with the necessary information to make an informed decision. They do not need to see every single project you have ever worked on or see your entire client list to do that.

If you have a variety of services and products, group them together logically. If you have done work for clients across various industries, choose one or two representative companies in each that you have worked with and highlight them.

Before deciding what content to have on your website, ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Does this information solve my customer’s problem?
• Does this information match my customer’s expectation?
• Is the information current and updated?
• Does my customer have to know this information in order to make a buying decision?
• Can my customers easily find information they are looking for?

If you answer no to any of these questions, perhaps reconsider if it is necessary to include it in your website.

3. Not researching your target market

Your website should be designed around your target market’s preferences. If your client base is corporate leaders, then having a hip, trendy design may not be the best option. If your customers are youngsters, you should probably focus more on mobile compatibility. Whoever your target market is, make sure that you design your website with them in mind.

Rather than rush to get an online presence, take the time to consider who would be most likely to use your products or services. Take into consideration such characteristics as age, location, marital status, lifestyle, buying power, buying habits, etc.

Knowing your target market makes it easier to know what type of content they would find useful and what would attract them to visit your site, stay on it and make a purchase or call your office.

4. Not tracking your performance

The adage of ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’ is certainly true of websites.

You need to know if your website is reaching the right audiences, if they find your content interesting, if that email or social media campaign you’ve been running is bringing in visitors and whether those visitors are converting into customers.

There are a number of paid and free options to track your website data – the most popular of which is Google Analytics (which is free). Before you start setting up your analytics software, make sure that you have set clear and realistic goals for your website. Once you are set up, pull weekly reports to see how you’re faring against those goals. If you find something is not working, change one thing at a time to identify specific problem areas.

5. Not optimising your site for SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising your website to improve its search engine rankings. SEO helps search engines figure out what your website pages are about and whether it is relevant to the person doing a search.

Not focusing on SEO reduces your chances of getting found online and for your website to get valuable organic traffic. This is the traffic that comes to your website from unpaid sources from search engines and tends to generate more revenue than paid traffic.

There are a few resources that help you check your SEO, such as SEMRush or SEO Site Checkup. These will all give you a good indication of what to look out for when optimising your site, but at the very least you should have a site map, meta and site descriptions and your title tags and headline titles should be filled out appropriately.

If you can afford it, do consider investing in a professional SEO company. There are frequent updates and changes to how search engines rank websites and they will be able to help ensure that your website stays on top of it.

6. Making the design too complicated 

When designing your website, focus on making it user-friendly. Don’t be tempted to try and impress your customers with an over-complicated, flashy design.

Keep your design clean and simple with clear navigation and easy-to-find information.

Avoid flash images. They may look fancy on desktop, but not so much on mobile. A lot of mobile phones also do not play flash images, so all your hard work would be for nothing.

Also avoid annoying pop-ups, multimedia that auto plays, pages that take too long to download, confusing animations and excessive advertising.

You only have a few seconds to get your visitors’ attention and to keep them on your website, so make sure that it is clear what your business does and what you want your visitors to do next.

7. Not having a mobile friendly site

More and more people are using mobile devices to access websites. Research has shown that more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in ten countries and 51% or smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when conducting a search on their smartphone.

Mobile usage has grown so much that Google updated its mobile algorithm in 2015 that penalises websites that are not mobile-friendly. As of May 2016, it also strengthens the ranking signal from mobile-friendly websites.

When designing your website, make sure that it adjusts to the different screen sizes and that all buttons, links, images and texts display correctly and are clickable on various mobile devices.

8. Not having a clear CTA

A Call-to-action (CTA) is an image, button or line of text that asks a visitor to take a certain action, such as downloading an ebook, subscribing to a newsletter, buying a product or contacting your company.

If you have planned your website well, you should know what you want your visitors to do once they have landed on your website. The CTA tells them what that is. The main goal of your CTA is to move your visitors further down the sales funnel.

Just ensure that that your call-to-action delivers what it promises. Don’t promise a free ebook and then only deliver if they spend money first.

9. Not checking your site load speed

A KISSmetrics report revealed that 47% of consumers expect a webpage to load in two seconds or less and 40% will leave a website that takes more than three seconds to load. A website that takes forever to download only serves to frustrate visitors to your site, especially if they access it through their mobile phones.

You can check your site speed loading times using GT Metrix or Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Both these sites will also give you tips on how to improve your site speed, but some of the main culprits normally include image sizes, embedded videos, poor server performance, code density and too many third-party plugins or components.

Some of the actions you can take to reduce your site loading speed is to choose suitable hosting, leverage browser caching, enabling gzip compression and optimising images. Check back periodically, especially after making changes or updates to your website.

