10 Content Marketing Benefits, Challenges, Tips

When I ask the question “Will You Find Your Next Client — or Will They Find You?”, it is a direct challenge to business owners to define an inbound marketing strategy, a combination search, social media and content marketing, to attract a clearly defined audience who are ready to buy. Content marketing is the foundation for a successful inbound strategy for without content there is nothing to optimize and nothing to share on social sites.

10 Content Marketing Benefits

There are many content marketing benefits regardless of whether you are marketing to businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C). Content marketing:

Increases visibility of your brand
Develops lasting relationships with your audience
Improves brand awareness and recognition
Creates loyalty and trust, with both your current customers and prospects
Helps you to build authority and credibility
Positions your business as an expert in your industry
Generates traffic to your site to improve lead generation
Opens a channel of communication through social shares and comments
Helps your customer move through the purchase decision more quickly
Provides value with no strings attached

With all these benefits, it’s no wonder that according to Hubspot’s 2018 State of Inbound Marketing report, 74% of marketers prioritized an inbound approach to marketing. In addition, companies are nearly 4 times more likely to see higher ROI on inbound than outbound.

10 Content Marketing Challenges

With all these positive benefits, why is it so difficult for small business owners to successfully implement content marketing? Inbound marketing is not a “set it and forget it” marketing activity. It is a process that requires regular, consistent delivery of focused content to increase your visibility and demonstrate your expertise.

The biggest challenges facing small businesses are:

Determining your goals for content marketing
Being able to focus on a narrow target audience and intimately understand their challenges
Having enough time and resources to produce the content your target is looking for
Developing a content plan that provides the road map for what content to produce and when
Writing content with focus and clarity
Not understanding what content to produce and in what format
Not knowing where to post your content to reach your ideal client
Producing quality content consistently that excites and informs your audience on a regular schedule
Measuring the effectiveness of the content you produce
Proving ROI of content marketing

10 Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Intimately understand the audience you are trying to reach so your content marketing efforts are not a waste of time.
Once you know your audience, focus on how your content can benefit them. Generate that content by answering the questions your prospects and customers have. When someone starts the buying process, they start with a search. Become the brand that answers their questions thoroughly so they have no choice but to contact you.
Document your content marketing strategy. Marketers who document their strategy are 538% more likely to report success than those who don’t.
Focus on quality content published regularly. Don’t believe you have to blog every day to succeed with content marketing. Most small businesses don’t have a marketing department that can create and distribute content as often as some folks say you should. Strive for a rate that works for you and publish useful content.
Be realistic in how much time you can spend on content marketing based on your resources. If you don’t have the time, consider outsourcing to someone who can produce the content and distribute it for you. Just be sure you oversee the process so what is being created aligns with your vision and beliefs.
Produce content that is timeless so that it continues to work for you long term. Publishing quality, evergreen content will continue to drive traffic to your website over a longer period of time.
Re-purpose your content across different content types. A blog post can be turned into an infographic, presentation, video or a podcast. These different media types can then be shared on different platforms to increase your reach.
Be sure to put all of your valuable content on your website and share it to social media. You own and control your website but rent space on social sites.
Build your email list so you can reach interested parties on your terms. Again, you own your in-house email list. Get people to subscribe to your list by offering some type of content that is very useful to them. Once you have them signed up, you can then provide your content to them directly via email.
Have patience. Content marketing is a long-term strategy that takes time for the results to be visible.

Share your knowledge and expertise

Every business can successfully market their products or services by offering content that educates and provides a solution to your customer’s biggest challenges. When a prospective customer finds you through the content you provide, they begin to form a connection with you built on trust.

When you share your knowledge and expertise freely with no strings attached, the giver’s gain philosophy takes hold and you become the recipient of wealth:

From the satisfaction of helping someone with your knowledge and
Through new clients who truly appreciate what you have to offer.

Don’t wait to get started on this effective marketing strategy.

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10 Content Marketing Benefits, Challenges, Tips