Content Marketing for Entrepreneurs in 2021

Authors : Mélissa Whitton and Vincent Déry

April 28, 2021

As technology evolves, so are customers’ expectations. A beautiful and colorful ad is no longer enough to generate qualified leads. Today's buyers are curious, educated, and independent. Before they purchase from you, they need to be able to trust you.

That’s one of the reasons why content marketing is so relevant. But a “Happy Friday!” on Facebook doesn’t count as quality content – it’s not that simple!

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and sharing of corporate content in a variety of formats (visuals, infographics, videos, tutorials, blog posts, social media posts, newsletters) to generate interest in a product or service.

The goal is to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, drive profitable customer action Content Marketing institute.

Content marketing is part of an inbound marketing strategy. It’s about producing useful content by always keeping the consumer’s intent in mind. This approach is softer than traditional marketing; people slowly get to know and trust you.

Content marketing is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

Your content will continue to pay off day after day, year after year. With the right keywords for your business, search engines will eventually recognize and prioritize you. This is unlike Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads, which will only bring results when you invest money.

In addition, this type of marketing overcomes several obstacles such as ad blockers and algorithms. Instead, it focuses on creating written and visual content that have authentic value to people. It doesn’t feel like marketing – and that’s why it’s so effective!

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The benefits for entrepreneurs

We took the time to write this blog post because we truly believe that this strategy is valuable for any business that wants to stand out.

Useful and consistent content marketing will:

  • Generate new leads
  • Improve search engine optimization (SEO) to rank higher in Google search results, which means more traffic on your website
  • Help potential customers understand what you offer as products or services
  • Increase brand awareness

 

Gain loyal ambassadors for your brand and products

Before you start writing

If you want people to follow your business on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter), blog or newsletter, they need to see value-added content. They’ll appreciate the sharing of relevant information, and slowly but surely, you’ll gain their trust.

 

As an entrepreneur, you need to establish a solid foundation before developing your content strategy: 

 

1.   Have a branding to differentiate yourself and stand out from the crowd.  

2.   Define your best customer. If you haven’t done a buyer persona yet, it’s time to get started! 

3.   Once your best customer is defined, get to know them really well. But most importantly, understand their needs and what they’re looking for.  

4.   Next, find your value proposition. Your products or services may look nice, but what need do they fill or what added benefit do they provide for your customers? 

 

Now that you have solid foundations, the content creation strategy can begin!

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How to plan your content marketing

1. Establish goals

Content creation should be driven by your business goals. What do you wish to achieve by talking to your customers and prospects?

2. Define your strategy

Where is this sought-after potential customer? On what platforms? How do I get their attention? What language should I use? How do I convert him or her into a prospect?

There are so many questions to ask in order to establish a strategy that makes sense for your business. For example, if I were a portfolio manager, I wouldn’t post a financial report on Instagram.

3. Earn their trust

Once the ways to reach your target audience are established, they need access to relevant and useful content to learn to like and eventually trust you.

  • Show that you’re the expert! Showcase your expertise and experience. Educate your audience.
  • Show that you understand the challenges or problems of your target audience by providing them with concrete solutions.
  • Use storytelling to tell your company’s story and create emotion for your target audience.
  • Show the value that your products or services can bring them.
  • Regularly remind them of what you do or sell as a company. Don’t assume that everyone knows you well.

4. Be consistent

Consistency is key on all levels: branding, frequency of posting, tone, etc. Be persistent and post regularly. With a solid online presence, you’ll be top of mind when your prospect is ready to become a customer!

5. Measure key performance indicators (KPIs)

Like any good marketing strategy, your content marketing campaign must have clearly defined and measurable objectives.

 

Once the objectives are established, KPIs allow you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and their progress. This way, you’ll be able to see what type of content works best with your audience!

Some concrete examples:

Calculating the return on investment (ROI)

As an entrepreneur, you’re probably thinking: “that all sounds very nice, but what’s my return on investment going to be?” Because even if you do it yourself, creating content costs something!

The calculation of the return on investment (ROI) is based on three main elements:

1. The content

The first element is to look at your initial investment in terms of money (i.e. licensing of photos, videos and music), but also in terms of time and human resources. Thoughtful content creation takes time and energy. It consists of analyzing competitors, establishing a strategy, creating written content, creating visuals and videos, interacting regularly with your audience, etc.

2. Performance

Then, like any good marketing initiative, you need to analyze performance on a regular basis so that you can constantly optimize your content. How do your audience or subscribers react to the information you publish? Are you able to track performance in terms of engagement, new leads, new sales, or new customers? These metrics will help determine what type of content is beneficial to your business.

3. Long-term benefits

Depending on your type of business, you may not be able to see the impact of your content in the short term. But it is likely that you will see longer term relevance through consistent publishing. From an organic search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, impacts can take 6 to 12 months to show up.

In conclusion

To conclude, we want to tell you that there is no miracle recipe. Content creation takes time, research and a lot of effort.

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If you lack the time or inspiration, contact us, we’ll be happy to help!

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