10. Relying too heavily on stock photography

Images are a great way to enhance your content, but be careful of overlying on stock photography. These are generic photographs that you can purchase from online stores. Some may be good, but there are those that are simply ridiculous. And they stand out like a sore thumb.

Rather invest in getting real photographs of your customers, employees, products and business premises or design your own visuals.

If you find that your website has a high bounce rate (people leaving the site without exploring other pages) or you’re just not getting any referrals from your site, then consider whether you may be making any of these mistakes.

What else annoys you about websites? Let us know in the comments section.

Images sourced from:

https://pixabay.com/

http://www.freepik.com/

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoleleinbachreyhle/2014/09/29/websites-for-small-businesses/#2d57720b2026

http://smallbusinessbc.ca/article/how-research-your-market/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckcohn/2015/02/06/steps-to-identify-your-target-market/#6c78b969229d

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary

https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics?_ga=1.34927905.1016736762.1479713965

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-call-to-action-faqs-ht

The post 10 Website Mistakes Your Business Could Be Making appeared first on CapriComm.

1.   Know your customer

Before you even begin creating content, make sure that you know who your ideal customer is. For your content to stand out, people should feel some connection to it. They should feel that it is relevant to them and that your company understands their challenges and knows how to solve them.

Define your audience as much as possible. Instead of just targeting ‘small business owners’, try to analyse this further. What type of small businesses are you targeting? Are they mostly female or male? What would a typical work day look like for a business owner? What would be their most common challenges and how could you help them solve it?

These types of questions can help you create ‘buyer personas’, which, in turn, will help you create content that is relevant to them and will resonate with them on a more personal level. You can collect information on your customers in various ways, including your website analytics, google trends, keyword research, employee feedback, customer feedback and social listening.

More resources on Buyer Personas:
How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business – Hubspot
The Complete, Actionable Guide to Marketing Personas – BufferApp
Buyer Personas You Want to Use: the 9 Essential Parts – Content Marketing Institute

2.   Know what you want them to do

A clear call-to-action (CTA) helps consumers take the next step in the buyer’s journey. Whether this is signing up for your email newsletter, downloading a demo of your product, making a booking or ordering a product, make sure that your content includes a call-to-action.

This is where a documented content strategy becomes an essential part of your marketing. For a small business owner, it may seem like an unnecessary academic exercise, but it will help you to clearly articulate what you would like to achieve through your content and makes it much easier to determine what action you would like your customer to take.

Knowing why you are creating the content not only ensures that your content will be more engaging and relevant to your customers, but also gives you a better return on your investment.

Further reading on CTA’s:
31 Call-to-Action Examples You Can’t Help But Click – Hubspot
Call to Action: The 10 Most Effective Techniques – Paul Boag
75 Calls to Action to Use in Your Email Marketing Campaigns – Campaign Monitor

3.   Know what you want your customers to remember

For your content to stand out, you need to make a strong impression with your content. Dr Carmen Simon, co-founder of Rexi Media, suggests thinking of three or four points you want people to remember about your content. Focus on these key points and let it stand out from the rest of your content elements.

Resist the temptation to save money by communicating every possible piece of information through a single piece of content. Cluttering your content with too much information will only confuse your audience and end up in the forgettable bin. Use negative space to make your key points stand out.

Make use of fonts and lay-out to highlight your key messages and use original images that are relevant to your key points. Try to use custom-made graphics that will highlight your key message whenever possible.

4.   Surprise your customer

Bring in elements of surprise that will grab your customers’ attention. Try different ways of presenting your content. Instead of your normal blog, use a quiz or self-audit questionnaire. If you have to do a presentation, use images or videos instead of tired old powerpoint slides.

Instead of having the same company profile with the same standard information as everyone else, try a new, unconventional lay-out or use a different medium to tell people about your brand.

Why not send a special message to a loyal client on an important day like birthdays or anniversaries? Give out prizes or free gifts to your social media followers. These unexpected surprises will make people look forward to your next piece of content.

5.   Be original

It’s one thing to see what has worked for your competitors, but don’t be tempted to copy their strategy. Rather look for your own unique and original way of covering a topic or presenting information.

Put a new spin on an old topic or take a different view from what is generally accepted. Write honestly and authentically. Don’t use tired old clichés or PR spin to get your message across. Remember that you want your customers to connect with your content and that is difficult to do when your message is unoriginal or overly sales-y.

Use your own images as much as possible and if you have to make use of stock photography, choose ones that haven’t been used a million times before. The images you choose should tell your own unique story.

