content marketing for small businesses

Why Content Marketing for Small Businesses is Essential in 2023

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Content marketing lets you get your business name and brand out in front of your target audience. Effective content speaks to your customers’ pain points, offering solutions and guiding them on their customer journey.

Content increases your visibility online, casting your business as the authority in the industry and driving traffic to your website. Among small businesses, 99% report that they see positive results from their content marketing efforts.

However, the key lies in learning how to employ content marketing effectively. If you run a small business and want to build revenue for your brand, here is what you need to know.

Why small businesses need content marketing

Content marketing generates three times as many leads as other strategies, commonly called traditional outbound marketing. With content marketing, your goal is to create material that addresses the issues that matter the most to your customers.

For example, if you have a plumbing business, you might create material that explains how homeowners can protect their pipes in the winter. If you run an IT firm, you might create content outlining basic cybersecurity practices all businesses should have in place. This material helps customers see you as the trusted authority. Then, when they have problems with their pipes in the future, or they realize keeping up with all the cybersecurity practices has become too much for them, they turn to your businesses for help.

The internet has become a critical component of people’s daily lives. Eighty-one percent of retail shoppers say that they will make online searches before they make a purchase. Similarly, 90% of B2B buyers will start their shopping journey with an online search. You want to make sure you have produced quality content that your target customer discovers as they make these online searches. Content marketing is your cornerstone.

Content marketing for small business acceleration pack

Jumpstart Your Content Marketing with the Accelerator Pack

The benefits of content marketing for small businesses

Content marketing offers several benefits for small businesses that you will want to seize. Here are some of the most common advantages we see:

  • You increase the visibility of your site. When you have content that regularly answers customers’ needs, your site will become more visible to customers as they search online.
  • You will drive more traffic to your site. Increased visibility means more visitors and more people can enter your sales funnel.
  • You increase your brand reputation. Quality content associates your brand with expertise.
  • Your content marketing can serve you for years to come. Unlike an ad that disappears after it runs, the content lives on your site as long as you maintain it. That article you wrote can still attract customers months or years later.

How to get started with content marketing for small businesses

Now that you have begun to see some of the benefits of incorporating content marketing into your brand strategy let’s explore how you can get started with content marketing. Done right, content becomes the voice of your strategy. And that means you

Step 1. Know who you want to target. You need to identify precisely who your target clients are. Consider factors like their income, background knowledge, budget, and who else has to sign off on their purchase decisions.

Step 2. Identify what matters to these target customers. Know what your customers are concerned about and what questions they have. Look at competitor sites, research keywords related to your industry, ask your sales team what customers ask, and ask your existing customers what they want to learn more about.

Step 3. Create a content calendar. A calendar helps you keep your content focused and on track. For example, if you want to produce a blog post every Friday, you might create a three-month calendar outlining your topic for each week so that all you have to do is sit down and write.

Step 4: Promote your content. Remember to call people’s attention to your new content through platforms like social media. Let people know when you put out a new piece of content to start bringing in traffic.

Creating a content marketing strategy for small businesses

Eighty percent of those who excel with content marketing have a documented strategy. To create this strategy, you want to identify your goals with content marketing. For example,

  • Do you want to increase traffic?
  • Do you want to increase sales?
  • Do you want to increase your market share?
  • Do you want to raise your website on the search engine results page (SERP)?

Once you know how you want to succeed, you can then identify the indicators you will use to measure your success. Knowing what you want to achieve with your content will also help you choose your content topics and target your audience effectively.

Therefore, create a basic content strategy that outlines:

  • What you want to achieve
  • Who you are targeting
  • The topic you want to cover
  • How you will measure your results.

Measuring the success of your content marketing efforts

Finally, as you put your strategy into action, make sure you carefully measure your success. Use the metrics you defined earlier to monitor your success as you develop your content. Note which content is more or less popular and how customers interact with your content before buying. These insights will help you refine your strategy moving forward.

Build your small business with content marketing

Content marketing for small businesses can help power visibility and success. If your company has not yet implemented a content marketing strategy, consider how you can use this information to raise your visibility and bring customers to your door.

If you’d like more insights on how content marketing can help your business scale, book a free consultation and let’s talk.

