Content and Social Media Marketing

Explained

CONTENT AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGFOR SMALL BUSINESSES

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In today’s world of social media and mobile tech gadgets, consumers are more empowered in the choices they make and the brands they interact with. Unlike was the case in the past, technologies such as social media networks have made it easier for consumers to find the information they want and for businesses to easily reach their prospects and customers.

Content and social media marketing are two techniques that every business should be using today. Collectively, these online marketing techniques are known as inbound marketing.

What is inbound marketing?Inbound marketing refers to online marketing methods used to attract prospects by giving them relevant and timely information on products or services they are looking for.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand inbound marketing is to compare it with outbound marketing methods such as TV and print ads, direct sales, tradeshows, and telemarketing.

With outbound marketing methods, you push your marketing messages to your prospects. On the other hand, with content and social media marketing, the prospects find you through the content you share.

Content marketing involves using articles, eBooks, videos and other types of content to educate and entertain your prospects in order to gain their trust.

On the other hand, social media marketing refers to use of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and others to connect with prospects.

Importance of Content and Social Media MarketingContent and social media marketing have become more important over the last few years. As more people embrace the Internet and use it to shop, research and connect with their friends, businesses have no choice but to follow consumers where they are.

According to a 2007 report by Forrester Research, more than 92% of Americans use the Internet to research products before buying. If your business cannot be found on the Internet, you are losing potential customers and sales.

Content and social media marketing are important for:

Content and Social Media Marketing

Explained

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1. Building your Brand

Customers are more comfortable buying from brands that they know and respect. Think of this, would you rather buy a soda from Coca Cola or from a beverage company you’ve never heard of? Familiarity brings trust and influences purchase decisions.

By using content and social media marketing strategies, you can get the word out about your company to your prospects in a non-intrusive manner. As prospects read about your business and interact with you on social media, they become aware of your brand. How you approach the prospects with your message will determine the kind of brand you will build.

Ultimately, building a good brand will make prospects trust and buy from you.

2. Finding New Customers

Consumer preferences and shopping trends have changed over the past 10 years. Today, more people go online to research products before they buy. These consumers have a need that you can fulfill. However, they may not know about your company or solution. How do you make them find your business? Through content and social media marketing.

When prospective buyers go on the Internet, they type various terms on search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) to find information on what they need. For example, a Houston resident may be looking for a plumber and can type the following words on Google, “Houston plumber.”

When you know the terms that your prospects type on Google when searching for your products or services, you can optimize your website to rank for those terms. Therefore, when prospects search Google for those terms, they will come across your website and contact you.

3. Getting Feedback

What a person says about your business can impact your sales. For example, a disgruntled customer can give your business a bad image among other prospects, even though his or her allegations may be false.

By participating in social media conversations on Facebook and Twitter, you can know what customers are saying about your business. You can also check review websites like Google Reviews and Yelp to get customer perception about your business.

Connect with prospects on social media networking sites to explain to them the benefits of your services, ask questions, offer advice on various related subjects, or provide customer service.

You can also enhance your brand by shaping your prospects’ perception about your company by offering different types of content. For example, if you are selling an electronic gadget, you can write an eBook or produce a video about the gadget to educate your customers on how to use, repair or maintain it.

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Summary

What if you had a way of knowing that someone is interested in your product, and at that time, you give them the information that they want? For sure, you are likely to make a sale from the prospect. This is what content and social media marketing is all about.

Content and social media marketing are permission-based marketing techniques. With the techniques, you provide prospects with relevant information (what they are searching for) and at the right time (when they are searching on the internet).

Content marketing is more effective than the “old school” model of marketing where you distribute fliers, posters and so on. When giving out fliers, you don’t even know whether the audience you are giving the flier is interested in your message. The result is dismal returns from your promotion campaigns.

Content Marketing Strategies for SMBsNow that we know what content marketing is and its benefits, how do you go about it?

First, you need a plan. This is an overview of what you want to accomplish in the end. The plan can be laid out in a strategy that will show the techniques you will use to reach your prospects. The plan should also include your goals, your messages, optimization and promotion methods, and how you will measure results.

Let’s look at what a content and social media strategy should contain.

a) Target market

These are the prospects that you want to reach. They are the people whose problems you are looking to solve. Your target audience should guide you when creating your content and promoting your business online.

To be successful with content marketing, you need to define your target market. You can segment the market based on location, age group, interests and so on. Carry out surveys on social media to better understand your market.

b) Goals

Determine your end goals of doing content and social media marketing. Are you looking to drive traffic to your website or generate more leads? Are you looking to enhance brand awareness in the market or improve sales?

Your goals should be specific, measurable and achievable. To ensure you are on track, set various milestones towards achieving your goals. In your strategy, define the timelines over which particular goals should have been achieved.

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c) Content

You can use various types of content to engage and reach your audience. For example, you can post articles on your blog, produce videos and whitepapers, hold webinars, start a newsletter and so on. Engaging prospects with different types of content can help you know which content results in the best ROI.

Depending on your audience, some types of content may be more effective than others. A good way of finding out the impact of the various forms of content you use is to check the resulting engagement. For example, check the comments made, social mentions, and shares across social media networks.

Key messages: Which messages will you will be sending to your prospects? Your message should also be guided by the brand that you are looking to establish. If you are a B2C business, you may wish to approach your prospects with a relaxed or informal tone. On the other hand, B2B companies are better off engaging with their prospects with a formal voice.

