Author Archives: Amrit Hallan

About Amrit Hallan

Amrit Hallan is a professional content writer who helps businesses improve their conversion rate through credible and compelling content writing. His main strength lies in writing search engine optimized content without compromizing quality and meaningfulness.

Simple content marketing for a small business

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Content marketing isn’t just for big businesses having deep pockets. In fact, small businesses are in a better position to leverage content marketing due to the flexibility and abundance of creativity small business owners enjoy compared to highly bureaucratic and red-tape-tangled big businesses.

Yes, it takes efforts. I’m not saying content marketing is a quick-reward tactic. It’s a mistake to call it a tactic, it’s a prolonged strategy with long lasting results. You have to build it brick by brick. You will even have to pay content writers and content creators if you cannot create content on your own. It’s just like any other business asset that requires investment and effort.

Need to know what’s content marketing? You may like to read What is content marketing? Explained in detail.

Why a small business should embrace content marketing?

Here are some reasons why content marketing benefits your small business:

Conventional advertising is expensive and unscientific
PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns can totally blow up your budget
Content marketing makes people trust you
Content marketing helps you build your own media platform
Content marketing increases your visibility on search engines as well as social networking websites
You don’t have to pay for every click
The visibility that you create with content marketing is long-lasting
Once you have created a presence for yourself through content marketing, you no longer have to depend on search engines
Frankly, there is no other way, whether you realize it now, or later

Simple content marketing for a small business

The entry barrier to content marketing is very low. It is not as formidable as it may initially seem. In fact, you can formulate a content marketing strategy right now and start implementing it within the next one hour (first complete reading this). Here are a few simple things you can do to start your own content marketing campaign for your small business:

Define your purpose: Content marketing is very precise and it is advisable that you clearly define your purpose right in the beginning of launching your content marketing strategy.What do you intend to achieve with content marketing?
Of course, every business wants to get more customers and clients and this goes without saying, but what should be your key performance indicators (KPIs)? Are you looking for brand visibility on social networking websites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook? Do you want more subscribers for your business newsletter? Do you want more customers (duh!)? Read 12 most important KPIs of content marketing.
Do keyword research: Keyword research is not as simple as it may seem in the beginning. You have to think how your typical customer or client would think when he or she needs to find your business. Don’t assume what keywords and search terms they should be using. There are many good keywords tools available (you can begin with this Google keyword tool).Keyword research isn’t just for better search engine rankings, it also helps you keep yourself focused and create the most appropriate content using the most appropriate language that your prospective customers and clients use. Keyword research gives you a direction.
Create content topics: These are the blog posts and webpages that you are going to write or create content for. Remember that you need to create your topics keeping in mind what sort of traffic you want to get to your website or blog.If I want to get more clients for my content writing and content marketing services I write content that shows how much I know as well as how interested I am in getting your business.
If you provide a consulting service than you want to tell people how much you know and how you help your clients. If you sell a product you would like to describe what are the benefits of those products in every possible way.
Set up a domain account in Google Analytics and Google’s Webmasters Tools: These will help you monitor what sort of traffic your content is attracting. You will have to combine both of them to get a better insight.These tools will tell you what keywords people use to find your content. They will also tell you from where you get your traffic the most. Here is a good blog post on how to use Google Search Analytics to enhance your content marketing. If you find it difficult to understand, stay tuned, one of these days I will create a simplified version of how to use these tools to improve your content marketing efforts.
Start publishing blog posts: Publishing blog posts is the easiest form of content marketing. Although, I repeatedly say that simply publishing blog posts on your blog isn’t exactly content marketing, it is your base. Without having quality content, there is nothing to market. So, everything starts with quality content that you publish under your domain name. Publish posts based on the topics you have created, based on the keywords you have researched.
Use social channels to share your content: If you have a LinkedIn account (better for B2B businesses) start sharing the links of the blog posts you have started publishing. Use Twitter, use Facebook, use whatever social networking channel you prefer and where you would like to build your audience. This will bring visibility to your newly-created content.
Monitor performance using Google Analytics and Google’s Webmasters Tools: You will need to be patient. These tools won’t get data initially. Google won’t even index your new content in the beginning if your domain is new. It may take a couple of months before you begin to see some data in Google Analytics and Google’s Webmasters Tools. Be persistent without worrying – every small business or big business goes through this process.
Curate content from other sources: You don’t always have to create content from scratch. Awesome content is being created every minute on other websites and blogs. You can curate content from these sources from time to time and share it on your social networking timelines. You can also create smaller blog posts with your unique point of view with the help of curated content. Read Can you use content curation as a viable content marketing tool?
Repurpose your popular content: If you observe that particular blog posts are getting more attention you can re-purpose their content. You can pick up the main points and create slides and then share the slides on a platform like Slideshare.com. If your blog post contains data, you can create an infographic and share it again on social networking platforms. If possible, you can create a small YouTube video, upload it on YouTube, and then share it again. There are many ways you can re-purpose your existing content. You may like to read How to repurpose old content.

