How to become locally competitive through content marketing.
The possibilities for marketing digital content locally have increased enormously. Small and medium-sized companies are increasingly recognizing the opportunities to stay one step ahead of the competition with content marketing.
Digitally, competition with larger companies is a problem for SMEs. Big brands are trustworthy, have loyal customers and a huge advertising budget.
But 3 topics are particularly exciting for interested parties:
- Innovation;
- the best customer service;
- well-founded information;
With a high-quality content marketing strategy, we address all three topics and exploit our opportunities on the local market. Don't have an established local content marketing strategy? Then let's get started.
But first, let's take a quick look at some figures on the importance of local content marketing.
Local marketing - Statistics
- 2016 saw a 75% increase in the budget for small businesses involved in content marketing. (Source: Curata).
- According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing provides three times the leads and costs 62% less than traditional marketing.
- According to Curata, articles over 2000 words are 9 times more effective than short articles.
- On average, users only read about a product for 37 seconds. Users don't read, they scan the article.
- 62% of companies employ agencies and professional authors to create content.
- The average length of a blog post is 1140 words.
Why is content marketing necessary for small and medium-sized companies?
- Content marketing is an inexpensive way to reach a large group of interested parties.
- Content marketing ensures a long-term improvement in organic search results.
- Content marketing is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to generate leads and sales.
- Companies that use professional content marketing have a 5 times higher sales and conversion rate than companies that do not.
- Online store sales are usually 10 times more successful if the user lands on the website through a detailed blog article.
Social media for local SMEs:
Social media offers the best opportunities to promote your company locally. Some advantages:
- Social media helps you win new local customers.
- Social media supports customer loyalty.
- It offers one of the best opportunities to network in your area.
- Enables you to obtain and receive valuable feedback.
- It offers the opportunity to present your products or services.
- Social media increases the advertising impact of your website.
LinkedinLinkedin is one of the best ways to network your local business. It acts as an online business card and showcases the strengths of your business. Linkedin is without a doubt a must for any small business that wants to present itself digitally.
FacebookFacebook is a must for every company. There is a good chance that every one of your customers uses a facebook profile. This gives you the opportunity to connect with your customers and build a personal relationship. Facebook offers effective advertising opportunities at a fraction of the price of Google.
InstagramMore on the visual side, instagram is a great way to promote your products through pictures and short videos. Instagram is currently seeing a huge increase in users compared to its competitors, so it's a great opportunity for your local business.
If you connect Instagram to your Facebook account, you can run the same ads on both platforms and target the same audience.
Other social media platforms you can consider:
- Twitter;
- Pnterest;
- Google plus;
- Youtube;
Social media is definitely one of the best ways to promote and advertise your website, paid or unpaid. It's never been easier to engage with your prospects and customers and get really useful feedback.
One of the often ignored benefits of social media is the ability to analyze your competition. Take the opportunity to review your competitors' social media profiles to see what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Step-by-step guide to creating high-quality content:
Determine which content is relevant for your customers:
Before you create content, determine what is relevant for your customers. There is no template for this: every industry, niche and target group is unique.
To determine what is relevant for your target group, ask yourself:
- What is my target group? (more on this later)
- What is the problem that my product and service solves?
- What makes my product better than others?
- How much time do my customers spend researching our products?
For example, you sell candles. Don't write 3000 word articles, focus on producing image content, videos and maybe a few infographics. It's different if you sell luxury watches. Here, customers want to know more details about the construction and how it works.
Put yourself in your customers' shoes and take their needs as a yardstick.
Determine the structure:
Structure is an important factor when creating relevant content. It doesn't matter how good the information is if the customer can't easily access it. Here are a few guidelines:
- Headings;
Keep your headlines short (under 55 characters) and interesting. The headline should attract customers and contain part of the target phrase you want to be found for. More info in our SEO guide.
- Paragraphs;
We've already mentioned that people don't like to read blog articles, they scan them. This is where short paragraphs come into play. 3 sentences maximum, so that users can quickly navigate from one to another.
- Phrases;
Sentences should be easy to understand, short and without complicated jargon or vocabulary. Try to form short sentences with less than 20 words.
