From the course: Small Business Marketing

Content marketing that sells

From the course: Small Business Marketing

Content marketing that sells

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- The content you create has to be of interest to your target audience and appealing enough so they'll want to engage with it and see more of it. So your content shouldn't feel like advertising. But what should it feel like? First, you need to consider what content might appeal to your target audience. And for that, you'll need to do some consumer research. You can look at what type of content your competitor's are sharing. You can explore what's popular on social media among your target audience. And you can even ask your customers directly in interviews or focus groups. You'll find that you can categorize your content into five categories. Inspirational. And this could be motivational quotes that you share on Instagram or nature videos for an adventure-focused brand for example. Entertaining. And we've all seen this. A funny cat video, dog pictures, or maybe just funny posts about office life. Newsworthy. Now, you may have news about product launches, seasonal products, and so on. Promotional. So if you're running a promotion or you're having a sale or a coupon, share it. People love this kind of content. And finally, community building. This is sharing stories from customers, testimonials, and so on. It creates a sense of recognition and belonging. Once you decide on what you want to post, you'll need to pick the best format to post it in. First, we have blogs. Now, you're not going to publish an entire blog post on say, social media, but blogs are easy to produce, and the links to blog posts share well on social platforms. Next, consider video. Video is king. You'll want to use high-resolution video. And don't shy away from increasing the production value. You won't need a production house. You can create high-quality video with your smartphone. Next, consider images. Beautiful images catch attention. Here you need to focus on quality. It's really valuable to try to capture your own images instead of using stock photography. GIFs are also very popular. GIFs are very short video fragments that play on repeat. And you can easily create them yourself or find existing ones on Giphy.com. Also, consider infographics. These are ideal for educational content. These are pictures all of beautifully laid out information around one topic, and they work well to catch the eye, and they're super shareable. One thing is certain. You'll need a lot of content, so don't be afraid to experiment. Over time, you'll learn what content and which format works best for your audience.

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