Creating content is not easy and can be time consuming. Therefore, it is important to have a content creation plan. The plan should show which members will create the content, when it will be posted, how it will be promoted and how its impact will be tracked.

d) Optimization and promotion

Find out which key terms your prospects type on Google when searching for your products or services. Then, create your articles and other content around these terms. You can use a free tool like Google Adwords to find the keywords typed by customers looking for your product.

Your website also needs to be optimized for higher rankings on search engine results pages. You can use on-page and off-page optimization techniques to improve your site’s ranking.

On Page SEO: On-page SEO refers to techniques used on your webpage elements to make them more search engine friendly. Examples of on-page techniques that will help to improve your site’s ranking include using alt tags on images, using H1 and title tags and interlinking your articles.

Off-Page SEO: This refers to building backlinks to your site. You can build backlinks on social book marketing sites, comment on other blogs to get backlinks, seek guest posting opportunities at various industry related websites and so on.

e) Marketing channels

There are many online marketing channels you can use to promote your content. For example, you can use your blog, social media networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, social bookmarking sites like Tumblr, StumbleUpon and Reddit, and so on.

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You do not need to promote your content across all marketing channels. Instead, concentrate on the channels where most of your customers are. For any SMB, promoting your brand on Facebook and Twitter is a must, given their larger number of users and preferences with customers. If you are a B2B company, the best place to get quality leads is in LinkedIn.

SMB Content and Social Media Marketing Success StoriesMany SMBs are realizing the importance of content and social media marketing. Most businesses realize positive ROI within 6 to 12 months. In this section, we highlight three small businesses that have improved their profits through content marketing.

a) Skytap

Skytap is a self-service provider of cloud automation solutions. In 2012, the company decided to implement a content marketing strategy with the main goals of generating and converting more leads. The content strategy was based on targeting focus buyers by understanding their needs and creating content that addresses them.

The content marketing results included:

• 73% increase in opportunities from online marketing.

• 124% increase in leads from all channels (online as well as offline events and programs).

• 97% increase in leads from online marketing.

• 55% increase in organic search traffic.

• 210% increase in North American site traffic.

As a result, Skytap was able to reduce their cost of online advertising but still increase leads and sales.

b) iDirect

iDirect, a leader in satellite communication technology, saw an opportunity in delivering high-speed connectively to vessels at sea. The company decided to use content marketing to land new business. The plan was to produce and implement a major content marketing program that would push iDirect into vertical marketing.

The campaign was implemented over several months. Consumers and leads were reached through advertising and a multi-stage email campaign. Greater awareness was driven through both print and online advertising.

The results of the content marketing strategy included:

• The email campaign reached more than 2500 targeted prospects, generating a 15% response rate.

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• The overall efforts helped iDirect acquire new maritime contracts.

• The company’s website reached first page ranking for most of its target industry keywords.

• Online and offline PR outreach landed prominent media coverage in key trade publications.

iDirect was able to improve its sales and brand awareness through content marketing in a more cost effective manner.

c) Dive Rite

Although a well-known brand in the sports diving market with an impressive product portfolio, Dive Rite did not have a meaningful online strategy. Its online sales were dismal as the company’s website was nowhere on the top for the target keywords its customers use.

Dive Rite decided to implement a content strategy with an aim of establishing its brand online, generating traffic to its site and improving online sales. The results of the content marketing strategy include:

• 65% increase in organic traffic without additional spending on advertising.

• Drove engaged, high quality visitors to its dealers that converted 33% more than leads from other referral sites.

• Improved brand awareness and positioning of the company as a leader in its industry.

The content marketing strategy helped Dive Rite increase its market share without significantly increasing the advertising budget.

Measuring your Content Marketing EffortsTracking and analyzing different quantity and quality metrics will help you to know the impact of your branding and inbound marketing efforts. Let’s look into details of some of the metrics you should measure.

Unique Visitors (UV): This refers to the number of visitors that stop by your website within a given period. Each visitor is counted once but their activity at the site is not considered. Your traffic will vary depending on your industry, target keywords and the content you are producing. There are various tools you can use to track the traffic that comes to your website. Some good free tools are Google Analytics and Statcounter.

Page views (PV): This is the cumulative number of individual pages that your visitors load when they stop by your site during any given period. The page views can indicate what your visitors think of the content on your website. For instance, if the PV is higher than the UV, this means your content is great because visitors are checking out multiple pages. If PV for a particular post is high, then the post is popular or helpful with users.

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Search engine traffic: This is the number of visitors that come to your blog through various search engines. Optimizing your content to rank high with search engines helps to drive traffic to your site. You can capture these visitors and nurture them to become customers. Follow the best practices of on-page optimization and research your market well to know which keywords to optimize your content with.

Bounce rate: This is the percentage of visitors that stop by your site and leave immediately or “bounce” before clicking other pages. You should try to keep your bounce rate as low as possible. Usually, a bounce rate of 30 percent or less is acceptable.

If your site has a high bounce rate, it could be that your content is not resonating with the visitors or your site has a poor user experience. You may have to evaluate the buying personas you are targeting with your content and check that your site loads fast, is easy to navigate and has a professional design.

Conversion rate: This is the percentage of visitors who take a specific action based on the content on your site. For example, visitors can download an eBook, sign up for your newsletter, share your content, purchase an item and so on. Conversion rates vary from industry to industry and are affected by market segments and seasons.

Get Content Marketing Right

Content and social media marketing is the pinnacle of success for any business. Understanding your ideal customers from the onset and determining overall business objectives will help you craft a logical online marketing campaign that will provide positive ROI.

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