It can be difficult for small, local businesses to compete with the marketing power and brand awareness of global corporations, but that size difference can actually be an advantage. Local businesses might not have the big marketing budget, but their employees know more about the customers they are serving and local community interests. To that end, these businesses can use content marketing to both reach out to potential customers and become a voice in their local communities.
Your website serves as the base of your online marketing strategy. A well-designed and developed site should make use of keywords and strong web copywriting, which both help the search engines rank and index your site.
However, that’s only the beginning. To truly make the most of the power content marketing holds, your website should have a blog, where you and your regularly post on topics like industry trends, company news and, if it makes sense to do so, local events, causes and issues. This allows you to interject your brand into local conversations, even if the topics are not directly related to what you do or the products you sell.
A local approach to content marketing
As an example, let’s imagine there’s an accounting firm based in Phoenix, Arizona, and its managing partner would like to bolster the firm’s presence online. The firm’s website might feature keywords like “Phoenix accounting firm” and “accounting services in Phoenix.” However, to be truly successful when it comes to content marketing, its team should engage in regular blog content writing on subjects like recent changes to tax laws, common financial considerations of small businesses and deductions that all homeowners should know and understand.
But the firm, being locally based, might also write blog posts about upcoming community events, local issues facing the Phoenix area and important causes — such as organizations raising money to feed hungry families in the region. In this way, the firm would establish itself as both an authority in its field and a business that’s dedicated to its local community.
Strong blog content writing is key
Creating good blog and other content on a regular basis may seem like a daunting task, but chances are you probably have a great start for topics based on what your customers typically want to know. What would a potential customer need to know about your service or product? What are your most frequently asked questions? And why do loyal customers continue to patronize your business? These are all great starting points as you look to develop topic ideas for your blog content, article writing and social media updates.
Additionally, testimonials from well-known community members or businesses would make for great social media content for locally based companies. The ultimate goal is to use web and blog content writing to build trust from your customers so that they view your expertise as a resource in both your professional field and the community at large.
This does, however, bring up another important point—in addition to coming up with topic ideas, many business owners lack the time to actually sit down and create content, especially if copywriting is not their strong suit. This is where a professional copywriting service can be helpful, providing the assistance of a team of skilled writers and editors who can take even the most vague concepts and turn them into rich, compelling content for your blog, website, social media, articles, white papers and various other platforms.
Outsourcing to a copywriting service can be a terrific option for those business owners and mangers who know they need to maintain an active content marketing strategy, but just need a partner to help make it happen.