 

 

What is a fractional CMO?

FRACTIONAL CMO: WHAT IS IT AND WHY YOU NEED ONE

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In today’s business world, it’s difficult to stay ahead of the competition, especially for growing businesses that can’t afford the big salary of an experienced Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). One way to do this is by hiring a Fractional CMO. But what exactly is a Fractional CMO, and why do you need one?

A Fractional CMO is a part-time, senior-level marketing executive who provides strategic marketing leadership to your organization. They work with you on a contract basis, providing the same level of expertise as a full-time CMO, but at a fraction of the cost.

Why do you need a Fractional CMO?

Well, marketing is an essential part of any business. Without a solid marketing strategy, it can be difficult to attract new customers and retain existing ones. A Fractional CMO can help you develop a comprehensive marketing plan that aligns with your business goals and drives growth.

Benefits of Hiring a Fractional CMO

  • Cost-effective solution: As I mentioned earlier, a Fractional CMO can provide the same level of expertise as a full-time CMO, but at a lower cost. This is because you only pay for the services you need, and you don’t have to worry about the costs associated with a full-time employee.
  • Flexibility: A Fractional CMO is a contract-based position, which means you can adjust their services to meet your needs. If you only need their services for a few hours a week, that’s okay. If you need them to work on a project for several months, that’s also okay. This flexibility allows you to get the services you need when you need them.
  • Expertise: A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to your organization. They have worked with many different companies and industries, which means they can provide a fresh perspective on your marketing strategy. Additionally, they have the skills and expertise to develop a comprehensive marketing plan that aligns with your business goals.

How to Hire a Fractional CMO

  • Define your marketing goals: Before you hire a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, you need to define your marketing goals. What do you want to achieve with your marketing strategy? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive sales, or something else? Defining your marketing goals will help you find a Fractional CMO who has the right skills and expertise to help you achieve those goals.
  • Research: Once you have defined your marketing goals, it’s time to start researching Fractional CMOs. Look for companies or individuals who have experience in your industry and have a proven track record of success.
  • Interview: Once you have a list of potential candidates, it’s time to start interviewing them. Ask them about their experience, their approach to marketing, and their availability. This will help you find the right Fractional CMO for your organization.
  • Contract: Once you have found the right person, it’s time to draw up a contract. Make sure the contract includes the scope of work, the timeframe, and the compensation.

Hiring a Fractional CMO can be a cost-effective way to get the marketing expertise you need to grow your business. By defining your marketing goals, researching potential candidates, and interviewing them, you can find the right person for the job. With the help of a Fractional CMO, you can develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals and moves your business forward.

The Good Ideas Marketing Fractional CMO Program

If you would like to learn more about our Fractional CMO Services offerings, book a free discovery call. All of our engagements begin with a strategic review and development of a marketing action plan. We identify the gaps and opportunities that will deliver you the highest return on investment and fastest business growth.

Our services includes:

  • Developing and implementing marketing plans, short-term and long-term
  • Conducting market research and analysis
  • Identifying target audiences and creating buyer personas
  • Creating and managing digital marketing campaigns
  • Analyzing and reporting on campaign performance
  • Developing and managing social media strategies
  • Developing and managing content marketing strategies
  • Collaborating with sales teams to create effective sales enablement materials
  • Leading your marketing team and inspiring team members
  • Hiring new employees and building out your team for success

Book a free discovery call and find out if a Fractional CMO is a good fit for your business.

8 ways to market a small business

8 ways to market a small business

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When it comes to marketing a small business there are a lot of options, but how do you know which is right for your business What are the best ways to market a small business? Where do you begin?

To find the most effective way to market your small business, you really have to begin with understanding your ideal customer and the best way to find and engage with them, but I explore that concept in detail in this post.

Today’s post is about providing you with a handful of ways you can try with your business that work, to some degree, in just about any business.

The 8 Ways to Market A Small Business

1) Create lead generating website

Many small businesses out there have a website. If you’re amongst those that don’t, it’s time to get one built. Your website is the hub of your online marketing efforts and if you don’t have one everything else is a lot harder.

If you do have a website, or are about to build one, you want it to work hard for you to capture leads, and drive sales. To do that, you need to ensure it has these 11 essential elements of a small business website.

