Content marketing practices impact on users magnetically. Content marketing is miraculous ways to follow for small business owners. Content marketing is important for business. It’s because the content is everything that is visible for users on the Internet.
Content is a way for small business owners to communicate with customers and solve their daily life problems. Content marketing is important to market products and services on the Internet. It’s very tough for small business owners to grow the traffic and customer activities on the website, without engaging, attractive and valuable content.
Content from search engine traffic to social media if any small business owner wants to get the attention of highly busy users they have to plan content marketing strategies more than ever.
It’s true that today’s customers are more intelligent and aware. They see online content for hours every day and they know how to handpick useful items. Content is not only about marketing it’s about opening the doors of the heart of visitors from words, text, designs, videos and product catalog.
Popup ads, bulk SMS, spam message and use of stock images can only attract fools not real people. Real people investigate everything before making a buying decision. It’s because they value the money and they want more value from money they are spending on your business.
Let’s understand what is Content Marketing?
So far we’ve understood that content marketing is a method to sell product and services on the internet. But what exactly is this content and how do you market it? To answer the first part of that question simply, we can say content is ‘everything’ you see on a website as a visitor.
That bold text in a title, the image underneath it, the text inside the image, the main text of the article, the video or audio clip- everything that includes a means of communication through objects to tell the story- it is all content that has been thought of and prepared by someone for your consumption. In other words, content is like food that is eatable for interested search engine and social media users.
For example, you see sponsored ads on Facebook, in which you find attractive images, text inside the images, perhaps an irresistible discount offer within the advertisement. This content is being used by companies and individuals to market and sell something that they know people will be interested in buying.
Within that ad, those lines of text and images are content being marketed, but if they are not effective and engaging they will not drive traffic and business leads to the website. So it’s better to know the difference between engaging quality content and sub-standard boring content if you’re a small business owner competing with a million others out there.
Content is not only used to promote and market your business online, the content can actually sell itself if it’s really good. I mean any business website selling own products and services by the use of a blog on the website, is creating content that is itself marketable to the online community.
Users are interested in knowing about specific details of a product or service before buying, if you can provide that information, your information is a product in itself! So even if you don’t have a physical product to sell or service to provide right now, writing and publishing articles as a blogger about your niche or field through interesting content can start your earnings from ad revenue.
Content is universal. Once you have seen a unique visual, it will leave an impression on your mind no matter where you see it again. Be it online, on the walls, in the newspapers or on Television it will make an automatic association with the brand or product in your mind.
Let’s say you get home from work and turn the TV on to check on the news. You see news channel showing actual news (hopefully), and ads in between. The news is the content for a news channel. They are creating content based on news that is happening around the globe.
They work cleverly to test how much TRP they can generate after producing specific news. Most news channels don’t care if the certain news is important or even true. They just think if it helps them to get more revenue, run it. That’s it! I don’t mean to say all news channels follow this practice but this trend is prevalent and most of them have similar processes and system to produce content online or on the TV. Duplication, fake news, and hype etc. are all examples of bad content and they are in front of us every day as we switch channels on TV or on YouTube.
What we have learned so far is that good content is imperative to sell products and services online. This work is done by content writers and copywriters. We have also learned how content can sell itself (while driving sales for related products), to display high CPC (cost per click) keywords advertisement on the website.
How content marketing benefits customers and internet users?
Content marketing practices by digital marketers help customers and internet users to know necessary facts and details before spending their hard earned money on the internet. The customer gets personalized attention from sellers about their concerns through professional content marketing practices followed by businesses.
For example, if you’re looking for cloud based chat application or team collaboration application, you search on Google. You visit the most relevant websites and get the idea about the price and features of cloud based team collaboration application.
What did you see and analyze before making a decision on purchase? You saw their content such as screenshot images of software, engaging content with facts, existing customer’s details, a testimonial from existing clients, reviews, feedback etc. All of this is content and they are using it to market team collaboration software to you.
They are even using a live chat application, in which you can ask questions and doubts from their sales representative in real time. But these are normal content marketing practices and you visited their website, not by their name, but by searching for specific keywords on the Google. Is it not beneficial? Yes, it is.
The search engine has rewarded their content material (for that keyword) with a higher page rank, establishing their presence in that field. All is this because they followed the basic principles of content marketing well.
But the advanced practices of content marketing that benefit customers in a big way also exist, such as a Blog on the Business website. Here you can learn more why Smart Small Business owners do not ignore these 6 benefits of blogging
How it is beneficial for customers, let’s understand this in another example.