6.   Tailor your content to the buyer’s journey

Create different content for different stages of the buyer’s journey. Are they looking for information on solutions to their issues? Are they comparing various solutions? Are they ready to make a buying decision? Have they already purchased from you before? Depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey, you need to adjust your content to achieve the result you want.

In the Awareness Stage, for example, people identify a need or a challenge. As a small business, your content should be focused on creating awareness of your business and how you can meet their need or solve their problem. During the Consideration stage, people begin researching various options. In today’s world, most of this research takes place online, so making sure that your website and content is easily found is an important part of this stage. Finally, in the Decision Stage, people are ready to commit, so you would need to validate why your product or service is worth the investment.

Don’t forget about your customer once they have made the purchase. Research has found that it is six to seven times more expensive to attract new customers than it is to keep existing ones. Keep surprising and delighting your customers throughout and they will keep coming back for more and, even better, tell others about how great you are.

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7.   Create a story angle

We all love a good story. Especially if we can relate to it personally or if we can learn something from it. That is what makes it such a powerful tool in content marketing. Not only do people connect with stories on an emotional and personal level, they share it with others.

“The story angle is the soul”, says Neil Patel in his article entitled 4 Ways to Make Your Content Stand Out. Think of ways in which you can create a story around your product or service. Start with an overall theme and think about what you want people to remember about it.

When crafting your story angle always ask yourself why your audience would care about this. What is in it for them? Why would they rather listen to your story than your competitors? The story angle that you take is what will differentiate your content from everyone else’s.

GoPro has become synonymous with extreme sports and adventure. That is their story angle and they have used it to produce various types of content that tells this story. Their ‘Driven’ series features a number of extreme sportsmen and -women who talk about what motivates them. There is very little mention of the GoPro product itself, but the association with extreme sports is part and parcel of the GoPro brand.

And it works for small businesses too. Burroughs Family Farm’s story angle is that of a family-run business. The content that it creates tells the story in different ways, focusing on ideas of wholesome goodness, country living and family values.

8.   Promote your content on social media

Promote your content through your social media channels and remember that different content works best for different channels. For company news, such as special events or product launches, Twitter and Facebook are good options. Video works great on YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat and Periscope. Pictures and infographics work best on Instagram, Pinterest or Tumblr.

It’s not necessary to be on every social media platform. Your buyer personas will help you identify the platform that most appeals to your customers. This is where you want to be visible. Your website analytic tool can also give you an indication of where your current referral traffic is coming from.

Keep in mind that people use social media on different days and at different times. Use your analytic tools to find out the best days and times to promote your content.

9.   Leverage your expertise

As a small business, you are most likely an expert in your niche market. After all, that is how you make an income. Don’t be afraid to share that knowledge with potential customers. Remember that you want to always create content that is relevant to them and helps them to make a buying decision.

Show that you have the knowledge and skills to help them solve their business issues. If potential customers can see that you know what you are talking about, they will feel more comfortable about doing business with you. The key is to provide information and insight that they will not get from your competitors.

The most obvious tactic is to use blogs. Writing about what you know and using your experiences not only helps your customers with information they crave, but also helps to show that you know your topic. Blogs also give an excellent return on investment. Business-to-business (B2B) marketers who use blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t. And the only thing it will cost you is your time.

Another great way to share information is through webinars. Use this tactic if you would like to educate your target audience about a specific topic. They are relatively easy and cost-effective to produce and you can run them as stand-alone sessions or as part of a series.
You can also consider using ebooks, whitepapers, infographics and video.

10.   Encourage engagement

One of the most effective ways to make your content stand out, is to encourage your audience to participate. People will be much more likely to remember you content if they have interacted with it on a personal level.

The comments section of you blog offers an excellent way to engage with your audience. But don’t just let them give feedback. Reply to their comments quickly and professionally and answer any questions they may have.

Social media is another opportunity for you to engage with customers. Again, respond to their comments in a timely manner and always keep it professional. Address any negative comments or feedback and use them as an opportunity to improve your products or services.
Make your content interactive using slideshows, quizzes, games or interactive infographics.

These tactics will help make your content much more memorable and engaging.

Content Marketing is being used by more and more businesses. It has levelled the playing field – allowing small businesses to compete more effectively with larger organisations. This means, however, that there is more and more content out there, all competing for people’s attention.

But don’t let this stop you. Remember, you are only competing for your specific customer demographic’s attention, and by following some of these guidelines, you can ensure that your content stands out from the rest.