There are loads of options out there for building one. You can DIY it on platforms like SquareSpace, Wix, or Duda, or you can hire someone like me to build one in WordPress or even custom code it.

The important thing in that process is to start with strategy and understand how you will use your website to attract and engage your ideal customer.

2) Social media marketing

Social media marketing for small businesses can be a powerful tool for reaching potential customers and building a community around your business.

Again, here it’s important to understand which platforms your ideal customers are on and target those. If you’re just getting started, or looking to restart your efforts, my advice is to pick one or two platforms tops and focus on those.

Many small businesses try to do too much and be on every platform and it’s just too much work. They get overwhelmed and stop doing everything.

The other thing to remember about social media marketing is where it fits the customer journey.

For most businesses, social media is not going to be about lead generation and that’s because the algorithms that control who sees what are making it harder and harder to get non-paid content found. For example, Facebook engagement hovers around 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 fans sees the page’s non-promoted content.

Basically, if you want to be discovered you have to run ads. But that doesn’t mean social media has no value.

Where social media helps small businesses is by showing their personality. People will turn to a business’s social media after they become aware of a business to get a sense of them before they make a purchasing decision. That’s why it’s critically important to post more than your latest special or motivational quotes. Show prospects your personality, let them get to know you.

I explore these concepts a little deeper in this post about mapping the customer journey, and this one about building the ultimate marketing strategy.

3. Develop a content marketing strategy

Creating and sharing high-quality, informative content, such as blog posts, videos, and infographics, can help attract customers and establish your business as a thought leader in your field.

To be most effective in your content marketing, you need to work from a calendar.

Start with quarterly themes; then break those down into monthly topics; and finally into weekly or bi-weekly sub-topics. Map that out over six or 12 months and you will have a calendar you can work from to keep you on track and not scrambling to create something each month (and more often just not getting it done).

And focus your content on being useful to your ideal client. Think about the questions they have during different stages of their customer journey and try to answer those.

4. Invest in search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO can help improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google, making it more visible to potential customers.

To break it down, SEO is really about three things: how your website functions; what content is on your website; and what other sites are pointing to you. To manage this is a big job and can get pretty technical, you’re probably best off hiring a pro to help you here.

For local businesses (if your customers come from your area) there are some specific tasks and I talk about those more here.

5. Use email marketing

Email is one of, if not the, most cost-effective ways to market your business. And it can be used in a variety of ways.

Email marketing can be an effective way to stay in touch with customers and promote special offers or new products.

You can use email to nurture prospects who aren’t ready to buy, but have shown an interest in your products or services.

Email can be part of your sale funnels and lead funnels and you can learn more about those here.

To do any of this you need to capture those email addresses first. That goes back to your website and making sure you have something there that someone will want to give you an email address in order to access, like a checklist, or ebook.

6. Network and build partnerships

Networking and building partnerships with other businesses and organizations is a powerful way to market a small business. It can help expose your business to new customers and increase your visibility.

I call these strategic partnerships. Businesses that serve the same ideal customer, but in non-competitive ways. You build a network of strategic partners who all refer to each other.

If you’re a landscaper, this may be a roofer or contractor. For a business coach, it could be an accountant or a printer.

There are also organizations like BNI that are built to do exactly this in a more structured way.

7. Offer promotions and discounts

Offering promotions and discounts can help attract new customers and encourage existing customers to continue doing business with you.

Of all the ideas to market a small business, this one is probably the one that will drive the most immediate sales, but be careful not to use this too liberally, or you will train your customers to wait until you have a sale.

And remember, it’s always easier to do more business with existing customers than it is to go out and find new ones, so give some thought to what you can do to encourage them to do more business with you. This, of course, starts with delivering a great experience with their initial purchase.

8. Get involved in your community

Participating in local events, sponsoring community organizations, and supporting local causes can help build goodwill and attract customers who share your values.

Communities can also be digital. Are there Facebook groups that cater to your target market? For businesses serving other businesses, Alignable can be a great platform to connect.

It’s important here, though, to participate in a way that adds value to the others in the group. Be helpful. Don’t just sell.