Consider that you want to increase the productivity of your employees. So, you search on Google, how to increase the productivity of employees or how to be more productive with a remote team. Now after searching on Google, you will get 10 results and few Google ads.
Now in those 10 results, you will get similar sounding titles and texts such as Top 10 ways to increase productivity at the office, 10 tools every business owner’s need, best application that will increase your productivity 500%. Now visit any one result. And you find that you land on their article under blog menu or similar. Now you can carefully inspect their explanation, facts, data and they will convince or inspire you in that article, to buy their product or services.
If you’re satisfied, you will buy.
Is this not helpful for customers like you?
Yes, it is. It’s because you actually learned, analyzed, compared the tone, truth in content. Whereas if you click on Popup Ads, 1 line ads or fake ads, and buy the solution thought them, don’t be surprised if the product is not up to your expectations. You will be unsatisfied with your purchase and wonder where did I go wrong? That’s why it’s important to identify good content marketing whether you’re a business owner or a customer.
I believe content marketing is the best method to read, think, analyze, and compare each line in the content that the seller is producing. No matter if it is a service, products, books or anything.
This is how? Content marketing or blog on the website is beneficial for customers.
Why is content marketing important for the success of the business?
After knowing the benefits of content marketing for customers, I hope you don’t ignore content marketing from today. Content marketing allows your customers, to know about you and how your product or services work. And it’s a great opportunity for small business owners to take its advantages before it’s too late.
Content marketing is the biggest tool that you can use to dominate big companies and top level service providers on the Internet. To get those advantages you not only need to focus on the quality of your products and services but also the content that you’re using to market your solution.
Marketing is everything. Everyone is selling. But how they are selling matters the most, you get customers based on the way you sell and behave.
That’s why I used Food example for content. It does not matter, how delicious your food is, until you have not served with love to your guest and made them taste it.
So, focus on your serving methods and presentation skills while doing content Marketing. Make people aware and knowledgeable about your services in the best possible methods to increase sales and revenue. That’s why content marketing is the way to go, that is chosen by everyone nowadays while doing online marketing.
Yes, you can use Google Ads or PPC ads campaigns, but they are not effective until your words that represent a solution are not effective and connecting with your targeted customer deep down in their heart and mind.
You can do it only by practicing, learning from others and placing yourself in your customer’s shoes. Understand their problems and concerns while they are trying to decide what to buy. Come up with a solution and make it visible online.
You can use your content in images, videos, SEO practices, SEM practices and SMM practices on the Internet. There are 39 ways to promote your business online. You can use your creativity to write engaging and attractive content, something that creates a sense of urgency.
Explore: How important is SEO to the success of a website
If you didn’t understand the importance of content marketing yet then learn in the following example:
As you know now, you can’t market and sell anything without content on the Internet. Every product and solution is using some type of attractive images and engaging words. For example, you have opened a small food joint or a dhaba. But if you’re not marketing it, it can be for two reasons. One, you’re the only person providing that solution and you don’t need to market because you know that people are hungry and you don’t need to spend on marketing budget. Two, because there is no other shop than yours, so the customer can find you easily.
But on the internet marketing style is different.
Internet users or customer on the internet have a large variety and option to choose from before they select the best solution. They are not looking for anything to eat until they are exhausted on social media. They are looking for a specific solution from the best person and companies.
And without engaging content, it’s tough for small businesses or big companies to survive long enough without content marketing. It’s because customers are updated and want up to date and trending content. They are updated by the internet of things and artificial intelligence assisting them every step of the way.
In simple words, today’s customers, clients, and customer have artificial intelligence consultants (Google, Internet of things) who help them to understand things better and spend money wisely.
That’s why content marketing is the only tested and best digital marketing method you can use to find business leads, loyal customers and higher sales figures.
As I told above that content is not only used to market products and services but it (content) is also a product for many bloggers in which they are using their content to earn money online by displaying advertisement on their website.
The ending example, if you’re selling vegetable in highly competitive market, you need content to drive customers to your shop. In a vegetable market in India, you often listen to quotes and slogans from sellers such as Bik Gaya Maal (almost gone), Taja Maal (fresh products), 20 Kaa 10 Mein (50% discount), 2 KG Potato AB 10 mein. What is this? This is engaging content. It’s because vegetable sellers know that customer is looking for cheap, fresh vegetable. That’s why they are using those words to market. The internet is also like a vegetable market, and one has to come up with attractive content to sell it, be it potatoes or power banks.
That’s why content marketing is most important nowadays for small business owners to become big within years. It does not matter what your scale is, it doesn’t take long to grow from a small business to a big business. You only need these two things – right ‘intent’ and good ‘content’
(Co-authored by Abhishek Sharma)