Are you looking for ways to market your service-based small business?  Content marketing is a great way to reach potential customers. In this post, I will discuss what content marketing is and how you can use it to promote your services for free. I’ll also provide some tips for creating effective content and go over common content marketing tactics. Read all the way to the end and I will cover the #1 secret to making your content marketing strategy work for you! So, let’s get into it. 

What is Content?  

Often, you will hear this word thrown around without much context. “Content is king”, “push out more content”, “content! content! content!” But what does content actually mean? It’s pretty simple…. Content is anything – post, blog, video, podcast, live, etc… that you publish for the public.  – I know, pretty profound, right? But there it is. 

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a branch of digital marketing. Compared to traditional and digital marketing concepts, most experts look at content marketing as value added marketing. The objective here isn’t to make sales but to provide education, information, and value to your audience. This helps foster deeper connections, builds your authority, and engages your audience. 

Content marketing includes using long and short form content to offer information. Long form content is essentially content that comes in long form such as blog posts, podcasts, YouTube Videos, articles, e-books, and more. This blog is an example of long form content. 

Using long form content, you can write or talk about your area of expertise that offers valuable information to the audience. The benefit of using long form content is you can essentially market your practice for free minus website domain costs. When someone searches for something on the internet, website crawlers will scroll your content to see if it matches what the inquirer is looking for. You can ensure your website is found by using a solid SEO – or Search Engine Optimization –  strategy in your blog. I will go over how to properly write for SEO in future content. 

Short form content is shorter versions of content like social media posts, reels, TikToks, voice clips, short videos, etc… 

PRO TIP! Save time in your content creation by using a content marketing strategy that dissects your long form publications and turns them into short form content!

Why is Content Marketing Especially Important for Small Businesses? 

Content marketing is especially important to small businesses because people typically do not buy the service, they buy the expertise. 

Some benefits to using content marketing as a small business owner include:  

• Building your trust and authority within your niche
• Connecting with your audience
• Generating relevant leads
• Helping you reach more customers who are looking for you and your services

The old way of finding a service provider by looking in the Yellow Pages for services, calling for an appointment, and spending needless amounts of time and money to find that the provider and customer are not compatible are gone. – Thank goodness! I might be showing my age here but I definitely remember those days! 

Consumers are looking for people on the internet. It usually starts with a Google or Social Media search. Once they find someone they think offers the types of services that can help them, they will often look at the types of content that has been published by or about that provider. Meaning, if you do not have content that demonstrates your expertise in the area the potential customer is looking for – you are missing out on an opportunity to connect and provide services to them. Since 82% of decision-makers want informational content and not ads (WebFX, n.d.), you could be missing out on a very big portion of people who want to connect with you if you are not using content to establish trust, authority, and connection. 

The types of content that builds authority, trust, and connection are: 

• Educational – What can you offer that teaches someone effective strategies? 
• Informational – Content that provides correct and relevant information around the services you offer 
• Inspiration – offer some quotes or infographics that inspire your niche.

Market Research and Your Niche

How do you know what types of content will resonate with your ideal custoemrs? The answer – Market research. 

Market research is where you gather information about your ideal client such as demographics, consumer activities, likes and dislikes, and other preferences. Market research is essential in all marketing for all businesses. You need to identify who is receiving your content and who you want to receive your content and ensure those align with each other. 

Researching your market takes time but it’s one of the best investments you can make in your practice to increase your impact. I will cover more about how to effectively conduct market research in the coming weeks. So be sure you subscribe to this blog to get those updates when I post. 

Using market research and your own area of expertise, you can create your ideal client profile and then create content that talks directly to them. You probably have a specialization in your business. If you’re a Beauty Salon, You may specialize in specific nail or hair designs. If you’re a massage therapist, perhaps you specialize in a certain type of massage – you get the idea. Using that specialization, you can identify your niche – people looking for that type of service. From there, really dig deep into your ideal customer and determine their needs. Keeping the end user (your ideal customer) in mind will help you create meaningful and impactful content that resonates with your niche. 

Content Marketing Tactics

There are many different ways you can create and publish content. 

Written Content	Visual Content	Audio Content
Blogs Website Articles Guest publications Journals Magazine Contributions LinkedIn Articles and posts Captions on photos on social media Social media copy	Videos Graphics Photos Infographics Soundbite videos Animations	Podcasts Voice overs  Interviews TikTok/Instagram Sounds

It’s important to note that the content tactics you should use are based on your market research and where you know your audience typically lives online. Once you know what tactics you are using, you can create a schedule that suits your life and business that allows you to publish consistent content. It doesn’t have to be every day – it just needs to be consistent. After this, you can move on to the #1 secret to making your content work best for you. 

Shh…The Secret

The Next Steps or Calls to Action

I’m sure you have heard the saying going around in the marketing world that content is king or content is key. I even said it earlier. However, I don’t 100% agree with that. While I do agree that content is the first step in getting the attention of the individuals that you can serve. It certainly is not the end all be all of content marketing.

Let me explain:

Let’s say your a hair stylist and you have just published a blog that offers tips for curly hair care, styling, and maintenance (hello? can you help me?). You’ve created quotes and graphics using the blog information, you’ve recorded a podcast, you’ve pushed out the social media postings. You’re done, right? So, now you wait, and you wait….. And wait. And wait some more. Where the heck is everyone? Why aren’t you getting calls, emails, messages, comments, etc.?  You got so caught up in all this content creation that you forgot to tell your audience what to do after they’ve consumed your content. Call to actions! or CTAs.

Call to actions are the secret to making your content strategy work for you. It’s great that your ideal clients are consuming your content by visiting your website, reading the blogs, and liking the posts. But that’s not going to bring them in the door. People need to be told what to do. Adding a call to action on your content that aligns with the goal of why you’re posting is essential.

Here are some examples of CTA’s that work well depending on your goals:

Email subscribers	Website Visits	Comments/Messages
Subscribe to my email list to learn more about “topic”  Download this free “downloadable product/content” about… XYZ	Click here to learn more: Read the full article here:  Check out my latest blog/podcast/etc.. here:	Drop a YES if you agree Let me know in the comments if… Leave a “relevant emoji” if you can relate…  Shoot me a DM if….

You get the idea…

Always provide your audience with a next step to get them into your funnel because visibility is the first step. 

Wrapping Up

Content marketing is the process of building awareness around your services, fostering connections, and establishing trust and authority with your ideal customer. Paired with actionable items like call to actions, content marketing is the first step in getting your potential customers into your overall marketing funnel. From there, you will need to continually foster those relationships to engage and offer value to move these contacts down the funnel and ultimately sign a new client and increase your positive impact. 

Thank you for reading today! As always, if you need help or have questions feel free to shoot me an email, send me a DM on my socials, or fill out the contact form below. I look forward to hearing from you! 

If you’d like to effortlessly plan the next 30 days worth of social media content, grab this FREE content planner! 

References:

WebFX. (n.d.). 7 Digital marketing strategies for your campaign. WebFX. Retrieved August 19, 2022, from https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/actionable-digital-marketing-strategies.html