Elokquentconsulting Blog, Content Marketing

Beat the Competition Using Content Marketing Strategy

My question to you – “How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors if there is no remarkable distinction between your offerings?”

selective focus photography of ace of spade playing card
Photo by jalil shams on Pexels.com

Let me start with this quote by Nancy Pearcey, “Competition is a good thing; it forces us to do our best.” Here, I will explain how content marketing strategy can help everyone, including small business owners, and individuals or professionals to beat the competition in this competitive world. 

And my aim for this article is to educate you and reinforce the importance of Content Marketing Strategy in several situations by giving examples.

First of all, what is a content marketing strategy?

Content marketing is a strategy to create and distribute valuable, and relevant content for the audience which helps them to trust you.

Content marketing strategy includes a variety of different tactics, such as blogging, webinars, podcasts, videos, articles, social media, and other types of content. And it’s one of the best ways to beat your competition. But don’t get me wrong here, it is not about creating and distributing just anything. This strategy is crafted after very detailed research of your business, competition, and customers.

Gone are those times when people and businesses used to work in silos and they will still get their due attention due to word of mouth. But now, the digital presence plays a crucial role in the success of a business, and content marketing is the new word of mouth. If people like what you are creating and find it entertaining or valuable, they will share it. And you can use content marketing to share information about yourself or your business and increase the value of your product or service, or your personal brand.

Content Marketing Strategy Benefits 

  • Content marketing strategy is a combination of various tools and techniques that help you establish yourself as a leader in your niche.
  • Content marketing is one of the most powerful strategies that help you stand out in the crowd. 
  • Content marketing helps you to make more sales, grow your business, and increase your brand awareness.
  • Content marketing can help you grow your business or your personal brand.

Content Marketing Strategy for Small Business

Now, customers even make a buying decision and even a purchase without even getting face-to-face with the sales team. Because people do online research about the business, their products, or services. 

As a small business, you can compete with your competition by creating a content marketing strategy that will ensure that your customers or audience notice you.

How Content Marketing Strategy can help to beat the competition for Small businesses?

Consider a case in which two or more businesses offer almost the same products or services at the same price, but one of them has been sharing valuable content about the product or service using its website and social media. 

And this content has helped the customer to learn about the product or service, which products/services to choose, and how it can help solve the problem customer is facing. This detailed information will help the customer to trust that business and more than likely the customer will make a purchase from the business which used its content marketing strategy to provide valuable content to the customer.

B2C Content Marketing Strategy Example 

Even if you are a business owner you might have realized the impact of Content Strategy on your decision as the Customer. One such example is when you make a purchase on Amazon and if two businesses are offering the same product at the same price. One of them has provided some pictures of the product, while the second one has provided the pictures of the product and additionally has provided a better product description, specifications, and details about product features. I would certainly buy from the one who has provided all the details. From which one you will buy? 

B2B Content Marketing Strategy Example

Consider two small service provider companies providing almost similar B2B technology solutions. Both of them have online tutorials, videos, case studies, demos, etc. But one of those companies, Company A, has prepared this content keeping its audience in mind, and in its content has tried to focus on the problem which its audience is facing. While the other, Company B, has created this content from its own business perspective. 

When they both pitch to a Business for their solutions, it will be easier for the Business to relate to Company A by checking the content and will help the Business to trust its offerings even if Company A is offering the solutions at a premium price than Company B.  Since Company A focused on an exceptional content marketing strategy, it can help Company A in closing this deal and several deals against Company B.

Why Personal Branding is important for professionals? 

In today’s digital world, it is important to have a personal brand to get noticed and gain job opportunities. Think about a situation, in which as a professional you are applying for a job. These days when a company has to hire someone, they even check the candidates’ social media and online presence. And make important hiring decisions on that basis.

How to create a Personal Brand?

A personal brand is the combination of your skills, experience, values, and experiences that can help you distinguish yourself from the crowd.

