10 Creative Small Business Content Marketing Ideas

As a small business owner, one of the most important strategies for success is content marketing. It can help you to reach your target audience, build relationships with customers, and increase brand awareness. But how do you get started when you don’t have a big budget?

Here are 10 creative small business content marketing ideas for small business owners to help them get the most out of their content marketing efforts.

1. Start Small, Think Big – Blog

This first one isn’t really a creative content marketing strategy, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s so important. Blogging.

Good content marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Start small with a blog on your website and fill it with interesting and informative content such as articles, images, and videos. Make sure to include keywords that are relevant to your business and keep an eye out for trends in the industry. This will help you to create content that is both engaging and useful to your target audience.

Every business should have a blog. Blogging is by far one of the best content ideas for small businesses.

When starting a blog, it’s important to make sure you plan out the topics you want to cover in your blog. Your blog should be consistent with the message you’re trying to convey in your industry.

You blog should also focus on quality content rather than large numbers of blog posts. When it comes to SEO, fewer blog posts that have been well-written and thoughtful will perform better than a large number of blog posts that provide little to no value.

2. Engage Your Audience Through Video

Video content is a great way to get people to engage with your small business. With low-cost options like YouTube and Vimeo, you can create videos to feature on your website and social media pages. Today’s smartphones can take high quality 4k video and paired with open-source video editing software like OpenShot, you can enter the video world with very little investment.

Decide whether your target audience prefers long content videos or short content videos and focus there first. Even with a low entry cost financially, videos can take time to shoot and edit so it’s worth your time to really plan it out and put together something good.

3. Give Something Away for Free

Everyone loves free stuff, so why not offer something free to your customers? This could be free samples of your product or service, a discount code, or a free eBook. This will help to increase your customer base and build relationships with them as they see your business as generous and helpful.

Here are some free giveaway ideas:

• Create a Facebook post and have a random drawing for everyone who follows your business page for a prize. I’ve had great luck using prizes such as Amazon and Apple Store gift cards.
• Giving away branded merchandise is another time-tested method of building business over time. Pens, t-shirts, & coffee mugs with your business name and logo are excellent marketing materials. Because people use these items on a daily basis, it keeps your business name in the forefront of their minds.
• If you sell a physical product, free samples can be a great way to entice prospective customers to check out your content. You could give free samples of a product to everyone who writes thoughtful comments on a blog post on your site – this will reward engagement and drive more traffic to your blog.
• If you’re a knowledge business, you can provide samples of the services you provide as content. For example, an SEO professional might provide an honest SEO audit of a website along with a few action items for the customer for free.

The key with giveaways is not to give away your entire business. Give your customers just enough so they know you’re competent at your trade.

4. Partner With Other Small Businesses

Partnering with another small business can be an effective way to increase your reach and build relationships with potential customers. Try to partner with a business that has a similar target audience to yours but offers something different. This way you can share each other’s content and introduce each other to new customers.

Business partnerships can be one of the most often overlooked tactics not just for content marketing, but for marketing in general. By partnering with another small business, you can gain access to some of their resources and potentially get high-value customer referrals.

5. Get Creative With Social Media

Social media is a great way to reach potential customers and get your content noticed. Try to be creative with the content you post. This could include polls, contests, informative visuals, or even live streams. This will help to grab people’s attention and engage with them.

It’s important to note that the types of content marketing ideas for social media that become popular are not necessarily the same content ideas that do well on a blog post. And even among social media platforms, each have their own ‘hot areas’ of types of content. As an example, Instagram is great for photos and videos, but maybe not so much for polls and surveys which do much better on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

6. Take Advantage of Online Advertising

Online advertising is a great way to target a specific audience and increase your reach. You can use platforms like Google AdWords to create ads that are tailored to your target audience. This is especially useful for small businesses that have a limited budget.

Advertising is also beneficial on social media. With the data mining on platforms like Facebook, you can target your advertisements to a very niche group of people.

Many advertising programs make it easy to get started with free advertising credits so you can generate revenue around your brand before actually spending any money.

7. Create a Newsletter

Creating a newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with your customers and keep them up to date with your business. Make sure to include interesting and useful content such as discounts, special offers, and new products or services. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind with customers and build relationships.

Newsletters can be sent out using mailing list providers like MailChimp or SendinBlue and they’re the core content of email marketing campaigns.

8. Share User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a great way to engage with your customers and show them that you value their opinion. Try to encourage people to share their experiences and reviews of your product or service on your website or social media page. This will help to build trust with potential customers and show that you are an authentic business.

User-generated content is also a great way to build your brand as one that listens to their customers and works to make their products better based on customer feedback. Good types of user-generated content include Tweets about your brand, YouTube content that mentions your products, and testimonials from satisfied customers.

9. Go Live on Social Media

Live streaming is becoming increasingly popular on social media and is a great way to engage with customers. You can use platforms like Facebook Live or Instagram to give customers a behind-the-scenes look at your business or even host Q&As. This will make your small business feel more personal and help to build relationships with customers.

Live streams are also a great way to run those giveaways we talked about earlier. In fact, you can use a live stream to push just about any other type of content marketing plan you might have for your business.

10. Embrace Podcasting

Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular and are a great way to engage with potential customers. Try to create podcasts that are informative and entertaining, and make sure to use keywords that are relevant to your business. This will help your podcasts to reach a wider audience and build relationships with potential customers.

Your podcasts should include a consistent introduction, possibly with a tune or jingle to help make your brand memorable. Also make sure your podcast uses a quality microphone and you record in a quiet environment, you definitely want to sound professional.

Pick the Content Marketing Ideas That Work for Your Business

You definitely don’t have to spend all your time developing content. In fact, that doesn’t make sense because you also have a business to run. The key with any of your content marketing strategies is going to be consistency. Pick 1 or more of these items that work well for your brand or product, and that you can commit to consistently doing.

Some common planned for business content examples and combinations you might try include:

• A weekly podcast, a weekly blog post, and a monthly YouTube video.
• A daily Facebook page update along with a monthly free giveaway.
• A weekly blog post with a monthly newsletter that contains testimonials from your current customers.

As you can see, you don’t have to do everything, but just something you can afford to do on a schedule and remain consistent.

Tell us Your Small Business Content Marketing Ideas

Content marketing is a great way for small businesses to reach their target audience, build relationships with customers, and increase brand awareness. By using the creative content marketing ideas outlined here, small businesses can get the most out of their content marketing efforts and grow their business.

Do you have other ideas for content marketing? Let us know below in the comments.