Businesses –  whether small or large, cannot survive without having an online presence. In this digitized world, an online presence means your business has a digital store and you can reach out to customers. But, a mere presence on the internet with a website or social media pages won’t suffice. While having a website or social media pages seem beneficial, what makes it lucrative is the content. Content marketing in India is not a new concept. It is a strategy that uses content in the right way to attract and retain your audience. With businesses clamoring for attention and customers resorting to the internet for their needs, as a small business, you need a strong content strategy to boost awareness and establish yourself in the market. While anyone can do it, not everyone knows how to make the best use of content marketing in India. Here is a content marketing strategy to help you make the most of your small business’ digital presence.

Image Source: Walter Lim, Flickr

Extensive Research

Research is the first step to any business strategy including content marketing. It includes analyzing your competitors, understanding the market and current trends, and studying the needs of your audience. Many businesses go ahead without sufficient research and end up abandoning content marketing because it fails. A content strategy that is entirely focused on selling your product will fail. Content that addresses customer needs works well. A thorough research of your customer base allows you to create and publish content that targets your audience’s pain points and offers them with valuable information.

Understanding the Content Funnel

The traditional sales funnel has been transformed to a content marketing funnel today. As an entrepreneur, before jumping on to craft content, it is vital to understand the relation of content to sales. A content funnel consists of three stages – Brand awareness, Evaluation, and Conversion. Understanding the funnel helps you develop content relevant to the goals in each stage.

• The brand awareness stage, as the name suggests, is letting people know about your brand. Here, you not only target your potential customers but the market at large. This stage requires you to draft content that targets customer pulse. Informative content that offers value and helps you stand out works well here.
• During the evaluation stage, the audience base starts narrowing and they start associating with your brand. Your content must be focused on building lasting trust. More and more valuable content that directly addresses the audience’s problems and portrays you as a reliable source must be published.
• Gradually, the audience narrows down to those who are willing to invest in your offerings. The conversion stage is where you don your sales hat. Offer valuable propositions and product descriptions through content in this phase.

Beyond the funnel, there is a phase called retention. Retaining customers is a common challenge faced by entrepreneurs. Special offers, email outreach, and follow-ups are content strategies that can help retain your customers.

Crafting the Content

Once the content funnel is understood, you need to craft content for each stage. Content comes in various forms, blogs, listicles, how-to-do guides, case studies, and more. Since most small and medium scale firms lack the benefit of resources and budget, you can start with blogs on your site. Start by using Google Keyword Planner. Identifying and using the right keywords will improve search engine ranking. A strong headline can get you clicks by drawing in readers. Display usefulness or make the headline catchy/unique. Curate content that educates the readers and makes them come back for more. Likewise, as and when your budget permits, use different forms of content formats. Furthermore, make it interesting by adding a creative touch. Use images under creative commons to start with and gradually move on to get them customised by a designer. Brand videos and video tutorials are also great ways to attract attention.  

Identify Potential Social Mediums

 Image Source: Tata Consultancy Services LinkedIn

 

Image Source: RMS Beauty, Instagram

Content can be published through different mediums. Apart from your website, where you can publish blogs and other long form content, social media is a powerful platform to attract your audience. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc are all different mediums available to choose from. Facebook offers affordable deals and is suitable to most types of business. On the other hand, LinkedIn offers networking opportunities for corporates. Likewise, every medium has its own strength. For eg. for an IT or financial consultancy firm, LinkedIn is the best platform followed by Twitter and Facebook, but for a beauty brand Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter work best. Select and optimize the channel by posting valuable content on a regular basis and being interactive to gain maximum returns.  

Analyzing Content Performance

Without analyzing the performance of your content, you will never be able to better your strategy. Hence, tracking performance indicators is vital for a successful content strategy. Identify the performance indicators relevant to your business. Usually traffic, engagement, and conversion are common content performance indicators for most business. Analyze each one of them to understand where your content strategy is heading. Whether successful or not, get innovative from time to time to attract and retain your audience.

In this highly competitive business world and a far more cluttered online world, it is imperative for emerging businesses to gain maximum attention. Since, small businesses operate on a stringent budget, they are often wary of content marketing. But, content marketing is an investment that if done right can pay you well in future. So, now is the time to implement content marketing in India. You may also connect with Spacebar and we can guide you with the best content strategy for your business.