What is Content Marketing? A Guide for Small Business Owners

I might not say it out loud, but one thing about most of my days is true: Content rules everything around me.

Said another way: Content marketing is big. It’s one of the most effective ways to promote your business and get the word out about your products and services. It’s a catalyst for increasing sales and attracting customers to your company.

I get it — even though I’ve been working on content marketing for years, it’s not everyone’s area of focus. That’s why we’ve put together this post: to explain the basics and share everything you need to know about getting started, creating compelling content, and crafting effective marketing campaigns.

Content marketing has two main components: creation and distribution. Half of the work is creating eye-catching content that’s relevant to your audience. The other half is delivering that content to the right people at the right time, which means understanding your communication channels and knowing which ones customers use the most.

Choosing the right type of content and an ideal moment to share it is an effective way to get people to notice your brand. Fortunately, you have options when it comes to picking your content type.

Types of Content Marketing

Here are a few channels you can use to create content.

1. Social Media

Social media is one of the most popular channels for content marketing. Almost every social media platform has built-in tools to help users create effective content.

Take TikTok, for example. It has a range of filters and features for filming and editing videos. You don’t need post-production software to create attention-grabbing content.

2. Blog

Did you know this blog post is a form of content marketing?

You can also use blogs to promote products, teach customers something new, or entertain people with stories and noteworthy company news.

3. Video

From TV ads to social media posts, videos are a popular way to get people’s attention. As a small business owner, you might buy a local ad spot, find a way to jump on a social media video trend, or shoot a customer testimonial video for your website.

Or, you can follow Stephanie Love’s tips for getting your business on the news:

4. Podcasts

Podcasts have become incredibly popular over the years. People listen to them in the car, when traveling on long trips, or even while doing chores (personally, I find a good podcast makes doing the dishes that much easier).

Podcast listeners are also very loyal. They typically listen to the same podcasts every week. So, if you can break into that rotation or advertise on their favorite show, you can engage customers every time they put their headphones in.

Here at Thryv, we have a podcast called “Small Business Quick Wins” where we share advice and quick tips to help small business owners grow and succeed.

5. Online Ads

Online ads, or “paid ads,” are advertisements you can buy on search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook. These ads are displayed based on a user’s search history, current searches, and other information that the website obtains from the user. Online ads are highly effective for targeting people outside your customer base and bringing awareness to your company or products.

6. Email

Email is one of the most reliable content marketing channels. You can control exactly when you send an email, and most people check their inboxes daily. Businesses use email to announce new deals and have email newsletters that people read each week.

For example, we recently launched a new email newsletter for the Thryv Blog. You can sign up for a free subscription here.

7. Print

As a small business owner, print media is still a relevant content marketing channel. It can help spread awareness about your brand, and it can help you stay relevant in local communities.

Here are a few options for print media campaigns:

• Business Cards
• Billboards
• Brochures
• Newspaper/Magazine Ads
• Posters, Banners, & Signage
• Direct Mail
• Door Hangers

8. Gated Content

Gated content helps you convert website visitors into potential sales leads using a content offer. A content offer is a landing page or webpage that encourages visitors to fill out a form. In return, the visitor receives a piece of content or resource that’s unavailable anywhere else on the web. Essentially, they’re trading their name, email, phone number, and other information for content unique to your business.

For example, you can download our “Buying Software Checklist” on this page. It helps readers find the best software solutions for their business.

Now that we’ve explored the different types of content marketing, let’s talk about why they’re important.

Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to attract and engage new customers.

Content is everywhere: on our social pages, on our TVs, and even in our commutes. When done right, it captures our attention and helps us remember a particular brand.

It can also help business owners share specific messages, like deals or announcements about their company. Effective content convinces people to learn more about your brand and what your business has to offer. Once you have their attention, you can promote your products and services and close more deals.

But how does it actually work? Good question – let’s get into that.

How does content marketing work?

Content marketing can be divided into three phases: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Your business should create content for each of these phases. Most people start with the awareness phase and then work towards buying one of your products.

Awareness

The awareness phase is when people discover your brand. It might be new customers who haven’t heard of your company, people who know have heard of your brand but never really thought about buying from it, or existing customers who are inching toward your competitors. In the awareness phase, you capture their attention and get them invested in your content.

Content in the awareness phase should:

• Build brand awareness
• Tell people what your company or product does
• Highlight your brand voice
• Entertain, relate to, or educate your audience
• Indirectly promote your products and services

Consideration

The consideration phase is when people have become more familiar with your brand and are thinking about buying your product or services. It’s the trust-building phase where folks aren’t quite ready to buy, but they’re interested in learning more about your products, services, key features, and what makes your brand better than competitors.

