Content Marketing is one of the ways start up businesses can stand out and be noticed in the crowded market place. It involves communicating with a target audience by providing valuable information instead of offering a sales pitch.
It is sometimes called non interruption marketing,in which case the audience is willing to listen because it sees the business as an information provider not an interruption.

Content Marketing means consistently creating and distributing information that is valuable and relevant to your target audience as a small business. Content Marketing (if done rightly) is able to significantly boost the outcome of your overall marketing strategy as a small business causing sales to increase.

To achieve Effective Content Marketing it must be done consciously.

photo credit : www.venturebeat.com

Here are tips for effective content marketing

– Know your target audience,do a research to understand them.

-Make sure the content you are putting out aligns with your business objectives at every point in time. for instance ,if at a particular time you are focused on building a brand, community or driving sales ,devise the content to also achieve that.

– Put out content that serves a pivotal need within your target audience, your content should be valuable to your audience.

– Create content that suits your brand and serves your customers .

– Decide on the time and frequency with which you will be putting out content.

– Choose a platform that reaches your audience adequately.

– Decide on how much time and money you will be investing in content marketing.

–  Determine how you will measure the impact of content marketing,will it be handled within the company or contracted out?

– Be flexible , based on feedback and certain changes you might tweak your strategy.

Benefits and tools of content marketing will be discussed in a follow up post