20 Reasons Content Marketing is essential for smarter Start-ups

INTRODUCTION:

The start-up world is all about becoming and staying a lean, mean, revenue generating machine. Are you looking for a strategy that will help you retain and engage your existing client base, while gaining the edge you need in your Internet marketing, and keeping your sales funnel flowing by maximizing your lead generation?

Then you need to step into the future of online marketing- where it’s all about content.  As a start-up, you have very little to lose when it comes to content marketing and so much to gain:  you’ll develop a loyal and passionate following of educated buyers who will be repeat customers and a reliable source of referrals, and increase your ROI.  In order to develop the best content marketing campaign for your start-up, begin by fleshing out a few elements of your sales approach. 

• Who is your target audience? 
• What kind/s of content best speaks to your target audience? 
• When do you plan to deliver your content? 
• Where are you going to focus your content marketing efforts? 

1. Who is your target audience? 

   • This is the first question I ask because it’s the most critical.  Content marketing is dependent on knowing your buyer.  Once you know who your buyer is, you can begin to engage with them and educate them in ways they’ll enjoy and expect
   • For a typical use case scenario, let’s look at my friend Roger. He’s an investment guru specializing in trading via mobile apps. He added a survey to his monthly e-newsletter and analyzed the results to land on his target demographic of buyers- a male between the ages of 25-39 who uses an iPhone and already has some sort of investment knowledge. 

2. What kind/s of content best speaks to your target audience? 

   • Here’s where you’ll get to know your target audience even further. Would Roger’s buyer be visiting Cosmopolitan.com? Probably not- so he wouldn’t try to publish a column on that website. But Forbes.com? That sounds pretty likely. Roger can send in a guest column on how to get the most out of mobile trading and watch his buyer engagement skyrocket.  

   • When it comes to lead generation, you’ll really want to study the analytics. Maybe you’re getting a ton of leads from YouTube and Vine, but barely any via Twitter and Facebook.  Looks like your audience is big on video. 

3. When do you plan to deliver your content? 

   • Be realistic about your answer here. In content marketing, more than any other type of online marketing, consistency is key.  So if you don’t have time to generate unique content on a regular basis, you’ll want to hire someone who does.  Here’s where an agency like Synx can be especially helpful- and an agency can also assist you with creating a content generation calendar that you’ll find extraordinarily instrumental.  

   • Roger pulled in a B2B marketing agency solely dedicated to social media and lead generation so that he could focus on thought leadership- things like webinars, whitepapers, and ebooks. 

      

4. Where are you going to focus your content marketing efforts? 

    

   • Take note of your demographic and where they spend their time. If your buyer, like Roger’s, is all about mobile, you will want to leverage content they can easily consume via a phone or tablet. Aiming for a demographic that’s hungry for information to print out and distribute? You might want to invest in infographics or eBooks. 

Create Meaningful Relationships with Buyers and Evolve Your Marketing Strategy

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 Image Credit - Richard Branson