You (individuals) can create a personal brand by using a content marketing strategy and creating and sharing information about your field of expertise through social media or blogs. When prospective employers will search you online, they will find all this credible information about you. By doing this, you can make yourself more relevant to employers and improve your chances to get hired over several other candidates with similar experience as yours.

It is never too late to embark on your content marketing strategy journey but if you won’t then think about it that your competition has already started doing it!

Conclusion

Content marketing strategy is one of the best ways to beat your competition. It is a combination of various tools and techniques that help you establish yourself as a leader in your niche. It helps to build trust, engagement, and loyalty with your customers by providing valuable information that they can use to make decisions. 

This strategy helps you to drive traffic to your website, engage with your audience and generate leads for your business. Thus, content marketing helps you to make more sales, grow your business, and increase your brand awareness. 

What do you think, did I accomplish the aim that I set for this article, i.e. to educate you or reinforce the importance of Content Marketing Strategy?

Shruti Jindal
Shruti Jindal

Social Media Strategist and Content Marketing Expert. Help small business owners to reach their goals organically.

https://www.facebook.com/jindalzshruti/
Elokquentconsulting Blog, Content Marketing

Top 3 Reasons to Invest in organic content marketing before paid online advertising

Top 3 Reasons to Invest in Organic Content Marketing Before Paid Online Advertising

Are you a small business owner and thinking of investing in paid online advertising for your business? Or have you recently started to invest in paid online advertising? If so, then definitely read on as this article can save you some fortune and frustration.

Digital marketing is the lifeblood of any business. But not all digital strategies are created equal. In fact, there are two main ways to make your company more successful: paid marketing and organic content marketing. And here in this article, I will discuss why you should invest in organic content marketing before you plan to invest in online paid advertising.

First of all – what is paid online advertising?

Well, I am mentioning it as paid online advertising instead of paid advertising because back in the old days (and even now) businesses paid for advertising in the local paper or magazines. So, just to keep a clear distinction about what we are talking about here.

Paid online advertising is a marketing tool in which advertisers bid to basically drive more traffic to their website to increase their business. There are various types of paid online advertising, some of them are Social Media Ads, Display Ads, Search Engine Marketing, and Video Ads. 

But you have to be cautious with online paid advertising because if you don’t monitor your spending, it can become expensive very quickly. 

Are you aware how much you pay for online advertising every month?

Now, What is “organic” Content Marketing?

  • Content marketing is a free and organic way that can be used for building an audience of loyal customers.
  • The goal of content marketing is to create valuable, shareable content that people will want to read or watch.
  • Content marketing helps you attract more traffic by increasing your visibility in search engines and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc…

Are you getting a positive ROI?

Google and Facebook have become household names. But do you know that every year Google generates over 100 billion dollars through paid advertising and Facebook generates over 40 billion a year in revenue through paid advertising? 

Is your ROI positive?

But how many of you have already tried paid advertising for your business? If you answered yes, did you get a positive ROI? Are you ready to spend all your marketing budget on paid advertising year over year?

If you are like most small business owners or freelancers, I am assuming your answer to my questions is a “NO”.  

Problems and Solutions –

Here is what many of you might be dealing with paid online advertising and an organic marketing strategy solution to those concerns – 

1. Website – I’m paying for Search Engine Marketing – but where are the website visitors?

To refresh, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the most commonly used form of paid online advertising.

Businesses bid for keywords for various search engines so that their website can be displayed up in the Search Engine Page Result (SERP)

The best platforms for SEM are Google Adwords and Bing. 

To give you an idea of cost – the average cost of an advertisement on Google Ads (AdWords) is $2.32 per click on a search network.  And an average small business spends between $9,000-$10,000 per month on their online advertising campaigns on Google advertising. 

Simple maths – it’s a whopping $100,000 to $120,000 per year for paid online advertising. Wow…really!

You can also visit The Comprehensive Guide to Online Advertising Costs for detailed information about paid online advertising costs.

