Content marketing CAN be very expensive, and for a lot of small businesses this really limits what they’re able to accomplish. And for those companies that do have the extra funds, they often wonder if it’s worth it to allocate them towards creating content. The good news is, you can succeed in digital marketing without needing to have a huge budget for content creation. You just have to learn how to leverage the funds and resources you have available. It will require some extra effort on your part, but it will all pay off in the end.

 

Step 1: Start a blog.

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This is the first step towards a successful content marketing campaign, and it’s free. Create a blog page on your website, power it through WordPress, and link to it on your main page. It costs no money, and it shouldn’t take you any longer than 10 minutes to set up. 

 

Step 2: Post content to your blog once a week.

 

This is also free, since you’re the one creating the content. But since writing doesn’t come easily to everyone, this is also the part that might take some extra work. Start small- set a goal to post content to your blog once a week. Everyone starts somewhere, and even posting once a week will make a difference in your website’s SEO. It’s also important to note that readers prefer quality content over quantity, so you’re better off spending your time creating well-written posts that will add value to your audience as opposed to trying to produce a large amount of mediocre content. 

 

Step 2 Alternative: Have your employee(s) write the content for you.

 

This won’t work for all businesses; some startups don’t even have employees for that matter. And just because you have people working for you, doesn’t mean they know how to write. So this is only a valid option for someone who has at least one employee with excellent written communication skills (find this out BEFORE assigning them to write content for you). You’ll want to make sure they’re comfortable writing blog posts, and then assign them some topics to start. It’s also helpful to create a schedule so they have deadlines to work with, and you’ll want to give them training on your blog platform (aka WordPress). Finally, it doesn’t matter how confident you are in their skills…PROOFREAD their content before publishing it live. Check it for factual errors, tone of voice, spelling, and grammar issues. It doesn’t matter whose name is on the post, it’s a reflection of your business and you want it to reflect well.

 

Step 3: After you’re comfortable blogging, add in some videos.

Video marketing has a higher ROI and engagement rate than text-based content, YouTube generates billions of views per day and Facebook users are watching live videos three times more than any other type of content. That should be enough to convince you to incorporate video marketing into your content strategy, and the good news is, if you have a smartphone with a camera, it’s also free to do! You don’t have to be Quentin Tarantino to create engaging video content; people love authentic, behind-the-scenes footage, so lose the scripts and go live at an event or take a video of the production side of your company- your audience will love it and it will require minimal effort and 0 money on your part.

 

Step 4: Once you’ve built up an audience, encourage them to create user-generated content.

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User-generated content is one of the best kept secrets of the marketing world. Get your audience to do the work for you- it’s FREE (or cheap) and requires very little time or effort from you. Create a trending hashtag like Coca-Cola’s #shareacoke campaign, and/or encourage consumers to take and share photos of themselves using your product on social media. One way to do this is to run a contest: reward them for sharing with a free product, discount code, or monetary gift. People want to buy products endorsed by other people like themselves, not by big-name companies or faceless brands, so put the human element back into advertising and enjoy content marketing on a budget.

 

The Takeaway

 

Content marketing is about quality, not about money. Leverage the skills you have, plan to spend a good amount of time developing your content strategy, and don’t be afraid to take risks and think outside the box. Track your progress and ask your audience for feedback; there’s no better way to find out what your consumers want to learn about than to ask them directly! If you take the time to create valuable, well-written content with engaging images and videos, I guarantee the word will be out about your brand regardless of how big (or small) your marketing budget is. 

feature image credit: tweakyourbiz.com

image 1: wordpress.com

image 2: coca-colacompany.com