- Open spaces;
Overlooked by many writers, whitespace between paragraphs, lists and images within a blog article should be one of your main concerns.
Having enough space on the page gives your site a clean and tidy look. It also makes your site look high quality, minimalist and professional.
- Diversity of content;
Posts that contain various content such as images, infographics, lists, tables and bullet points have a clear advantage in terms of ranking.
Make sure that the topics remain interesting for your users.
Write detailed and relevant articles:
Longer articles are generally preferred by users over short ones. This makes sense as the amount of relevant information required by customers has increased. Keep your text accessible and easy to read. If you don't, your customers will bounce to Google and move on to the next page. That could then be your competitor.
Competition is usually intense in small businesses. Therefore, the more information you provide in your article in good quality, the better for your brand awareness and ultimately for your sales.
Sound professional, but avoid jargon or overcomplicating terms. Think about how you can best provide your customers with useful information. This will improve your online reputation and achieve the desired trusting relationship with your readers.
How often you should publish. Content strategy.
It is important to publish content regularly. A content strategy will make this easier for you. I'm not talking about writing a 2000 word blog every day. Even just posting a picture or a short video for your customers on social media will increase your brand awareness.
If you constantly remind your customers of the great service you provide, your name will come to mind just when they need it. This is why local gyms, for example, are constantly posting motivational pictures and videos.
Here is a basic content strategy model:
1. define your goals.
If you are working on creating content, there must be something you want to achieve with it. Common goals are:
- Brand awareness
- Increased organic traffic
- Increased conversion rates
- Customer confidence
- Customer loyalty
- Increase in sales
2. research:
Research what you need to start a content marketing campaign. Consider points such as:
- How many hours can you afford to create content on a weekly or daily basis?
Creating content is not everyone's cup of tea and is often done by the owner themselves. But having a content strategy means creating new and relevant content on a weekly or even daily basis.
- Does it make sense to hire an agency or hire and train an employee for this? If so, what are the actual costs and expectations?
It is assumed that hiring an agency is much more expensive than training an employee to create content. In reality, training an employee takes a lot of time and resources, with often average results. Hiring an experienced copywriter is probably beyond the means of many small businesses. Decide whether you are willing to spend the time and/or resources yourself or hire a professional agency to take care of it for you.
What are your expectations?
Once you have defined your goal, you need to decide what you expect from your engagement. For example, if your goal is a higher conversion rate, define:
"I expect a 20% increase in sales by the end of the year." Track and quantify your progress and consistently adapt your strategy.
How do you measure your success rate?
For example, you can measure your success by how many new leads you have received via content marketing. Or you can specifically measure your sales via your website.
What are the best platforms to promote your content?
Which platforms are best for your business? there are several options, such as youtube, facebook, pinterest, instagram and many more. Research which platforms your current customers use on a daily basis. Then take a look at your competitors: what platforms do they use? What are their results?
Do you have an advertising budget?
Paid advertising costs money, but also offers faster results than organic advertising. Determine your advertising budget and which platforms are best to advertise on.
You may have to choose between Youtube ads, Facebook ads, Google Adwords and many more. Each service has its specific advantages and disadvantages, choose the platform that is used the most by your customers.
3. define your target group.
Who exactly are you targeting? The more information you have about your potential customers, the better. Define your target group precisely. Here are a few examples:
The demographics of your readers.
- Living area
- Marital status
- Children or no children
- Income
Psychography: - Necessities
- Hobbies and interests
- Purchase sample
- Interests
Correctly defining the target group is sometimes a tedious process but absolutely necessary. It will give you a clear idea of what kind of customers are looking for your product and service. Let's take a look at some ways to determine your target audience:
First, analyze yours, try to identify and classify patterns and similarities.
Then use facebook and linkedin with the same intention. Create a database of your customers (Excel is also sufficient) and classify them.
Filling out a short registration form on your website is another good way to get information about your customers. You will also receive the e-mail address for future use.
Short online surveys are also a popular option. So give them a try too.
4. define a quality standard for your content.
We will go into this in more detail later in this article.
5. start creating the material.
Now it's time to create content. Choose a precise schedule and stick to it consistently.
