Small businesses often struggle with content marketing. They don’t have the time or resources to create quality content, and they don’t know how to measure the success of their campaigns.
Content marketing can help a small business in many ways. It can help you attract new customers, retain existing customers, and generate leads. Content marketing can also help you build a stronger relationship with your customers and improve your brand’s reputation.
This blog post will discuss 19 powerful tools that small businesses can use to develop a successful content marketing program!
What is Content Marketing Anyway?
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
There are many different forms that content marketing can take. Some of the most common include:
- Written content: Blog posts, articles, eBooks, whitepapers, etc.
- Visual content: Images, infographics, videos, etc.
- Audio & video content: Podcasts, webinars, YouTube videos, etc.
- Product-related content: Overview pages, service descriptions, even guarantee and shipping details
- Interactive content: Quizzes, calculators, polls, etc.
When it comes to content marketing, there are no rules! You can mix and match different types of content to create a campaign that best suits your business and audience.
For example, if you’re a small business that sells handmade jewelry, you might want to focus on creating written and visual content to show off the beauty of your pieces and tug at those emotional heartstrings.
However, if you’re a B2B company that sells software, you might want to focus on creating blog posts and informational videos.
One of the basic tenets of content marketing is to do the work now to get customers later. By solving fundamental problems, customers are more likely to turn to you for their more advanced issues.
Here are a few more examples of how content marketing can help your business
Real Estate Marketing: If you’re a realtor, you might want to focus on creating blog posts and videos that discuss the home buying process. You could also create interactive content, like quizzes or calculators, that helps people estimate how much they can afford to spend on a home.
Dentists: If you’re a dentist, you might want to focus on creating blog posts and infographics that discuss oral health. You could also create videos that show people how to brush their teeth correctly.
Lawyers: If you’re a lawyer, you might want to focus on creating blog posts and articles that discuss the legal process. You could also create videos that show people how to navigate the legal system.
Marketing Agency: A marketing agency would focus on creating blog posts and articles that discuss the different aspects of marketing. You could also create videos showing people how to create a marketing plan, track KPIs and Metrics, Google Ads optimization best practices, or execute a specific marketing tactic.
No matter what industry you’re in, content marketing can help your business! By producing quality content, small businesses can build trust with their audience and establish themselves as experts in their field.
And don’t forget about the localization of your content. If your business targets a specific geographic area, make sure that your content reflects that. Add content that celebrates the residents of the area you cover. Make sure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) are correctly listed. You can use a local SEO report to make sure that you’re tracking what is working and what is not when it comes to your loal content strategy.
Content marketing can be a lot of work, but it’s worth it! Small businesses that invest in content marketing see an average return of 113% on their investment.
Why Should Small Businesses Care?
Small businesses need to care about content marketing because it is a highly effective way to reach their target audience. In fact, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates more than three times as many leads!
Not sure where to start? No problem! Here are 19 powerful tools that small businesses can use to develop a successful content marketing program:
HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator: This tool helps you generate blog post ideas based on your input keywords.
HubSpot is a company that is known for its content marketing tools. The Blog Topic Generator is one of their most popular tools, and it can be beneficial for small businesses struggling to come up with ideas for their blog.
Canva: Canva is a fantastic graphic design tool that is easy to use and has a ton of templates that you can customize for your brand.
It’s easy to use, has a ton of templates that you can customize for your brand, and is very affordable.
Grammarly: Grammarly is an excellent tool for checking your grammar and spelling. It’s free to use and can be installed as a browser extension.
As a small business, you want to ensure that your content is error-free because errors can negatively impact your brand image. Grammarly is an excellent tool for checking your grammar and spelling. It’s free to use and can be installed as a browser extension.
WordPress: WordPress is a popular content management system that helps you easily create and manage your website’s content.
WordPress can be pretty easy to use out of the box, and there are a ton of plugins and themes that you can install to customize your website. Additionally, WordPress is SEO-friendly – especially with addons like Yoast – which means that your content will be more likely to appear in search engines.
Vidyard: Vidyard is a video hosting and analytics platform that helps you track the performance of your videos.
With Vidyard, businesses can see how the videos they create are impacting their business. Use this information to make decisions about future video content campaigns.
Wistia: Wistia is another video hosting platform that has excellent video analytics.
Wistia’s video analytics is similar to Vidyard’s. Still, Wistia also has a few features that set it apart, like the ability to add CTAs to your videos and create custom thumbnails.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track the success of your content campaigns.
A Google Analytics reporting dashboard is a must-have for any small business that is serious about its content marketing metrics. With Google Analytics, you can track page views, unique visitors, time on site, and bounce rate. This information can be extremely helpful in understanding what content is performing well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
AgencyAnalytics Content Marketing Dashboard: For marketing agencies creating content marketing plans for their clients.
AgencyAnalytics is an excellent tool for marketing agencies that create content marketing plans for their clients. The tool gives you an easy way to create a content marketing dashboard that allows you to track the progress of your content campaigns and see where there are opportunities for improvement.
Hootsuite Insights: Hootsuite’s Insights platform provides users with detailed analytics about their social media channels.
If you’re using social media to promote your content, then Hootsuite Insights is a great tool for understanding how your social media channels perform. With Hootsuite Insights, you can track engagement, reach, and clicks.
BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo allows you to see the most popular content across all social media platforms.
BuzzSumo is a great tool for understanding what content is resonating with your audience and using that information to inform your content strategy.
ContentTools: ContentTools is a tool that helps businesses manage their content calendars.
If you’re looking for a tool to help you manage your content calendar, then ContentTools is an excellent option. With ContentTools, you can easily add and remove content, set deadlines, and track the progress of your content campaigns.
CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer: This tool analyzes your headlines and gives you a score based on how likely they are to drive traffic and engagement.
If you think you have the guts of your content nailed but are looking for a tool to help you optimize your headlines, then CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is a great option.
Piktochart: Piktochart is an easy-to-use infographic maker that is great for creating shareable content.
If you’re looking to create informative and visually appealing content, then Piktochart is a great tool for you. With Piktochart, you can easily create infographics that are perfect for sharing on social media or adding to your blog posts.
Quora: Quora is a Q&A platform that can be used to generate ideas for blog posts and articles.
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your content, then Quora is a great resource. With Quora, you can browse questions that have been asked in your industry and use those questions to generate ideas for your content.
ContentGems: ContentGems is a tool that helps businesses find and curate content from around the web.
If you’re looking for a tool to help you find relevant and high-quality content, then ContentGems is a great option. With ContentGems, you can effortlessly search for content relevant to your industry and curate it into a format that is easy to consume.
Answer the Public: This tool allows you to input a keyword and generates questions that people are asking about that topic.
With Answer the Public, you can input a keyword and generate a list of questions that people are asking about that topic. This information can be used to create blog posts, articles, or even social media posts.
Ubersuggest: Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool that generates long-tail keywords based on the seed keyword you input.
Ubersuggest lets you input a seed keyword and get a list of long-tail keywords relevant to your industry.
Google Trends: Use Google Trends to see a particular keyword or topic’s popularity.
With Google Trends, you can see how often a keyword is being searched, whether that search volume is increasing or declining, and compare it to other keywords in your industry.
Semrush Keyword Planner: This tool allows you to research keywords and create content around them.
Quickly discover relevant keywords using the Semrush Keyword Plan to help you first understand what content to create based on volume and how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword.
Why Every Small Business Needs a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is a powerful tool that small businesses can use to reach their target audience and drive profitable customer action! These 19 tools will help you develop a successful content marketing program! Do you have any other tools that you would add to this list? Share in the comments below!