Wow! Congrats if you’re reading this article. That means you’ve taken the plunge and are ready to start and grow your own business.
It can be daunting when it comes to developing your business model, how much it will cost to launch, and how you will get your customers.
One sure way to help build your business’ brand is by creating content.
Content will help your brand build trust, while also entertaining and educating your consumers about what you do and why you do it.
1. Define Your Audience
It’s one thing to develop content, but you really need to develop the strategy around your content.
That starts with defining your audience.
Many new businesses I’ve worked with develop buyer profiles personas to help narrow what type of topics and content to develop.
More detailed messaging will lead to better conversion.
You may also have different personas/demographics that you’re trying to target, as your business caters to more than just one.
For example, if you sell health insurance, your content for people who are under the age of 65 would differ from those people who are over the age of 65 seeking Medicare. Also, their interests could be different.
One segment you would be targeting people over the age of 65 who have diabetes and then there’s the healthy under 65-year-olds where you need to develop content about the importance of annual physical exams and various ways to take care of yourself for preventive purposes.
All these types of details, depending on your business should be considered.
2. Differentiate Your Brand from Your Competitors
Another item within your content marketing strategy should be about setting your business apart from your competitors.
Developing branded content around the solutions you provide will both help conversions and your search engine rankings.
For example, a client I work with is an urgent care business, but they’re able to deal with high acuity cases (e.g., people suffering from severe injuries, in addition to potentially life-threatening conditions). They’re a very small player in the urgent care world, with only three locations.
When developing a content strategy with this client, I suggested to not only build out branded content around who they are and what they do, as well as how they’re different from their competitors.
Also, developing content about the various illnesses they treated helped build up their content foundation and gave them a higher likelihood of showing up in search engines.
As this business is a brick-and-mortar and located in a specific city, we made sure that majority of content mentioned the locations of their businesses, as this also helps with search engine optimization.
Developing a mix of branded and non-branded content on a consistent basis will not only help you gain new customers but will also help your digital presence.
3. Optimize & Promote Your Content
Creating content is pointless if no one will ever see it.
Your website needs to have helpful content that talks about the solutions your company provides for your target audience.
Two things are vital when developing content. Make sure:
- It’s easy to find.
- You have budget to promote the content.
I will tell you a brief story – I was working with a client that was a totally new brand and business model.
Year one and two, I developed numerous blog posts, but there was never any budget allocated to promote the content.
Another challenge was that the client’s site wasn’t linking to the blog in the main navigation, but in the footer.
Year three we finally got budget to promote a few of their blog posts. I went into Google Analytics and found content that was performing pretty well organically. I quickly allocated budget to promote these blogs on Facebook.
After about a month, I was doing a Google search to know how the content was ranking, and to my surprise, the blogs I had promoted not only managed to hit Page 1 of Google but also beat huge healthcare content-focused competitors like WebMD.
This experience alone proved to my clients that if they’re spending the money to have the content developed, they have to spend the money to promote it. Otherwise creating content is a total waste.
4. Tell Them What You Do, Over and Over Again, But Differently
Much of the content you develop will be about the same topics and themes.
Content about what your company does and the solutions they offer need to be repeated over and over again. This will help consumers start to understand and trust you.
For example, if you’re in health and wellness, seasonal illnesses are always a topic of conversation.
Flu season comes every year. So if you’re in the healthcare space, you can’t think that your blog post on the flu from a year ago will help you this year.
No. You have to develop new content. Every year.
Talk about the new strain, the benefits of getting a flu shot, and the symptoms and dangers of not getting vaccinated.
While the general topic of the flu is evergreen, the flu season isn’t. You must create timely new content about it every year, in a different way.
Ideas on how to do this are:
- Write the blog on the latest updates on the topic.
- Develop infographics.
- Cinemagraphs of tips around the topic.
- Videos (less than 60 seconds for social).
While you may end up saying the same thing over and over again, one piece of content will never reach every potential consumer.
Diversifying the way you communicate your message will have an impact on your audience.
It’s also important that you give your existing content new life by using it in different formats.
Older, evergreen content may get even more attention as a Facebook video or an infographic, for example.
Keep in mind that all of us prefer to consume content in different mediums, so it’s safe to assume that your target audience is the same way.
Conclusion
Over time your business will develop a strong foundation of content that will be well received in the digital space.
Now you have a few solid tips to think about when developing content that will help build your brand.
What are you waiting for? Get started now!
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