Content marketing on a shoestring budget

by Gemma Brown

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If there’s one thing you’ll take away from this blog, it’s the realisation that big bucks don’t always get you big results. A company may think that by throwing lots of cash at a certain project or venture, it’s guaranteed to get a better outcome than those companies who held tightly on to their purse strings. Well, they’d be wrong. This blog, which focuses on content marketing, will show how you can still achieve high impact results, but on a shoestring budget.

Content marketing – does it have to be expensive?

When you say the words ‘content marketing’, often companies will instantly think you have to invest top dollar to develop a strategy that will work for their business. In fact, a content marketing survey report found that 65% of companies consider content marketing to be too expensive, and only 34% have a dedicated budget.[1]  However, there are lots of ways you can implement an effective content marketing strategy without plunging into bankruptcy! Below you’ll find some top tips and ideas to start your journey…

Blog, blog and blog away

A strong company blog can set off any content marketing mission. It offers a free platform to start sharing content and one that you can develop periodically. Some things to remember:

  • Link your blog site to your main company domain. If you create a separate domain then you will not benefit from SEO principles, which of course is one of the main aims of a good content strategy!
  • It’s also important to have a button to click on for your blog on your main website. This usually works well if it sits along the top.
  • If you’re looking for a free blog site, check out wordpress.com as it’s one of the easiest and most versatile CMS for blogging.

And the main benefit of using your blog as your content marketing platform is that it costs next to nothing! A basic blog can be designed in a matter of seconds, or if you wanted more detailed design, you could hire someone at a relevantly low cost to complete this task.

Sourcing the content

Your next step is to think about where to get your content from.
Some companies with larger budgets may turn to copywriting agencies *ahem* or look for some freelancer support, however this can be an expensive resource, so if you’re looking for ways to save some pennies, why not write the content yourself?
A general rule of thumb for good content marketing is to post once a week. This can be on any topic relevant to your business – or even irrelevant topics – just make sure you include key SEO terms and it will resonate with your audience. This improves your Google ranking and ultimately helps people find your blog, which in turn leads more traffic to your website – easy!
Of course, posting once a week can take a bit of time so consider using other team members, or perhaps even guest bloggers. Not only will this take some of the responsibility off your plate, it’ll also naturally lend your blog to different styles and opinions that can keep your readers engaged.

Repurposing your content

Always share the link to the blog post across your social media channels. You can also repurpose the content in other ways; you could consider turning the post into a video, slideshow or podcast, for example. Once you’ve already got the ideas down on paper, you can cut your content creation time significantly for other repurposed pieces and explore alternative ways to engage your audience with the content.  And we’re not looking at costly alternatives – you could easily post a video on YouTube discussing the key arguments from your blog for free.

Think about your timing

If you are regularly posting to your blog and are linking key SEO terms into your posts, you are essentially ‘content marketing’ – congrats!
However, to take your content marketing strategy to the next level, you need to put some thinking behind what you post and when. There are lots of resources on the internet that will help you with this.
It’s all well and good posting on your blog or social media page, or sending out email campaigns with lots of content for your readers, but what makes it even more valuable is if you think about the schedule for your content. For example, if you populate your content calendar with key dates that are relevant to your company, industry, customers, or even public holiday dates, you’ve got the perfect starting point for coming up with creative content ideas that are both interesting and contextual.
This also involves minimal costs, but with big impacts as it can help your brand look current, organised and thoughtful. Timely content is also more likely to be shared by others across social media so it’s always worth keeping in mind.

And there you have it…

Hopefully this blog post has made you realise that content marketing isn’t just limited to those big spenders, but instead is a strategy that can be applied by all.
The key thing to remember is to post content that is relevant to your audience at relevant times and soon (in theory) you’ll be seeing your web traffic and click through rates increase.
[1] https://econsultancy.com/reports/content-marketing-survey-report