As a small business owner, you face many challenges in standing out among a crowded marketplace, so how you market yourself is incredibly important.

Today’s business landscape is not what it used to be – writing for the web is a lot different than creating your old Yellow Pages ads.

In this Internet-driven age, crafting your message can be incredibly difficult. Online, in-your-face marketing can come across as annoying and can actually damage your company’s image if you’re not careful. Good content marketing seeks to develop a relationship between the company and its customers. At the very basic level, your marketing content should be “shareable” so that consumers are excited to share it on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, causing their friends and relatives to read it (and hopefully respond to the marketing) too!

Create a Customer Profile

But where do you start? You’ll need to determine who your customers are, what their goals are, what would cause them to buy your product or service, what their sense of humor is, etc. So talk to a few of them and ask pointed questions about what attracted them to your site and product.

With the profiles done you can begin evaluating your existing content. What kind of content do you already have prepared and what content is missing? Be deliberate and strategic in constructing your company narrative – a good marketing strategy is make-or-break for a company.

Let’s Talk About Social Media

For many companies, online marketing is their downfall, but when it’s used effectively, social media can elevate your business much better than a billboard can.

An example of this is the Denny’s Restaurant blog. It is a strange, at times nonsensical, collection of text, gifs and conversations with other users – but it works. Almost none of the entries explicitly say “come on over to Denny’s,” and yet all of their posts are still promoting the restaurant. It meshes perfectly with “Tumblr culture,” and seems more like an average user, rather than a chain restaurant trying to promote itself.

While the Denny’s blog format won’t work for every company, it is an excellent example of a company identifying the stylistic preferences of its consumer base, and then adapting its strategy to fit that.

A good Internet marketing strategy is much like surviving high school – you need to be cool, but not look like you’re trying to hard. You have to care about your product and want to promote it, but at the same time you shouldn’t seem desperate for people to see and approve of it.

So What Makes Good Content? 

Good content will be informative, entertaining, relevant, consistent, and honest. It should showcase your product in a way that is interesting and meaningful for your consumers.

Online marketing, in a way, becomes less about the product and more about how you made the customer feel. Did you provoke an emotional response in them? Did you make them laugh? Did you teach them something that they didn’t already know? If your content seeks to please and teach the viewer, you will have far more success than you would if you inundated your consumers with pop up ads.

Different online media require different formats. Social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook need to be succinct and immediately interesting, to catch the attention of the viewer. Don’t be afraid to have conversations with customers on these platforms either! Interacting with your online audience will make your company seem more engaged with your consumer base, and it is a fun way to promote yourself without even showing off your product.

Other content, like blog posts and emails, are a little different. Blog posts can be a little more developed, presumably because the user is taking time to read it. They should have unique content, a point or purpose (don’t just ramble), and should be visually stimulating (include pictures, graphs, etc.). Email marketing will generally take the form of a newsletter or a promotion – anything to get the reader to visit your website.

Be Bold!

Whichever medium you choose, the important thing to remember is to be bold, authentic, and enthusiastic about your product. Online marketing can be intimidating – you’re opening yourself up to a wider range of criticism – but it is an essential form of promotion these days, and if done deliberately and strategically, it can be hugely successful for your company.

 Now that you know how to create good content, find out how you use it to cultivate customer loyalty.