Effective content marketing for startups
Effective digital marketing involves making sure your brand is always in front of your customer, right? Not at all, because that will have the same effect as being in someone’s face 24x7. They will soon lose interest. This is why marketing your brand is a holistic endeavour. In addition to explicitly marketing your brand, you also need to generate customer interest in the domain in which your business operates. Content marketing is the best way to make this happen, especially if you are a startup operating in an unexplored area.
Content marketing for startups is important because it generates consumer interest in its products/services while ensuring that it doesn’t suffer from the “familiarity breeds contempt” phenomenon. Click To Tweet
So, what does content marketing really mean? In simple terms, it involves creating and sharing content (graphics, videos, blog posts) online that talks about your products or services without explicitly mentioning your brand or company. It also involves sharing content relevant to your business like newsletters, whitepapers etc. This establishes your company as an expert in the area, thus creating a positive perception in the minds of your target customers. This makes it easier to pitch your product/service to them. When a brand with a positive image then advertises its own services, it becomes easier to generate leads as the customer is then more likely to engage with the brand. The reason this works better for startups (as compared to well-established companies) is that there is no pre-existing image of a startup in the customer’s minds, which gives them a clean slate to start with.
The beauty of content marketing is that it can be applied equally effectively in all stages of the sales cycle. This needs tweaking your content and strategy appropriately.
For a startup, the content strategy can be typically implemented as follows:
In the first stage, i.e: the awareness stage, the content should focus on the existing pain points of the customers. This ensures that they will be drawn to the content and will be more likely to engage with the content. Typically, content at this stage will be educational or advisory and in the form of blog posts, videos etc.
The next stage, i.e: the consideration stage is when the marketing element is introduced into the content. Here, the content not only talks about the concerns but also about how the product/service can help address them. This is more geared towards what features or functionality should the user look out for, thus subtly guiding them towards your offerings. Content at this stage can include case studies, videos, how-to guides etc.
The last stage, i.e: the closing stage is when you talk solely about your product/service and how exactly you are the best choice as compared to your competitors (if any). If you are the only company in that domain, you should talk about how your product relieves the customer’s concerns and lets them focus on other areas of their life/business. Materials like detailed case studies, research papers etc. can be used to drive home your message.
While quite effective, content marketing is not a magic pill and requires careful consideration. Some of the steps to start off with it are as follows:
1. Identify your target audience correctly. This might also include determining what are the typical profiles of your target customer, along with their key concerns, priorities and challenges faced by them.
2. Up next is deciding the type of content to be created. Depending on the type of audience and the stage of the sales cycle for which the content is being prepared, you can choose the appropriate format.
3. Prepare the content. This is probably the most time-consuming and vital step of the entire process. You will need to ensure that the content is correct, concise and appealing.
4. Create a content distribution schedule. Depending on the industry the startup is operating in, the velocity of distribution will change. For consumer-oriented products, the schedule will be smaller while it might be longer for enterprise-oriented products/services. It will largely be influenced by how long the sales cycle is.
The best way to get started with content marketing is to employ an experienced digital marketing agency which will understand your business, conduct proper research about the target audience, come up with an effective content marketing strategy and execute it as per plan. It will also monitor the ROI on the execution and tweak it accordingly to maximise your returns.