The whole idea of content marketing is to drive awareness, engage people and influence their purchase decision, no matter whether you’re a startup or an already established business.
If done in right manner, content marketing can work wonders for you, bringing incredible name and fame to your business. However, there is one downside of it – how to drive people to your page and make them read your content. Unfortunately, driving the right kind of traffic to your online space takes time and in today’s cut throat competition, it may take longer than you can imagine.
What to do in such a case? How to let people know that you would soon be launching a startup or have already launched a new company? How to make people aware of your business? You can’t wait for long especially when you intend to make a living out of it.
You can opt for paid traffic services.
But then, it may not serve as a good option for a cash-strapped startup. How to face the challenge and come up with something that is within your budget and produces good results?
Leverage Social Media
Start building networks on social media and begin to distribute content that people love to read. However, be careful. It shouldn’t look like as if you’re advertising or promoting something. Simply start a conversation and engage them in discussions.
You can overcome the challenge to drive awareness among people by creating networks on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other similar platforms. The way to converse may vary from platform to platform where the theme can remain the same. As these are different types of social networking platforms, you need to feed the people in your networks differently.
Leveraging social media, you can quickly find out how people respond to what. You cannot only quickly distribute the content but also analyze their response. You can generate required exposure by asking for comments and re-tweets from your friends.
Yes, it may also take long but then, it’s far more cost-effective than paid traffic services. Plus, you get to know your target audience personally.
Be Prepared to Keep a Good Supply of Info
If your content is great and goes viral, you can quickly experience a sharp spike in your website traffic. A portion of them may subscribe for your newsletter; so keep it handy and well supplied with the precise info.
Some will want to keep detailed knowledge of your launch; so be ready to furnish them with appropriate info at the right time or as and when they need. While building networks, you will also have to take care of these things simultaneously so that your readers are not disappointed.
If you don’t see much traffic through your social media efforts, to keep the ball rolling, participate in online forums, write guest blog posts, publish press releases, create podcasts, photo galleries and slideshows.
Stop and Assess
Don’t just keep putting efforts in generating and publishing content. Stop for some time and analyze the results. Check out what platform is working well for you and intensify your efforts on it. On the other hand, you may also stop contributing to the platforms that are generating no results and drop them for the time being.
Take time to see what types of stories or conversations are popular among your audience. Use this info as a clue for determining what kind of info people want to consume.
Create an Editorial Calendar
Once you know what goes well with people, create an editorial calendar even if you have not launched your startup. Ask your friends to submit guest posts or involve your potential staff members to churn out the content.
I’m sure you don’t want to spend your entire time in just writing. So, produce small posts or comments or tweets that take less time and do well.
Build How-To’s
Have you seen those complicated manuals of products and services, which are beyond the understanding of a non-technical or amateur/first time user? Don’t commit such mistakes.
In fact, build simple how-to’s with infographics so that people read as well as see how to fix something or use a specific product. If you’re selling services, give them the examples from their daily lives so that they can relate to it.
You can always expedite your content marketing efforts depending upon your budget and current online status. However, the above ones are cost-effective and help you know your target audience better.