These are a few simple ways a small business can use content marketing. As I mentioned in the beginning, just like any other business activity, it takes effort, consistency, a bit of creativity, and persistence. It’s not a shortcut. It’s an alternative, a way better alternative to conventional advertising and promotion. Revisit the above point: Why a small business should embrace content marketing.

5 content marketing trends in 2018, according to Salesforce

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Although the fundamentals of content marketing are unchanging, the trends keep changing every year. This is because new content sharing platforms keep popping up and the line between various formats (text, video, image) is constantly being blurred.

I will have my own take on this sometime in the future, but this Salesforce blog (accompanied by a podcast) throws some light on the 5 content marketing trends in 2018.

Summarily, the 5 content marketing trends in 2018 (according to the Salesforce post) are:

The job profiles of content marketing teams are changing: With content marketing (on the web) blossoming into a complete realm in itself and being recognized as one of the most vital marketing tools, it no longer means writing blog posts and articles and hoping to generate traffic from them. It’s a complete discipline. You need to have an expertise. You need to have a knack for creating killer content and then statistically distributing that content.
Adaptable, contextual content: In the coming years content will no longer be simple blog posts and Facebook and LinkedIn updates. Devices will be interacting with each other without human interaction and lots of content would be changed between them. Quality AI-powered voice-interfaces are making an impact on how content is ranked and used by search engines like Google. More content is written the way people speak. More content is written in the form of answering questions rather than ongoing monologues. Contextually, content will need to learn to exist independently so that the central communication is not failed even when a small chunk of content is picked by a random device.
Transparency and credibility is going to matter more: There is lots of content on the Internet. Whom do you trust? If a particular company is making some claims through its content, since everybody is producing content, it is very difficult to believe who is telling the truth. So, complete transparency will be demanded – from whom the content is coming, who is publishing it and from where the data is being picked.
Content is going to be the fundamental building block for all types of marketing: There are many companies that are already building their entire marketing strategy on the foundation of their content. Coca-Cola for example. Their official website is called Journey, which is nothing but pure content. When companies and organizations start using stories to promote their products and services instead of advertisements, content is obviously going to be at the center of all promotional activity.
There is going to be little difference between paid, owned and earned media: First, here is a blog post on the Differences between Owned, Earned and Paid content marketing channels. What this means is, these days your content can exist on multiple platforms. In traditional sense, owned content is whatever content you publish under your own blog or domain name. But then what about content that you publish on Facebook or Medium? People are also publishing blog posts on LinkedIn? Although the content is published by you, it belongs to a different medium.

It’s always good to know about the emerging trend in your field, in this case, content marketing, so that instead of following, you lead at the front.

Trends change from year to year but what remains the same is the quality of content that you produce and distribute.

How do you explain content marketing to a child?

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If you find it difficult to explain the concept of content marketing to a business executive, perhaps you should try explaining what is content marketing to a child.

Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

When I came across this quote, in another tab I was reading a blog post quoting various content marketing and digital marketing experts explaining what content marketing is.

As a concept content marketing is very old. All those corporate journals and newsletters were nothing but content marketing. The soap operas were content marketing.

But this concept is very difficult to explain to a business executive to whom everything is blurry either because the idea is too good to be true or he isn’t ready to accept that conventional advertising isn’t as good as it used to be (it was never good, it’s just that, now it has an alternative).

So how do you explain content marketing to a child?

Content marketing means…

Help people with your content
Make them feel good
Become a source of useful information
They begin to like you
They begin to appreciate your knowledge
They begin to trust you
They do business with you

It’s as simple as that.

Of course, it is not as simple as that, but this is the beginning. These are the fundamentals of content marketing. You don’t use content marketing to directly promote your business. You create a platform where your prospective customers and clients find something highly useful or entertaining, on an ongoing basis. Publish your content in such a manner that you don’t hard sell, you are always useful, and people know what business you offer.

Since they know you and trust you, they would rather do business with you than someone they are unfamiliar with.

Take my business for example. I provide content writing and content marketing services. I continuously share useful information about content writing and content marketing on my blog as well as on social networking platforms.

My blog is my base. All my quality content exists here. Since I’m continuously writing on various topics related to content writing and content marketing, people easily find the information they’re looking for on my blog. They also come across my links and search engines for relevant keywords.