6. start promoting your content
Distributing and promoting your content is really important. You should spend more time promoting your content than creating it. Consider topics like:
Quality guidelines:
We spoke earlier about the importance of high-quality content. To ensure this, you must first consider the needs of your customers.
Ask yourself: What kind of content is useful for my customer?
You then define a quality standard that you or the agency/contractor you are working with must meet:
Perhaps you need production details, a precise product description, a number of words, the number of images or a specific page layout. What should your articles look like as a result, what serves the customer best. Start there.
Define your unique brand personality and writing style:
How do you feel when you stumble across articles on the Internet that give you the feeling that they were written by robots?
This is one of the reasons why hiring an agency can be a good solution, unless you write your content yourself. When you hire a trusted agency to create content for you in the long term, you are developing your brand identity. This is especially important in small and medium-sized businesses, where customer support and a strong relationship between you and your customers is one of the biggest advantages you have.
Write your articles in a personal style that reflects what your company stands for.
Set the tone:
Do you address the customer formally or casually? Think about how you can personalize your texts and content. Be original, unique and relevant. Another way to provide valuable and unique content is to use customer-generated content. Ask for engagement, opinions and ideas from your customers and respond to them via blog articles, infographics or Facebook Live videos.
Tip: To find out what tone you should use with your customers, read their comments, reviews and posts on social media. Speak the same language.
Other content types that you can use:
Pictures:
Avoid stock photos. You can take photos with your smartphone and these have even more value for your customers than stock photos. Even better, hire a professional to take photos for you once and use these images in your articles in the future.
Videos:
Answer your customers' questions via Facebook Live videos or recorded videos on Facebook or Instagram. YouTube is a great option to post longer and more relevant videos.
Infographics:
Detailed infographics are another way to promote and repurpose your content. They also offer great potential as lead magnets and provide a great way to summarize the content of your blog article for the reader in a hurry.
Blog posts:
The most important type of content you make available online is certainly blog posts. The great thing about them is that they continue to bring new visitors and therefore customers to your website long after they have been published. Another advantage of creating a longer blog post is that you can continue to use this content in different forms. For example, you can use a small part of the text in your Instagram image description, or perhaps for a Twitter post and so on.
High quality, detailed and unique blog posts are excellent for your search engine optimization.
How to promote your content.
Promoting your content is the next task. If no one can see your website and your content, there is virtually no reason to invest money and time in it.
Here are some possibilities:
Social media:
Definitely the best way to promote your content. The same day you publish an article, share it on your social media accounts.
You can also share older content, summaries and quotes that remind your customers of your products and services.
Networking:
Networks are very important for local businesses. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and social media makes things even easier. Start by joining local groups on linkedin and facebook. After that, start engaging on social media pages and groups that might be interested in your product.
Build relationships the same way you would in real life. Try to offer value, don't go in and try to sell. Build a relationship by linking, sharing and promoting other people's pages first.
Probably the fastest way to promote your content, advertising has enormous potential in the online world. Paid advertising allows you to address and reach specific user groups. Advertising is the fastest and safest way to get new visitors quickly.
(Local) company directories
You can also use local listing services for advertising purposes, e.g:
Google Mybusiness:
A must to make your online presence known on Google. It's a free tool that helps customers find your business via search or maps.
Tools that help you create content.
There are many online tools to help you create content. Here are some of our favorites:
Canva:
Canva is a free tool that allows you to create infographics, posters, banners and extensive image material. It's really easy to use and requires little to no experience.
GIPHY:
GIPHY helps you find and create gifs to provide more interactive content for your audience. GIFS are great for social media and they are really good for drawing attention to your products.
Survey Monkey:
With Survey Monkey you can create quizzes and surveys. You can use them to engage with your audience and get really useful feedback and information about your audience.
Wideo:
Wideo helps you to create video graphic content without much effort. This really is a revolutionary tool as videos used to be so difficult to produce.
Venngage:
Venngage is probably the best tool on the market for creating infographics without much effort.
Conclusion:
Content marketing offers you as a small or medium-sized company a great opportunity to present your company digitally and compete locally with larger brands. You increase sales, conversions and your brand awareness.
If you don't have a content marketing strategy yet, get started. If you have any questions, don't hesitate Contact us and we will be happy to answer you.