These are just a handful of the many ways to market a small business. Try some of them and see if they help, and remember to track your results. Know what your goal is and have a way to measure the impact.

To really know which of the ways to market a small business will be most effective for you, you need to really understand your ideal customer and have a core message that speaks to their needs and wants. That means starting with strategy.

If you’d like to learn more about how to do that, download the 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success or book a free consultation and let’s talk about how to grow your business.

small business marketing strategy

4 Steps to Build the Ultimate Small Business Marketing Strategy

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If you cast a net (and by that, I mean do a Google search) for how to build a small business marketing strategy you’re going to get A LOT of results. In fact, you’ll get about 2.15 billion results. I know because I just did it.

If you comb through those results, though, what you’re going to find is a mixture of one-off tactics – like how to master TikTok, or how to build a great website, or Facebook ads – and really technical, complicated approaches to marketing a small business. Neither of which is really going to help most small business owners.

Grabbing the latest tactic of the month only serves to frustrate and have you throwing money at something that may or may not be right for YOUR business.

Meanwhile, those deep dives into marketing theory, while grounded in solid research, are going to leave most business owners confused and spending time they just don’t have trying to figure out how to implement it in their business.

I’m here to tell you that, while marketing strategy isn’t about random tactics, marketing a small business doesn’t have to be that hard. What I’m going to walk you through in this blog post is a proven strategy that anyone can implement, that I use in my done for you marketing system, and that will set you up to attract and convert more of your ideal customers.

4 Steps to Building the Ultimate Small Business Marketing Strategy

1. Narrow your focus to your top 20%

2. Promise to solve a problem

3. Create an end-to-end customer journey

4. Make content the voice of strategy

Step 1 – Narrow Your Focus to the Top 20%

The first step to creating your small business marketing strategy to attract customers is to narrow your focus to the top 20% of your clients. This is a two-part process.

Part one is making a list of your top 20%. And I would suggest that you define your top 20% based on two criteria: profitability and referrals. Meaning that they are both your most profitable customers and they refer the most business to you.

I’m not asking you to do this because I want you to ignore the other 80% of your customers, but there’s a reason that a customer is more profitable. That reason usually relates to the fact that they were a good fit for the problem you solve. They were willing to pay full price, even a premium. We want to find out why.

Take a sheet of paper and actually make a list of the customers that fit that criterion. I have a workbook for this process you can download, but you can also just use any old piece of paper.

Once you have a list of at some of your top 20% it’s time to figure out what makes them tick. This is part two of this step.

Create three columns: Must Have; Nice to Have; Ideal.

Into these columns, I want to you write down the characteristics of those top 20% you just wrote down.

Under must have, you could have things like lives in my town, owns a home, has a car. Whatever those things are that they must have in order to need your product or service.

Under nice to have are those things that make them more inclined to want to do business with you. For example, if you’re a landscaper, maybe you’ve found that your ideal customers are couples who both work, so they’re busy, and like to entertain in their backyard, so they need it to look nice.

In the last column, list the ideal characteristics of your top 20%. These will vary for every business, but we’ve all had conversations with a customer where they’re explaining their problem and we’re just listing, thinking, yes, I can totally help this person. What are those things for your business?

Fill out your three columns or, again, grab the worksheets I provide for this process.

Step 2 – Promise to solve a problem

Step number two in creating your small business marketing strategy is promising to solve a problem.

And not just any problem, but the problem your top 20% wants solved. And it may not be the one you think it is.

Too many small business owners talk too much about themselves. The hard truth is that nobody cares about what we sell. They just want their problem solved.

To find out what that problem is for you, you need to talk to your customers and ask. Get on the phone or get together for a coffee and ask them questions like:

  • Why did you choose us?
  • Why do you keep doing business with us?
  • What do we do that other companies don’t?

You’ll have to probe them and ask follow-up questions because most of them will say something obvious like you give great service. If you get that, ask a follow-up like “tell me more about that?” or “tell about a time that we gave you great service.”

If your business collects reviews on Google or other industry-specific review sites (and if you don’t, you should start) these can also be a gold mine for the problems you solve.

Read your reviews carefully and look for common themes. What are people saying? What are the common phrases or these that come up over and over?

