Believe it or not, every business needs content marketing strategies to survive in the competitive world. What if you got big business goals, but a small budget? You need to become competent and smart. There are many small businesses who have tight budgets but they have impeccable marketing strategies. If you are a small business owner looking to build profitable techniques to boost sales and don’t have those Pizza-size budgets, this post is for you.
Basically, Content Marketing process involves creating and promoting relevant content to engage your targeted audience. When you formulate a strategy for your business, make sure the content is rich, engaging and outstanding. Always emphasize more on producing quality content.
Let’s delve into proven content marketing strategies for small budget businesses.
5 Cost-Effective Content Marketing Strategies
The reason most small businesses fail is that they don’t have a plan. They have no idea what they are doing! You should have a plan to promote your content online.
Nowadays, it is getting tough to get your content into the mainstream. Due to excessive material available online, businesses really need to stand out. This can be achieved with a planned marketing strategy.
Let’s be honest. If you are committed to your business and have time to implement the strategies below, you can achieve your business goals. It is totally possible. As a small business owner, your content marketing depends on the hours you spend online.
Are you ready?
1- Leverage Videos and Visuals
It’s time to repurpose your content. A simply written content no more engages the reader for a long time unless it’s written under a big name.
Video and visuals have a higher engagement rate as compared to text-based content. Take the example from Facebook and YouTube where a single video gets a billion views. People are relying more on video content. They prefer watching a two-minute video than spending 2 minutes reading content.
Thing is video quickly catches the attention. How about leveraging video marketing to your small business?
Wondering, how to afford expensive video equipment when you have a small budget?
You got a smart phone or a camera. Great!
Use your phone to shoot a small video and that’s it.
The same way, visuals are equally important for your business. Some buyers are more interested in images and videos. Style your content in different formats so your customers can easily reach it.
2- Follow a Blogging Strategy
The importance of consistent content creation is no secret. Several marketing experts have adopted the blogging strategy to build their following which ultimately results in the business growth.
Thinking, how to do that?
Start blogging today. All you need is impeccable storytelling skills to increase readership. You can use popular platforms like Medium and LinkedIn to deliver the message and spread out the word. And, it doesn’t cost you a penny.
You can even hire writers to maintain your business blog and post often. It is the easiest method to showcase your brand in the market. Consistent posting eventually brings more traffic and increase the sales.
3- Start Building Your Email List From Day One
As soon as you jump into online business, you’ve to adopt every content marketing strategy that gives benefit to your business. Email marketing is one such smart technique to collect clients, customers and buyers. It’s the fastest method to deliver latest updates, discounts, and deals to your audience. With one click, you can send a variety of content and product details through an email. Interesting?
It doesn’t matter what business you’ve, start building an email list and keep your audience closer to you. Once you have an email list, you can work on ideas on how to sell your product, what to send in emails and how to use email marketing at the best.
You can use free email marketing tools like MailChimp and Mailerlite to get started. You’ve to encourage your targeted audience to sign up by providing helpful tips, free information, or even discount codes.
4- Use Social Media – See where your audience hangs out!
It’s no surprise that we all need social media. Whether it’s the buyer or the seller, the consumption of social media is increasing day by day.
Before you start investing in Facebook Ads, or other social media techniques, you’ve to figure out where your audience is. Learn more about their interests, and demographics. What are their needs and problems? How can you bring solutions for them?
Don’t just throw your content or products on social media. This is where social media content creation dives in. Create posts to pique buyers’ interests and make them engaged. As a business owner, you’ve to pay attention to things that are not working and how can you fix them. Also, measure the performance, engagement, and shares through multiple social media tools.
Here’s how to develop a targeted social media content marketing strategy.
5- Cold Emailing is Still Effective
Another free or cost-effective content marketing strategy for small budget business is ‘cold emailing’. Many businesses still don’t value the importance of cold emailing. Honestly, it’s not a piece of cake. But, it is truly an effective way to boost your business.
Before you start doing cold calls to get clients for your business, it’s important to do your homework. Research the company (or individual), keep it brief and write a perfect copy.
What do you think?
These small budget marketing tactics, if implemented, can bring profitable leads for your business. You just need to work for extended hours to get people eyes on your business.
More Read: The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing
Would you like to share other proven content marketing strategies? Let me know in the comments.
