As a small manufacturer, you probably hear it all the time from marketing consultants, “You need to get started with content marketing.”
You’ve probably landed on my blog because you’re now looking for advice and insight on the value of content marketing. You want to make sure that how content marketing – an additional marketing expense – will help your business.
I don’t blame you! I see it too often where content marketers don’t understand manufacturing companies are not coaches, fitness instructor or wellness experts – who can write content on feel-good subjects or personal musings of the day – and make a sale.
But let’s stay on this point for a moment. The ease in which a blog post can be written for a B2C company while not giving away competitive intelligence is brilliant. What can small B2B companies take from this for their content marketing program? It shouldn’t be complicated.
Let’s clarify a few things about content marketing:
- Content is king for Google
- Quality content doesn’t mean boring content
- Keyword rich content will optimise your site, not necessarily make the sale
- Still not interested? There are plenty of other tactics you can do, such as Google Ads, Facebook Advertising, developing videos for YouTube, and creating short stories on Facebook are some examples.
Now that’s you’re ready to start on your content marketing, here are a few steps to get you started.
Add Content Marketing To Your Marketing Plan
The content marketing program should be an integrated part of your marketing communications plan. Have a goal for the program, with quarterly or monthly topics you’ll want to write about.
Build a Content Marketing Team
You’ll need a graphic artist, someone who likes to take photos, a proofreader and of course, someone in senior management who will review the content before it goes live. Ideally, bring in a consultant who will help push your content marketing program into motion.
Hire someone who knows how to write
If you decide to split the writing between many departments, that’s exactly what you’ll get. A bit of this and a bit of that, inconsistent writing, overlapping topics, delays due to staff turnover, or change in a department.
For best results, hire one who can write for the web as well as can write up about maintenance, machinery, construction, motors, and in a light and interesting voice.
Original content is important. No point in spending all this time and money on someone else’s content.
Forget consistency, know your limitations
Before you start, understand your limitations. If you’re the president and want to review all content before it goes live on your website, you may not be interested in reviewing a monthly blog post. Instead, you may be comfortable with committing to 6 posts for the year.
Write For Your Customer
Write content for your customer. You don’t have to spend too much time or overly invest in the buyer’s journey as long as you write content that your customer will find interesting. Do add a call-to-action and the option to subscribe to your newsletter. Once you’ve developed your content marketing, you can then to move to invest in the nurturing funnel.
Invest in an FAQ for voice search
Unsure where to start? Start by answering some of the questions your customer or the general public has about your product. Your answer may be picked up by Alexa or your smartphone!
Interested in content marketing for your company? Contact us, we’re your team!
