The Basics of Content Marketing for Solopreneurs

Are you familiar with the phrase “content marketing”?

Do you know why you should include it in your marketing strategy? Or how you can use it to grow your business?

In this post I’ll outline what content marketing is and share some tips for developing a content marketing strategy.

What is Content Marketing?

In the pre-digital era, your potential customers would find you in the yellow pages, or happen to see your print advertising or flyers. These marketing methods were expensive and labour-intensive.

These days potential customers can search for us from across the globe, using a device they carry in their pockets. As a business owner, you want to make sure you’re at the top of their search results. That’s where content marketing comes in.

“Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” – Content Marketing Institute

So content marketing covers any type of content you create, publish and promote for the purpose of generating interest in your products or services.

There are three basic steps in content marketing.

1. Create valuable content
2. Consistently share your content with your audience
3. Invite your audience to take action

Why is Content Marketing Important for Solopreneurs?

High Return on Investment

Compared to other forms of marketing (e.g. paid advertising) content marketing can generate results over the long-term. For example, you could write a blog post for free (excluding your time) which can bring traffic to your website for years. In comparison, a paid media campaign may only give you an uplift for the duration of the campaign.

Content Helps with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engines love fresh, high-quality content. Creating interesting, engaging and keyword rich content that addresses your target audience’s questions, will help with your search engine rankings.

Avoid keyword stuffing because it’s near impossible to outsmart the algorithims. If you keep your human audience top of mind then your content will be more consumable.

Remember to also pay attention to formating, headlines, headings, sub-headings. They are all elements being crawled and tagged by search engines.

Content Helps You Stand Out from the Crowd

In a sea of websites, it’s tough to stand out. Injecting your personality and perspective into your content can set you apart from the competition.

Content Helps You Build Relationships with Customers

Content is a great way to connect with your customers. By providing valuable information and insights, you can help build trust and credibility with your audience. And when they trust you, they’re more likely to do business with you.

Types of Content

There are so many options when it comes to content, below is a list of examples.

• Blog posts
• Email
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Reports
• Webinars
• Whitepapers
• E-books
• Checklists
• Quizzes
• Apps
• Courses

It can become very time-consuming and overwhelming to try and produce all these formats. My recommendation especially when first implementing content marketing, is to evaluate formats according to the following factors:

• Time available to create
• Your natural talents and preferences
• Resources needed

Choose the easiest options for you. For example, I prefer writing over producing videos, so have chosen to focus on my blog. But I could use my blogs at a later date to create videos.

‘Content is King’

In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an article entitled ‘Content is King’ where he predicted:

“One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC and a modem can publish whatever content they can create. In a sense, the Internet is the multimedia equivalent of the photocopier. It allows material to be duplicated at low cost, no matter the size of the audience.” – Bill Gates

26 years later, content has become a crucial part of digital marketing. Are you willing to invest some time into your content marketing strategy?

Where to Start

1. Define your audience
2. Develop a content marketing plan
3. Brainstorm content ideas that will educate, inform or entertain your audience
4. Systemise your content creation process
5. Create your content
6. Share your content

Want more information?

This is a brief overview of content marketing and I will be delving deeper into the topic in future posts. Sign up to my mailing list for updates.

If you’re ready to create your content marketing plan, but need some help book a free 30minute chat.

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