Then I’m constantly sharing my links on LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m constantly appearing on people’s timelines. I make sure I share the information they can use to grow their businesses.

This, is content marketing. I publish and disseminate helpful content. People find that content useful. They appreciate it. They may not hire my content writing and content marketing services immediately, but whenever they do, they remember that I provide the services.

This is how you can explain content marketing to a child.

4 stages of buyer’s journey and the role of effective content writing

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Different marketers may have different views on how many stages a buyer goes through before making a purchase, what comes to my mind is that the 4 stages of a buyer’s journey are:

Awareness that one needs a particular product or service
Research, and information gathering and idea exchange about the needed product or service
When the buyer decides to go with a particular product or service
The buyer purchases that particular product or service

At every stage of a buyer’s journey your content writing can play a vital role. Whether it is stage 1 or stage 4, your content is indispensable, and even a small oversight can send your prospective customer or client scurrying away. Now let’s explore these individual stages and see how your content writing can lead your prospect up till the conclusion of the fourth state.

Awareness that one needs a particular product or service

This awareness can be voluntary, induced by a friend, a family member, or a colleague, or by your content. Your content writing becomes crucial in this first stage of the buyer’s journey if you need to make the buyer aware of the need for him to go for your product or service.

Take for example my content writing and content marketing services. You hire me because

You know that effective content writing and content marketing can improve your conversion rate, your search engine rankings, and consequently, get you more business;
You have read material that has made you aware of the fact that you can use effective content writing to grow your business without spending a ton of money on online advertising.

Sometimes the buyer knows that there is a particular product or service that is being used by many people, but somehow, she is not convinced that she herself needs that product or service. At this stage, your convincing content writing can make her aware of the fact that even she requires that product or service.

Sometimes the buyer isn’t even aware that she needs your service. There are many business owners with very badly written content on their websites and consequently the conversion rate is either zero or very low. They are totally disappointed with the website. They either end up thinking that what they offer is not needed or at least not needed from them, or they try out various things without really knowing what they want.

In such circumstances, educational content can help. If your business is not doing well due to your content, through my content writing, I can make you aware. But how are you going to find me without knowing that you need my content writing service?

For that, you must be able to find my website for search terms like “how can I sell more from my website?”, “how can I improve my conversion rate?”, “how can I improve my search engine rankings?”, and so on. Through strategic content writing, I must make you aware that there is a solution available for your problem.

Research, and information gathering, and idea exchange about the needed product or service

Once a person realizes that she may actually have a use for a particular product or service, she starts doing research. She wouldn’t like to settle for the first product (or service) she comes across. She would like to know all her options. Normally she will do research on Google. She may also look through various forums. She may ask on Facebook and Twitter. She may read blog posts.

This is the stage when helpful content that you may have published elsewhere (other websites, blogs and social networks) may prompt her to visit your website. Even content published on your own blog may help her know more about how her need can be satisfied with your product or service.

Many people decide to hire my content writing service after reading my blog posts. I share so much information on content writing and content marketing that my clients are convinced that I know my stuff.

When the buyer decides to go with a particular product or service

Just because a buyer has decided to go with your product it doesn’t mean you can rest assured. She can leave in the middle of making a payment. Once your customer has decided that she is going to do business with you, you need to convince her that

You are reliable and trustworthy
You are going to provide value for money
You are going to be there in case there is a problem
She is getting a good deal by not getting the same product from somewhere else

The buyer purchases that particular product or service

Most of the businesses claim that 40% of their business comes from repeat customers – customers who have already done business with them and have had good experience.

Your existing customers are your best leads; don’t let them go and don’t let them forget about your business. Maybe you are selling multiple products or service. Having experienced satisfaction after doing business with you, they would rather do business with you again than try someone untested, even when they’re purchasing something totally different.

Having gotten a few blog posts or webpages written by me, many of my clients return for random content writing assignments or even for ongoing content writing jobs. This is because even after years, they remember my services because I’m constantly publishing content on my blog and also send them email updates.

Your content writing can help your buyer throughout her buyer’s journey.

3 Most Important Objectives of Content Marketing

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It is often difficult to explain to a layperson why use content marketing to promote one’s business.

What are the main objectives of content marketing? Why is it important to understand your content marketing objectives? Why is it better than conventional advertising and marketing?

Most importantly, why spend money on it?

The concept of content marketing has existed since the time immemorial and individuals and businesses have been using content marketing to keep their customers coming back to their businesses.

After the advent of the Internet the concept has gained prominence because creating content and publishing it is easier on the Internet compared to using conventional means like books, magazines, pamphlets and newspapers.

