Build Your Blog, Build Your Business – How Content Marketing Boosts Your Bottom Line

A content marketing campaign can generate higher sales revenue for your product or service than a traditional marketing campaign can and it’s less expensive. For this to happen, you need to make smart content marketing choices. Each content piece that you attach your name to and put out into the world will determine how your target audience, potential clients and the competition view you. As they read the content that you write, a subjective opinion of who you are as a person and a business professional begins to form. Your content marketing campaign serves as the first impression you make, and it can determine whether or not someone does business with you or moves on to your competitor instead. Here are some tips to help you generate a strong content marketing game that positively impacts your bottom line. Selecting Your Social Media Channels Social media is a broad platform that includes different channels running in independent directions at the same time. No two social media channels are alike, although they may appear similar, there are distinct differences to each one. Determining which social media channel you should run a content marketing campaign on is overwhelming. Start by gaining an understanding of where your target audience spends most of their time. You also need to have an idea of the purpose each channel has in the social media world. Take a look at the following information.

• Facebook - A great platform for customer engagement through posts, pictures and sharing relevant content.

• Twitter - A great platform for customer service, reaching out to clients and forming relationships with potential clients.

• Google + - A great platform to host video chats as a means of audience engagement.

• Pinterest - A great platform to introduce new products and services to your audience.

• Instagram - A great platform to share behind the scene looks into your product or service production and business operations.

• LinkedIn - A great platform to connect with other businesses in your industry and monitor the competition

Pick one or two of these platforms as the starting point for your content marketing campaign. Remember to be social and interact with customers, potential customers and industry members as much as possible. Being social works towards establishing the trust that leads to future sales transactions down the road. Find Your Natural Tone Words on a page can reveal how a writer feels about a particular topic and sends a message to readers that can be positive or negative. Before you write one word of content, you must think about how to best represent the voice of your company in that content. Coming off in a seemingly negative tone about a topic will work against you. Instead of building trust and authority on a topic, readers will view you, and your company, as unapproachable. Consumers will not spend money on a product or service that comes from an unapproachable business. When finding your natural tone, you also need to be aware of the social media platform you are sharing the content on as well. A post to Facebook that is informative yet casual and includes a funny quote or image will not have the same warm reception on LinkedIn. A picture with a humorous caption on Instagram will not be quite as funny on Pinterest. You need always to be conscious of the tone your content pieces present and where those pieces are going once you upload the documents. Know What to Share The essential ingredient to a content marketing campaign is sharing what you know as a means to start a conversation. You are looking to establish your authority in the industry by showing that you understand what you are talking about inside and out. Your content needs to focus on the issues, problems, and other relevant situations facing your industry. Content marketing is not about making a sale or bombarding customers with sales pitches. It’s about gaining trust, establishing a knowledgeable presence and allowing potential clients to come to you on their terms. Do this by writing content pieces for your website blog or post a video on YouTube showing how your product works to solve a popular problem. Spend time in relevant groups on LinkedIn or Google + to learn your target audience’s frustrations and then offer a solution or two. Take a look at this invaluable resource that can help you unlock the power of content marketing and make it start working for you today!   Know When to Share Approach your content marketing campaign as you would any other business activity and have a plan in place before it begins. Jumping on Twitter in the afternoon to share a link to your latest blog post will produce fewer engagement results than preparing that post for an optimal time of day. Each social media channel has an ideal time to engage in the activity. Choosing to go against this timetable or posting too much information in a short amount of time could cost you future sales. Potential customers will view you as intrusive and ignore your random posts. Each random posts that a viewer scrolls by without stopping to read are equivalent to a lost sale and less income for your bottom line. Here is some beneficial information to creating your content posting schedule.

• Time of Year - Share content centering upcoming holidays or celebrations or periods of change, such as tax season, to gain your audience’s attention.

• Event Participation - Attending an event that is popular within your industry is a great opportunity to share content covering what you learn, who you met and how your company participated will be of interest to your readers.

• Influencers - Find people within your industry that inspire and motivate you to achieve more with your business. Set-up interviews with these individuals and share the content with your readers.

Choose other time-sensitive events that are relevant to your industry and center your content on those items. Create a content calendar and keep it close at hand so you can make adjustments as you need throughout the year. Consider taking a free online course, such as one offered by Copywriter Today, to develop your content marketing skills. By continuing your marketing education, you can maintain a competitive advantage in your industry and add value to your brand at the same time. Maintain a Personable Approach Planning and creating content schedules will only take your content marketing campaign so far. You need to maintain a personable approach so customers know they can come to you when singing your praises just as easily as they can when something bad happens. Be present in the content that you are sharing and receptive to feedback from customers, potential customers and other individuals who are taking the time to read your posts. Starting a conversation with your target market audience is the focus of your content marketing campaign in the first place. The element of ‘human interaction’ is what many of your competitors shy away from when doing business. Taking a few minutes out of your day to engage in conversation and show your target audience that there is a real person behind the technological activity can positively impact your bottom line. Your engagement doesn’t need to be an extensive task. Here are a few simple yet effective ways to engage with your audience.

• Say ‘thank you’ when someone retweets your original tweet on Twitter
• Make a complimentary comment on a person’s Facebook page when they share your recent post with their audience.
• Offer a ‘congratulations’ on a recent business success when someone likes your post on LinkedIn.

These small responses on your part will stay with a customer down the road when facing a choice between yourself and your competition. Your friendly, personable nature will win that battle every time. Be Trustworthy Make every content post that you create work towards showing customers that placing their trust in you is not a wrong decision. When your content piece presents an offer to your target audience, honor it with no exceptions. If you have a customer issue that doesn’t have an immediate solution, post regular content illustrating how you are working to find a solution. For problems that you are unable to fix, direct customers to someone in the industry who can resolve the issue. Staying true to the words that you write in your content pieces shows customers and potential clients that you are a source of trust. People will place their money on a trustable source over impersonal, unreliable competitors every time. By creating a content driven marketing campaign, you can share personal knowledge of your business industry. As you share your expertise, consumers and potential clients begin to see you as an authority figure. You become the only option to solve a problem or fulfill a desire they have, and they begin to trust you. The more trust they have in your, the more likely they are to make a purchase of your product or service. That purchase works towards boosting your bottom line, and you stand a good chance of turning a customer into a permanent fixture in your business.