Content marketing is more and more becoming the most effective way to promote any kind of business or website online and should be a crucial part of your strategy. But why is it so important, and how do you make sure to do it successful? Especially if your business is not something particularly gripping…?
How it Works and Why it Matters
The biggest mistake that most businesses make when trying to promote their businesses online is to focus too much on the short term. That is to say that they look at their internet marketing through the lens of how many conversions they can get from any given media strategy. This then results in them posting what are essentially adverts then getting confused as to why no one clicks on them.
What's far more important is to think about the long term, and about establishing trust and influence in your chosen niche. If you read a few articles on a site about how someone made X amount of money and those articles are well written, insightful and inspiring, then you're going to return to that website when you feel in the mood to buy a book on making money. The same goes for a site that writes about home improvement and also offers some DIY services. If you've read content there before and you know they know what they're talking about, then that's the business you're going to want to buy from.
How to Write Great Content
So here's the problem – you run a restaurant and you don't see any way that you can contribute anything interesting to a blog. What do you do?
Well for starters, there's no industry that has nothing interesting to say. If you're working out of an office within a very dry B2B industry such as corporate finance, then you can write tips for others within your industry, or financial tips for other businesses. In this scenario you could even write tips for private individuals to help them manage their finances. If you have a flier company, then you can write about design, about marketing and about launching a new business. Just think a little outside the box and you'll find there are always interesting subjects in and around your industry.
To make your content interesting and engaging meanwhile, focus on how you structure the posts. Most successful of all are posts that are written as ‘stories' almost, in that they are written from a first person perspective, or about someone that the reader can relate to. The human brain is actually ‘hardwired' to enjoy stories, and thus you will find that this makes them very compelling and difficult to stop reading.
What if You Can't Write?
But what if you can't write content?
In that case you have numerous options. One is to hire someone who can, another is to communicate in other ways – you could upload video content for instance rather than articles. You can even get your customers to write for you, or get guest posts for free by partnering with other blogs.
No matter your business or your experience, content should be a major part of your strategy. No excuses!