If you want to use content marketing to promote your business, all you need to do is, set up a blog under your domain name, start publishing quality content, and then start distributing their content using the social channels available to you. Even this single step can help you achieve many of your content marketing objectives.

Although the actual implementation can be much more complex and may require lots of other steps, the point is that the entry barrier is quite low. If you are ready to put in the effort, there is little deterrence aside from the fact that your competitors may work harder to outsmart you.

One of the oldest instances of content marketing can be found in this post that talks about two brothers who invented a usable hose pipe to douse fires. One of the brothers used an educational booklet to explain people how this invention could be used. He also used to give presentations. He used visuals. He also provided consulting services (on how to use the hose pipe). All these methods are nothing but content marketing.

Another good example of content marketing is a village fair. Why do most of the people go to a village fair? 70% of the people have no intention of purchasing stuff. They mostly go because of the entertainment available at the fair. There are shows. There are mythology storytelling sessions where folk singers use colloquial language to tell awe-inspiring stories. There are giant wheels and merry-go-rounds for kids and adults.

The basic draw is the entertainment. This is content.

This content draws people to the village fair site and this in turn benefits all those merchants and shopkeepers who want to sell at the fair.

The Disney company, once having created the brand, makes more money selling the merchandise than from its movies and animation films.

The entire television industry depends on this concept. Through their content, television channels, including news channels, create a platform for themselves and once they have built an audience, they make money selling advertisements.

Hence, the most important objective of content marketing is to create a platform for you or your business. Then people keep coming back to this platform to consume your valuable content.

The more they consume/read your content, the more familiar they become with your product or service.

Most of the established content marketers insist that content marketing is basically educating your prospective customers and clients. It’s providing them solutions. It’s solving their problems. It’s being there when they need you.

The marketing part comes where you make it easier for people to find you.

No matter how great and valuable and useful your content is, unless people know about it, it is of no use.

This is why, once you have published content, you have to market it, you have to promote it in such a manner that people are able to find it and then they can benefit from it.

Aside from this, the 3 most important objectives of content marketing are:

Lead generation
Brand awareness
Thought leadership

This may sound like a business jargon, but these 3 content marketing objectives make it very easy to explain it to someone how it can help a business.

Content marketing for lead generation

Every business needs to generate leads because these leads eventually turn into sales. So, if your content marketing efforts are generating leads, then it is a successful campaign. It is meeting one of its biggest objectives.

The statistics in this Slideshare presentation say that businesses that blog regularly generate 88% more leads compared to those who don’t publish a blog post regularly.

It’s obvious. The more content you have all over the Internet, the better are the chances of your links being found by your prospects, provided you are focusing on the right kind of content.

If I want to attract an audience who would like to hire my content writing and content marketing services, then obviously I should be writing content around these topics, whether I publish it on my own website or somewhere else (on Medium, for example).

Why your content gets you more leads?

Remember that everything depends on how effectively you publish and market your content.

Assuming that you are targeting the right market, with more content in circulation, you get more targeted traffic.

People associate you with high-quality content. Due to your consistency and adherence to high-quality, your prospective customers and clients begin to respect you.

They either directly do business with you or they recommend your business to people they know.

Content marketing for brand awareness

One of the greatest content marketing objectives is brand awareness.

You may also like to read How to build your brand with content marketing.

Brand awareness, as the term speaks for itself, means, more people know about your brand and are aware of what it stands for. This sort of content marketing may not get you business directly (but indirectly, it certainly does) it makes your brand visible.

Despite being one of the greatest content marketing objectives, tracking business growth via brand awareness can be a tricky business because your brand can grow in many ways and most of these ways are not easily trackable.

People repeatedly come across interesting content by you and they become familiar to your presence.

The best way of creating brand awareness through content marketing that comes to my mind is guest blogging and publishing informative articles on other websites.

By publishing guest blog posts on other blogs and websites you immediately put your brand in front of a completely new audience. If I want to put Credible Content in front of my prospects, I can submit blog posts to various websites like LinkedIn, Entrepreneur, web design blogs (to encourage them to hire my content writing services) and other business niche websites where people would be looking for a content writer.

You can also publish lots of educational material and simply let it be known that it’s your brand that’s publishing the material.

Content marketing for thought leadership

This is to establish your authority as an expert, or as a niche product or service provider. For thought leadership you need to publish lots of insightful content that helps people in real-world situations. You are considered a thought leader when your wisdom solves actual problems rather than dabbling with vague topics

Anyway, the objective of this blog post is not to talk about how to develop a strong thought leadership. It is to talk about the most important objectives of content marketing: lead generation, brand awareness and thought leadership. These are the basic, fundamental content marketing objectives and then they spread into various branches and sub-branches.