United States
Updated: July 11th, 2023
Over the last decade, content marketing has become an essential component of a strong business marketing plan. If you haven’t tried content marketing yet—or if you want to ramp up your content marketing efforts—it’s not too late to make an impact.
Below, we’re sharing everything you need to know about content marketing, including what it is, why it’s effective, and step-by-step guidance on how to build a content marketing strategy that works for your small business.
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of different types of content to attract customers and convert leads. A successful content marketing strategy helps increase traffic to your website, improve customer engagement and loyalty, grow your customer base, and generate more sales.
Creating content can take many forms—such as blog posts, videos, and infographics—and content marketing can happen on a handful of different platforms, from your business’s website and social media accounts to digital and print publications, podcasts, and apps.
Unlike traditional advertisements, which often feel one-sided, content marketing offers the opportunity for interaction. Content marketing is something people can read, watch, learn from, engage with, and share with others.
According to recent data from MediaFly, content marketing consumption is way up, with the average number of views per piece of content shared increasing 207% during the pandemic.
While ads are great for short-term projects and immediate results, content marketing is more of a long game. Each piece of content marketing is like a brick in your business’s marketing foundation, making your base stronger and stronger.
Content marketing is as much an opportunity to promote your brand as it is to forge a stronger customer connection. You can use a content marketing strategy to:
One of the main selling points of content marketing is how versatile it is. In a strong content strategy, you can create a wide array of content, tailor it to your business specialty and customer needs, and distribute it on a handful of different platforms.
Depending on your offerings and brand, you might want to release authoritative white papers and ebooks on niche subjects or lean into interactive polls and behind-the-scenes videos on TikTok and Instagram.
Here are three types of content marketing, plus content marketing examples of the different formats your content can take:
This includes anything you post on your business’s own website or send from your business (like email). Content marketing examples include landing pages, blog content, case studies, ebooks, webinars, video tutorials, and downloadable PDFs. With the right execution, website content marketing can bring more traffic to your site, build brand awareness, increase your business’s visibility in search engines, and turn leads into paying customers.
This refers to content you post on social media; some content marketing examples of this type include infographics, images, live stream videos, pre-recorded videos, and interactive polls. Like website content marketing, social media content marketing is a good way to convert leads, attract new customers, and bring more potential customers to your business’s site.
External content marketing is when you create and publish content on other business’s websites. Content marketing examples in this area can be found in digital or print publications, paid ads, or podcasts and apps. External content marketing helps you get in front of new audiences, expanding your reach and building brand awareness.
Because content marketing strategies have a lot of different applications, it can be tricky to know where to start. According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Trends 2022 report, the top five media formats used in online content marketing (in order from one to five) are videos, blogs, images, infographics, and case studies. Meanwhile, short-form video formats like TikToks and Instagram Reels are growing the fastest.
Here are some content marketing examples for each different format:
Content marketing examples include live Q&A videos, product or service demos, video tutorials, brand videos, user generated content, behind-the-scenes videos, and short-form videos jumping on TikTok trends or sharing memes to reach your target audience. If you own a bakery, for example, your content marketing might be an at-home cooking tutorial your customers can learn from or share a behind-the-scenes video of how a croissant gets made.
You can write lists, how-to articles, FAQ-style pieces, educational guides, product spotlights, business announcements, or news updates. If you run a dentistry practice, for example, you might want to create an individual blog post for each frequently asked question you answer regularly, like “Why do you need to get your teeth cleaned twice a year?” and “What are the daily habits that create good dental hygiene?”
For this kind of content marketing, you can create and share brand photos, product images, behind-the-scenes photos, memes, reminders, seasonal images, quote-based images, user-generated content, stock photos, and business announcements. If you operate an online ecommerce store that sells jewelry, for example, your content marketing could include post up-close product photos as well as user-generated photos of customers wearing your pieces.
You can produce checklist infographics, how-to infographics, statistics-based infographics, comparison infographics, flowchart infographics, or timeline infographics. For example, if you own a residential pest control company, your content marketing could include an infographic breaking down the most common pest infestations and how to prevent and solve each one.
Case studies, also called customer stories, are a great way to demonstrate your business’s value in a concrete way. In this kind of content marketing, businesses can create problem-solution case studies (showing how your business solved a unique customer problem), storytelling case studies (where you spotlight a customer and share their story, tying in your business along the way), or service case studies (where you share a customer’s story and extract tips from them to share with other customers).
