7 Steps To An Effective Small Business Content Strategy
Unlike a fancy logo or beautifully curated Instagram grid layout, a small business content strategy isn’t just nice to have; it is the foundation for all messaging for your brand.
Putting content out into the world is not really doing anything for you if it’s not building a connection between you and your audience. The most common reason business owners run dry of content ideas is because they’re not clear on the type of content that their audience would value — or they’re not clear on how to distribute their message in a way that encourages engagement from their ideal audience.
The key to creating effective communication is clarity — and it starts with the business owner. A confused customer buys nothing. If you’re not crystal clear on the message your content is communicating, neither is your audience.
The good news is that you can create a small business content strategy that increases engagement and sales.
Here’s how to create a small business content strategy in seven steps.
What Is a Content Small Business Content Strategy?
A content strategy is simply a plan to get the results you want from your content creation efforts. What do you hope to achieve by creating and sharing blogs, webinars, e-books, videos, social media posts, or email newsletters?
Knowing the answer makes content creation more effective and efficient from both a time and money standpoint.
Having a clear strategy eliminates the panic of last-minute content creation, often seen in the frantic search for "inspiration" on social media. It provides a structured approach to content creation, ensuring that every piece of content serves a purpose and resonates with your target audience.
The core benefit of a content strategy lies in its ability to attract and engage your target audience with valuable information, thereby building trust over time.
This trust is crucial for making your brand more relatable and approachable. Supporting this, research from HubSpot reveals that 70% of people prefer learning about brands through content rather than traditional advertisements.
Furthermore, a well-defined content strategy facilitates consistent content creation, a key factor in making sales online. Companies actively engaging with their ideal audience through regular content posts achieve up to five times more conversions than those that don't.
This consistency is part of a broader approach that includes planning, development, and management of content, all aimed at providing a cohesive experience for the customer.
Ultimately, through content marketing, you're not just filling up your website or social media pages with information; you're developing your small business’ custom method of driving more website traffic, attracting potential customers, and nurturing them into loyal clients, leading to sustainable business growth.
Content Strategy for Small Businesses vs. Big Brands
Both small businesses and big brands share common goals in their content strategies: enhancing visibility on search engines like Google, connecting with their target audience, and increasing sales. However, the approach to content strategy varies between small businesses and big brands due to differences in scale and resources. Big brands, with more extensive resources, engage in diverse strategies like high-production videos and influencer collaborations, using data analytics to refine their approach. While big brands manage the challenge of maintaining a consistent voice across various platforms, small businesses capitalize on their agility and personal touch, each tailoring their strategy to their strengths and limitations.
Here are a few ways to stand out as a small business with your content strategy.
Focus on Ideal Clients: There are some key differences between a small business content strategy and the ones big business uses. For example, a small business content marketing strategy should be more focused on your typical ideal client and their everyday life while larger brands typically cast a much wider net with their content, appealing to the masses.
Add Personality to your Content: Prevailing wisdom says that your content should be about your audience. That's not bad advice, but people buy from people, not businesses. This is especially true for solopreneurs and owners who are the face of their brand. There are ways to show your personality while still serving up value day after day. Start with mastering your voice. Your brand voice should be reflected in every aspect of your content right down to the emojis you use — That’s how you show your audience who you are and what you value.
Secondly, teach from experience. Who said educational content has to be dry?! If you really want a point to stick, then tell a story. Draw from your experience to illustrate the educational message. One of my favorite ways to do this is by flipping the script on a testimonial, turning it into a narrative that gives quick wins on how you solved a client's problem in real life.
Thirdly, use humor that you and your audience can laugh about. Being funny or witty can help your brand stand out when done right. The key is to make sure it's your sense of humor — not funny for the sake of funny. It helps connect with your audience by eliciting an emotional response. Having a shared sense of humor forges a memorable bond. This can be done by using memes, of course, but another effective way is by sharing a funny story to illustrate a point. For example, "What my farmer's market mishap taught me about ____."
Finally, don't shy away from your unpopular opinion. Don't take this the wrong way —I'm not saying that should take a hard stance for the sake of having an unpopular opinion post. You really need to believe in your content. But being able to voice your opinion with authority gives your audience a fresh perspective while highlighting your brand's unique approach.
Budget & Resources: Budget and bandwidth also factor into how content strategies are implemented. Some platforms require more of a time commitment than others.
Get clear on how much time you have to spend, or how/if you can delegate. For example, if you know that your audience is on Tik Tok, but you hate creating videos or don’t have someone to be the face of your brand, you have to skip it or outsource.
I hate to be trite, but consistency is key with content strategy so be sure to select platforms where you can regularly show up and service your audience. We'll review how to pick the right social media platforms for your small business in a minute.
A content strategy is a plan to get what you want from your content creation efforts.
7 Steps To An Effective Small Business Content Strategy
1. What’s Your Core Message?
Reflect on your brand's purpose, values, promises, and unique position. A statement that sums up who you are and why your audience should care serves as a guiding light for a content marketing strategy. At their core, brand messaging and content strategy are about effective communication. They're two sides of the same coin, working hand in hand to ensure that your brand not only reaches its target audience but also resonates with them. In essence, while brand messaging gives your business a clear voice and identity, content strategy decides how, where, and when to use that voice. They're a dynamic duo, ensuring that every piece of content you produce not only aligns with your brand's identity but also effectively engages and serves your audience.