Sources:
http://neilpatel.com/blog/are-you-already-forgotten-how-to-create-content-people-will-bookmark-and-remember/
http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/science-creating-memorable-content/
http://damolade.com/blog/10-content-marketing-mistakes-youre-still-making
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/01/content-stand-out/
https://ivetriedthat.com/2016/05/12/5-ways-to-make-your-content-stand-out-from-the-rest/
https://venturefizz.com/blog/how-create-stand-out-content-marketing-strategy
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/06/stand-out-strategies-content-creation/
http://www.pardot.com/buyer-journey/
http://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-channels/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/50-important-customer-exp_b_8295772.html
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/business-blogging-in-2015#sm.0001lh8oqumd4fpywc82fgt87s3bk

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The post How To Make Your Small Business Content Stand Out appeared first on CapriComm.

According to DemandMetric, 91% of Business-to-business (B2B) companies use Content Marketing, while 86% of Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies use content promotion.

The fact is that Content Marketing has become the most effective way to reach your target market and to build an online presence. If your business is not harnessing the power of content, you may be lagging behind your competitors.In this blog, we will look at what exactly Content Marketing is, how it can benefit your company and what types of Content Marketing methods your business can use.

If you google the term Content Marketing, you will most likely come to this definition by the Content Marketing Institute:What is Content Marketing?

“Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

I prefer the much simpler explanation given by Neil Patel – that content marketing is all about storytelling. It is something that we have always done for as long we can remember. Content Marketing, as a discipline, focuses on telling stories that are relevant to the customers you want to attract to your brand.

Content Marketing:

• is not interruptive

• is customer-centric, not product- or company-centric

• seeks to inform, educate and solve your customers’ problems

• helps brands to engage with and better understand their customers

• establishes your brand as an authority in its area

• seeks to gain customer trust and loyalty

• creates greater brand awareness

Why is Content Marketing important to your business?

The truth is that customers are getting bombarded with news and information on a daily basis and with more and more companies already making use of Content Marketing, your company needs to be able to compete in the new marketing arena.

In addition to helping your brand be more competitive, Content Marketing has shown to yield real value. Research has found that:

• Companies who blog get 97% more inbound links to their websites

• Content marketing generates more than three times as many leads as traditional marketing methods, but costs 63% less

• Content marketing leaders experience 7.8 times more site traffic than non-leaders

• Content marketing adopters have six times higher conversion rates than their competitors

• Six out of ten Twitter and Facebook users are more likely to recommend a brand that they follow

• 60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on their site

• 56% of marketers believe that personalised content promotes higher engagement rates because it helps consumers remember a brand

• Search engines reward businesses that publish quality, consistent content

Types of Content Marketing

Barry Feldman from Feldman Creative has created a handy infographic on the various types of Content Marketing. Depending on the type of information and your target audience, your company can make use of any mix of the following main methods:

• Blogs

This is an online space, usually on your company website, where you publish opinion pieces, advice, tips, checklists and more. The main benefits of blogs are the boost in search rankings they provide, as well establishing your company as a thought leader; building online communities around your brand; and helping to build leads through subscription growth

.• Infographics

A visual presentation of data, lists, ideas and stories, infographics are more often shared and allow a business to present a lot of information in an easy-to-digest, compacted format

.• Videos

Videos can be used to present how-to content, product demonstrations, animations, documentaries or brand stories. Videos have a high engagement and conversion rate and appeals to mobile users.

• Podcasts

Podcasts are audio only content and is similar to radio programmes. It can be used for expert interviews, debates and discussions and brand stories. This format also appeals to mobile users.

• E–newsletters

An e-mail sent to subscribed users that contain consolidated stories and links. E-newsletters have been found to be very successful in lead nurturing.

• Case Studies

Case studies present true stories of client successes and is a great credibility booster.

• E-books

This is an electronic booklet that uses a lot of images and easy-to-read text to convey a message. It can be used for thought leadership, how-to’s, case studies, guidelines and more and is a powerful lead magnet.

• White Papers

This format contains deeper educational content and is primarily used as a means of establishing thought leadership.

• Quizzes

Fun, interactive tests and assessments that provide a high level of engagement with customers.

• Social Media Visual Content

These are normally powerful images with captions, quotes or headlines and are highly shared by avid social media users.

Content is the fuel that powers any marketing strategy, but to get a return on your investment you need to know who you are writing for (your customers), what their needs are and consistently produce content that is relevant and valuable to them.

Sources:

https://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2008/01/seth-godin-cont/

https://www.sprk-d.com/blog/content-marketing-101-content-marketing-important/

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/08/content-marketing-stats/

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/

http://neilpatel.com/what-is-content-marketing/

https://www.axonn.media/content-marketing/infographics/anatomy-of-content-marketing

http://feldmancreative.com/2016/02/types-of-branded-content/

https://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic

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