An issue many entrepreneurs face is believing that they’re either not creatively minded, or that the industry they work in is boring. When you spend every day in your industry, it can sometimes be difficult to understand what content you should be spending your energy producing to best attract your audience.
Hub Australia, a coworking provider, plays host to an extremely diverse network of businesses . – from graphic designers to lawyers and architects, and everything in between.
There are two common questions that seem to come up time and time again by entrepreneurs and small business owners, regardless of the industry:
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How do I make what I do sound interesting?
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How do I continue to come up with engaging content for my website?
Regardless of your industry, content marketing should always be treated as an essential part of every marketing strategy.
Many business owners believe they’re not creative enough, or operate in a ‘boring’ industry that nobody externally, even target customers, will want to read about.
Understand Your Target Audience
This may seem obvious, but the more energy you spend fully understanding your target customer’s demographics and profile, the less amount of time (and ultimately money) you’ll waste while you’re developing and executing marketing strategies.
Learn what questions your target audience is asking, what attitudes they have towards certain topics and how they need your help.
From here you can create content around their questions, showing yourself as a thought leader within their industry by commenting on topics you know they have an interest in and identify how your services can alleviate the pains their currently facing.
Read more: 5 Copywriting Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Business
Learn Their Online Habits
Understanding what platforms your audience are using, how they are using it, and what time they are actively engaging with content is extremely important.
Free tools allow you to pinpoint when your followers are most active on social media, when they are most likely to engage with your content, what their most discussed topics are and ultimately provide you with the data needed to set the foundations of your content strategy.
Resolve Problems and Provide Answers
Research what problems your clients are experiencing, and see if you can find questions often asked in your industry both on forums and social media sites. An easy way to do this is set up a Google alert to notify you about trending topics.
Once you have pinpointed these topics, problems, or questions you can then begin to think about how you can answer them in the most engaging way. Don’t always assume that content marketing has to be a written blog post – it could be a video, podcast, live interactive session, or social media posts.
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Demonstrate your Passion
Go back to the roots of when you started your business.
What were those key drivers that made you want to spend your time in this industry?
Showing your passion to your target audience is possibly the easiest content generator – discuss what motivated you then, what motivates you now, and the impact you want to make. This not only showcases your experience but also adds credibility to your business, creates emotional connections, and reinforces your brand.
Tell Stories
All content is essentially storytelling.
Share customer success stories, expert interviews, case studies, reviews, and inspiring real-life examples.
Focus on showing your customers how you have helped others and how you can help them, rather than writing pure sales pitches telling them they need your services. Many consumers won’t know they need something purely because they aren’t aware that it exists, and likely won’t respond to a demanding call to action. It is your job to educate your audience on what your service is, what their needs are, and how you can solve that issue.
Ask your clients what problems you help solve for them to establish how that has impact on their businesses – using real-life examples with tangible data or feedback resonates with your target audience, providing them with something they can relate to and identify with.
Trial, Analyse and Modify
Most people aren’t marketing specialists. You should get into the habit of testing various forms of content that you believe will be engaging for your target audience, and monitor the engagement they receive.
Regularly revisit the performance of your on-site content, social media posts, ads, email campaigns and any other content marketing activities on the go that you can see data for.
Focus on what content receives the most engagement, and on which platforms.
Your audiences dictate where you should be distributing – whatever platform works for your audience, utilise it. When it comes to creating more, invest time in researching your competitors, see what they have done in the past and take inspiration on how you could improve your own content.
Read more: Want to Grow Your Business? Get the Basics!
Don’t be Afraid to Call in a Content Marketing Expert
If you have it in your budget, don’t hesitate to consult with an expert in content marketing so you can have a solid groundwork from the get-go. Learning from those who work full-time in the field can give you an opportunity to ask questions and understand more fully what you can be doing to help you use the best content marketing for your business.
Coworking spaces are home to motivated, growing businesses – Hub Australia has over 1500 members in it’s community, all able to connect with each other through their amazing Community Leads, ready to connect like-minded businesses to each other. Hub Australia also has an exclusive member portal, allowing members to find others in their community who have skills that can help them grow their own business, building mutually beneficial relationships.