Here are 7 Beginner-Friendly Frameworks To Master Brand Messaging
2. Research Your Target Audience
Good Rule of Thumb: Your ideal audience is the person that best benefits from your offer. Defining this persona gives you an advantage in creating content that resonates.
This involves creating a clear, detailed customer persona to guide your content creation. A customer persona, a fictional representation of your ideal client, includes their lifestyle, income, wants, needs, and aspirations, and is based on both quantitative data (like Google Analytics) and qualitative feedback from existing customers. This persona helps you understand what motivates your audience and informs the types of content that will be most effective in engaging them.
By focusing on your ideal audience, you ensure that your content resonates with those you most want to serve, without diluting your message by trying to appeal to everyone. This approach helps in creating content that connects with your audience at every stage of their buying process, making your marketing efforts more efficient and impactful.
Not sure how to define your who? Here’s How To Define Your Target Audience (And Find Them on Instagram)
3. Define Content Goals
Setting goals for your content marketing campaign is better known in the industry as establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs essentially answer the question, What do you want to achieve with your content?
KPIs must be measurable and time-specific. For example, gain 1,000 new website visitors in May by creating four keyword-optimized, niche-specific blog posts.
Common KPIs to consider in your content marketing strategy:
Number of downloads
Number of shares
Number of email signups
Number of social media followers or your social media engagement rate
Measuring results after an established amount of time is an excellent way of finding out how well the content did and gives you extra information about which content interests your audience. This helps you realize your successes as well as how to improve in the future.
4. Determine The Platforms You'll Distribute Content
Different social media platforms serve different needs and interests so spreading yourself thin trying to post everywhere isn’t an effective use of your social media marketing efforts — especially if you’re a solopreneur or have a small but mighty team. There are hundreds of social media platforms after all!
Which social media platform is the best for marketing my small business? It’s a question I get asked all the time as a content strategist. This answer depends a lot on where your audience hangs out. The 3 must-haves for a cohesive digital presence:
One for long-form SEO (blog, YouTube, Podcast)
One social media platform (expand over time)
A weekly or bi-weekly email newsletter
5. Develop Content Pillars
How do you get your audience to notice your content? The solution: create content pillars that show off your expertise.
Content pillars are focused, tightly-drawn topics that your content will always cover. If you write about too many different things, it’s going to be hard for visitors to know what you’re about and what you do. Content pillars — sometimes called content buckets — are the subtopics that support your core message through the lens of serving your target audience.
The content pillars that you identify for your business will depend on the kinds of topics you want to address. Naturally, these should fall in line with your niche, but they should also answer the question — What do you want to be known for in your industry?
That is a loaded question, but it is the one you’re answering every time you hit publish. It’s easy to get stuck in a content creation hamster wheel of, “Is this the right thing to say?” or “Does this post reach my goals and speak to my brand’s values?” When you’re about to put something out into the world, you want to be a genuine expression of your real message. Getting really clear on how your background and expertise align with who you’re serving is how you define your content pillars. Those pillars guide your content planning and help you get unstuck when you’re short on post ideas. It will also help you come up with additional topic ideas and perhaps a series of posts.
6. Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar is an indispensable tool for managing and optimizing your content strategy. It serves multiple purposes: firstly, it ensures organization and planning. By keeping all your ideas in one place, you can easily track and prepare your posts well in advance, ensuring that your overall strategy is cohesive and well-thought-out. This might include breaking up similar content or creating series for better engagement. Secondly, a content calendar is a source of inspiration. It helps in generating new content ideas based on audience feedback and engagement metrics, ensuring you never run out of relevant topics to post about.
Lastly, it aids in maintaining consistency. Even during creative dry spells, a content calendar ensures that you have a reservoir of content to draw from, thanks to advance planning and content batching. As a pro tip, keep a 'content bank' filled with ideas to combat writer's block, and always plan your content, including blogs and social media posts, at least two weeks in advance. This systematic approach not only keeps you organized but also prevents the last-minute scramble for content ideas.
7. Analyze, Refine & Repurpose Content
Being a slave to metrics is counterproductive , especially if you tend to be hard on yourself. Once a month take an objective look at what worked — and what didn’t — to know how to better spend your time and resources in the month ahead. The most important thing to keep in mind is that your small business content strategy needs to be relevant and valuable for your target audience.
Develop Your Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
Developing a content marketing strategy can often be overwhelming when tackled solo. To simplify this process and provide tailored support, I offer two distinct services:
Content Marketing Membership: This affordable option is designed for those who prefer a hands-on approach. In this membership, I'll guide you through each step of creating your own content marketing strategy, offering insights and advice to ensure you build a plan that suits your business needs.
Done-For-You Content Service: For those who'd rather delegate the task, my team and I are ready to handle every aspect of your online presence, from managing your Instagram account to crafting your email communications. This comprehensive service ensures that all your content needs are expertly taken care of, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.
Both options are crafted to ease the burden of content marketing, whether you're looking to learn and execute yourself or have a professional team manage it for you.