But some people including me prefer and trust organic listings more than paid ads. The reason for this is very plain and simple – because getting the ranking on search engines due to online advertisement doesn’t guarantee the quality of the business to us. 

For the same reason, such people might completely ignore the website in paid results until it is ranked organically too.

Therefore, even if as a business you will rank high on a page because you are willing to bid a high price for an advertisement is no indicator that people will click on the link.

Using SEO – Search Engine Optimization you can organically rank in search engine

In order to organically rank in search engines, you can use Search Engine Optimization

  • In which you optimize your content – your website copy and Blogs
  • Research your target audience and see what they want
  • Understand the terms and keywords they use to search for you / your business
  • Use those keywords and terms in your content in a meaningful way

This will improve your page’s visibility in the search results and will get the attention of your target and/or prospective customers.

2. Social media – I’m posting Ads on social media – where are my followers?

There are so many social media platforms these days – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora…etc.

74% of people use social media when making a purchasing decision.

And as a small business, if you start to advertise on all these social media, it will deplete your marketing budget in a few months if not in days. 

Let me explain by giving examples here –

Facebook has more than 1.4 billion daily active users, therefore it is one of the most preferred channels for any business to advertise. The average cost per click for online advertising on Facebook is $0.97. 

Can you take a moment to guess what is the average cost per click for paid advertising on Instagram? Hint – Instagram has a higher engagement rate than Facebook. 

So, if you have guessed around $3.50, bingo! you are right It’s $3.56, but for others – surprise surprise…

Check this article for more detailed information on Social Media advertising costs by platform.

So, think about a situation now that on one fine day a business owner decides to advertise on Facebook and Instagram. For that, they created an extraordinary ad for these social media channels for the target audience.  

The target audience also showed a fair amount of interest in the ad and visited the social media page of the business. But if the social media page is not engaging to the target audience, or is not updated, gone is their CPC (the cost-per-click)

Social Media Content Strategy

Therefore, it is extremely important for any business, especially a small business to maintain a remarkable social media presence where its target audience is. 


And the way to do it organically is to have a content strategy for social media.

  • Research your target audience
  • Create content that is of target audience’s interest – a non-promotional content 
  • Use easy language while focus on customer’s content experience
  • Post regularly on social media platforms

By following this routine, you may not even need to spend so frequently (or maybe ever) on social media ads. That’s some savings I see there! huh!

3. Competitions – I’ve got rich competitors; how can I compete? 

In any business, competition is inevitable. As a small business, you might have already faced competition from bigger players in the market. 

This competition gets even more fierce in the online arena. How much competition you are facing in online paid advertising depends on factors like location and industry. 

The big companies may have comparable products and services that you are offering as a small business, but one thing where it is difficult for you to compete with them is the marketing budget.

Therefore, for paid online advertising, the paid search becomes expensive for competitive queries – and it is very easy for big companies to outrun small businesses there.

And the solution to stay competitive is not by spending more money on paid online advertising but to create good content for your website and for your social media pages.

A well-crafted content marketing strategy earns your business a thought leader reputation, establishes a trust relationship with current and prospective customers, and in generating leads and revenue. 

Examples of Content Marketing are – Blogging, videos, webinars, ebooks, podcasts, graphics, content offers, infographics, whitepapers, etc.

Conclusion: 

Content marketing is the future of digital marketing. It’s where your customers are, and it’s a proven strategy for increasing conversions and driving revenue.  Investing in organic content marketing is an effective way to drive traffic to your website and build brand awareness. 

So, invest in an organic content marketing strategy first before you decide to invest in paid online advertising. But, if you are already investing in paid online advertising, and if it is generating a positive ROI for you then you should keep on investing in it. However, you should also explore content marketing to multiply that profit.  

What is your digital marketing strategy: organic content marketing or paid online advertising, don’t forget to mention this in the comment below? 

Start today by following @JindalzShruti on all social media for more information on how to get started with content marketing!