Content in the consideration phase should:

• Highlight customer pain points and how your product solves them
• Promote your best features and what makes your brand unique
• Differentiate your brand from competitors
• Gently push people towards the conversion phase

Conversion

The conversion phase is when you finally convince people to buy your product or sign up for an offer. It’s the last marketing message that pushes people toward a purchase and creates a sense of urgency around your brand.

Content in the conversion phase should:

• Promote deals, limited-time offers, discounts, and coupons
• Have clear call-to-actions and other buttons that point people to your product pages
• Include forms that collect information like email, phone number, and job title
• Not have competing offers or elements that distract the customer

We’ve covered the basics. Now, let’s look at how to start a content marketing campaign for your business.

How to Get Started with Content Marketing

The good news is it’s never been easier to create content. If you follow these steps and adopt the right tools, you can craft powerful marketing campaigns without adding too much to your workflow.

1. Set a goal.

The first step is to set a goal for your marketing campaign. Start by identifying which phase this content belongs to and what message you want to share with customers.

Be as specific as possible; more general than, “I want to sell things online.” Create a SMART goal like, “In one month, I want to increase the number of quotes requested on my website by 10%.”

That will help you create content that actually does what you want it to do. If we want to generate more quotes from our website, we’ll need to create content directing people to our “Request a Quote” page. That could be a paid ad, a social media campaign, or a QR code that sends people to the website.

2. Adopt marketing tools.

It’s hard to create content marketing campaigns without digital marketing tools. Not only do they save you time, but they help you produce content at scale across multiple channels. You can engage customers on social media, email, YouTube, and more without hiring or outsourcing to a marketing team.

Here are a few content marketing tools you should consider for your business:

• Social Media Management
• Enhanced Online Listings
• Customer Relationship Management
• Website Builder
• Paid Ads
• Video & Audio

3. Consider AI.

We could write an entire blog post on AI for content creation. (In fact, we did!) It’s one of the most popular trends in marketing right now, and AI will only get better at helping you craft marketing material for your business. It’s better to get used to using these tools now than play catch-up with your competitors later.

Here are a few fundamental practices for using AI.

• Never post without proofreading. AI isn’t perfect. It makes mistakes, misunderstands questions, and sometimes produces less-than-unique marketing content. You should treat AI like an intern who can only handle simple tasks.

• Be mindful of inaccuracies. AI can also “hallucinate.” It might show you inaccurate information or create examples that don’t exist. Be sure to fact-check your work before releasing it to the public.

• Add the human touch. AI can handle basic writing assignments like email or social media captions. However, it often sounds robotic and insincere. Adding a human touch to your content is important so readers know it’s genuine.

• Reinvest your time. AI can save you a lot of time, but it’s important to reinvest that time back into your business. Use it to optimize marketing campaigns, close more deals for your company, or doing the actual work that you started your business to do in the first place.

For more tips, check out our AI for Small Business guide. If you’re curious about which tools to use, here is a list of free AI tools.

4. Categorize your content.

Categorizing your content will help you create conversion paths for your business. A conversion path is a series of steps that customers take to get from the awareness stage to the conversion stage with your business. By categorizing your content, you can map out these conversion paths so each piece of content serves a purpose for your business.

Here’s an example: You might write a blog post. Someone discovers the post in search results, clicks on it, and discovers your business has a video about its products and services. From there, the customer falls in love with your product and clicks on a button that says, “Request a quote.”

In this example, the blog post is awareness content, the video is consideration content, and the button is conversion content. You can see how a customer can naturally progress through these stages and ultimately buy something from your business.

5. Track your performance.

A lot of things make content marketing easier, but it’s still not a matter of “set it and forget it.” You need to monitor your campaigns to ensure they continue to resonate with your audience. Tracking their performance will also help you identify where to double down and generate more ROI from your most successful campaigns.

Here’s where marketing tools will help. Most platforms have built-in reporting that measures your campaigns over time. For example, Thryv tracks results for social media and email so you can see which campaigns generated the most engagement for your business. You can use that information to create similar campaigns, increasing your chances of success.

Creating Content for Your Business

Content captures an audience’s attention and builds trust with customers. It shows them what your brand is all about and what your products and services have to offer. If you want to stand out from the competition and build your online, content marketing is a key component to your success.