As with any strategy development, building out a strong content marketing strategy plan takes time, focus, and experimentation. However, with such a low barrier to entry, the good news is that you can get started at any time.
Follow these eight steps to build a content marketing strategy plan for your business:
Take some time to reflect on what you want to achieve with your content marketing strategy. Do you want to reach new customer demographics? Convert more of your leads? Improve loyalty with existing customers? Garner more sales?
Your objectives will dictate the direction of your online content marketing and the metrics you track.
The easiest way to create compelling content marketing is to rely on your expertise. Consider your industry, business model, and offerings. What are you most knowledgeable in? What unique perspective or products can your business offer? What kind of helpful content could you create?
Defining your business’s expertise helps you determine which content marketing formats to use and which messages matter to your target audience.
Here’s just one content marketing example: if you specialize in residential lawn care for homes located in the Midwest, you might want to focus on educational blog posts and easily digestible how-to infographics.
On the other hand, if you make trendy T-shirts and bags for Gen-Z consumers, you may want to lean into interactive Instagram polls and downloadable shopping guides for your content marketing strategy.
The next piece of the puzzle is your target audience, which should include both current and potential customers. What are their wants, problems, and interests? Which questions are they asking online and where do they spend their time?
Revisit the market analysis section of your business plan, then conduct some up-to-date research on your target demographic.
Not only does relevant market data give you ideas for what type of content marketing to create, it also helps you figure out how to effectively relay your information to your target audience, and on which platforms to do it.
Before you begin creating a content marketing strategy, make sure to review your budget and digital marketing resources to ensure you have enough funds, content marketing channels, and people power to execute your plans.
Beyond just the creation phase, consider how much time and money will go into brainstorming and planning, publishing and distribution—not to mention sharing and promoting your content marketing.
If someone on your team is a skilled copywriter, graphic designer, or video editor, you’re already one step ahead. However, if you don’t have the internal skills or bandwidth necessary to create the content you want, you may need to invest in hiring an content marketing services expert.
Lay the foundation for your content marketing efforts by fine-tuning some of your backend operations. It’s a good idea to:
Choosing one content marketing type and format to start can help prevent overwhelm—and maximize your chances of success. From there, you can break down the content marketing techniques necessary to achieve the goals of your content marketing strategy.
Let’s say you want to create a blog for your business. Your first step in your content creation process might be planning out the blog’s theme and relevant content, consulting with your web designer about blog hosting, and developing a blog homepage that’s cohesive with your brand. From there, you’ll want to brainstorm a list of initial blog post topics, research capable writers, and review best SEO practices.
If you decide to create video content on your social media posts, you could start your social media strategy by consulting with your social media manager (or hiring an external social media expert if you don’t have one), then brainstorming different video content formats and ideas. From there, you may want to research video editors to ensure high-quality content.
After creating content and deciding where it will live (like your website or Instagram page, for example), it’s time to distribute and promote it. Distributing content might involve posting about it on all your social media platforms, linking to it on your website, sending it out via email, promoting it via paid ads, and sending it to business partners or influencers to promote—or all of the above.
It’s important to track and measure your content marketing strategy results, so you know what to change and improve upon going forward.
Depending on your original content marketing strategy goals and the platform you use, you may want to track any of the following KPIs:
The content marketing strategy that works for your business depends on your customers and brand, but in general, people respond to content that’s original, helpful, and relatable.
Here are some tips for achieving the right message and tone in your content strategy:
The right content marketing tools and resources can help you facilitate your plans and grow your knowledge. Here are some to consider:
If you need extra cash to invest in an effective content marketing strategy or hire a marketing expert, Funding Circle can help.
Our business term loans give you upfront cash at an affordable interest rate, and our business lines of credit offer flexible small business financing whenever you need it.
Plus, funding is fast—if you’re approved, you can get money in your accounts in just a few days and start your content marketing plan fast. Learn more about our options
Paige Smith is a content marketing writer who specializes in writing about the intersection of business, finance, and tech. Paige regularly writes for a number of B2B industry leaders, including fintech companies, small business lenders, and business credit resource sites.
Get our latest news and information on business finance, management and growth.