Once you find the problem you really solve, this becomes the basis for your core message. The thing that makes you stand out in the marketplace. What you can say that will grab the attention of your ideal customers and show them that you understand them and can offer a solution.

Step 3 – Create an End-to-End Customer Journey

If you want to create a marketing strategy to attract customers you have to focus your efforts on an end-to-end customer journey. To get that core message you create in front of the right people at the right time. But what exactly does that mean?

I will suggest to you that it doesn’t mean the typical marketing funnel that you have seen all over the place for years. You know the one, where you dump a whole bunch of prospects into the top through ads, or SEO, or any number of tactics, and a certain number of them work their way through to the bottom and come out as customers.

There are two problems with this model. Number one is that is assumes that we have control. We don’t. The customer is in complete control these days. And their journey is anything but linear.

small business marketing strategy - customer journey

The customer journey today

They bounce around; maybe they see an ad, maybe they visit your website, or read a Google review. Perhaps they call some friends or put a message out on Facebook. The customer journey starts to look more like this:

The second problem with the funnel mode is that it ends when someone becomes a customer.

If any of you reading this get any percentage of your business through referrals, it won’t come as a surprise when I tell you that this is not the end of the journey.

So, I’d like you to think about marketing today as more about organizing behaviour and helping your ideal clients work through their own journey. The one they want to go on, not the one we want to send them through.

So, how do you do that?

Well, I use a tool called the Marketing Hourglass, created by Duct Tape Marketing.

marketing plan for small business

Source: Duct Tape Marketing

The Marketing Hourglass organizes the customer journey into seven stages that are really different behaviours.

  1. Know – I have a problem and in looking to solve it, I find out your business exists
  2. Like – in my research I go to your website, maybe check out your social media channels and decide I like what I see
  3. Trust – this is critical, I must decide I trust you before I will do business with you.
  4. Try – is that step before they are willing to jump in with both feet. It could be a free trial, or even just a phone call.
  5. Buy – this is when the magic happens. But what does that experience look like for your customers? You don’t want buyer’s remorse here.
  6. Repeat – If someone is happy with their decision to purchase, they’ll do it again next time they have the same problem.
  7. Refer – is that part of human nature that makes us want to tell other people about a good decision we made and to help them solve the same problem.

To create your end-to-end customer journey, you need to go through each stage of the hourglass and write down all the ways potential customers come to know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer you. What are the things you need to be doing at each stage to be there when they arrive?

I’ll give you some examples. For Know, it could be things like ads and showing up in a Google search, or getting referred. For Like, it may be your website experience, seeing a strong core message on your site, or your personality in social media. Then for Trust, it’s things like reviews, testimonials, etc.

You have to go through all seven stages and write down what that is for your business. I have detailed this in much more detail in this post about how to turn customers into buyers with customer journey mapping. You can also get the worksheet I use for this process as part of the workbook available for downloading.

Step 4 – Make content the voice of strategy

The final step in creating the ultimate marketing strategy for a small business is to turn the content you have or create into the voice of your strategy. The good news is that, of you do this correctly, you’ll actually have to create less content than you are now.

And when we’re talking about content, it’s not just things like blog posts or white papers. Emails are content. How you answer the phone is content. How you ask for referrals is content.

The goal now is to figure out what type of content you need at each stage of the journey to help guide your ideal clients through. To do this, we go back to the Marketing Hourglass and brainstorm each stage.

So, some examples.

Creating a a customer journey map

Source: Duct Tape Marketing

Those are the four steps to create a truly effective marketing strategy for your small business:

  1. Narrow your focus to your top 20%
  2. Promise to solve a problem
  3. Create an end-to-end customer journey
  4. Make content the voice of strategy

If you follow these steps and work through each one, you’ll develop a marketing plan that attracts and engages more of your ideal clients, with less content, and give you a real competitive advantage.

Don’t forget, you can download a collection of worksheets that will help you with each of these steps.

These four steps are taken from a larger coaching program I run built on the proven Duct Tape Marketing System. If you’re interested on getting some help working through this process and developing a detailed marketing action plan for your business, you should check out that small business marketing coaching program.

And if you’d like someone to do that for you, book a free consultation and we can talk.