Content Marketing for Local Business: Why It’s Worth It

by Andrew Stack

For any business, retaining customers and building brand awareness are two of the most significant challenges. Startups and local businesses find these tasks particularly tricky — they’re often competing for visibility with larger organizations already established as household names.

All businesses must start somewhere, and it may be some time before your brand gains the recognition of some of the most well-known companies. However, you can take steps to boost awareness of your business, like developing an effective content marketing strategy. Learn more about content marketing for local businesses and how it can help your company achieve its marketing goals from Virtucom Group.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the strategic creation of written and visual material designed to attract prospects to your website, social media pages, and similar outlets. Unlike traditional outbound marketing, where businesses reach out to potential customers to pitch products and services, content marketing is inbound. In other words, you want prospects to come across your material organically while searching for it online.

For this reason, the content should be relevant, engaging, and tailored to reach a specific group of people, your target audience. Some types of content you can create include:

Benefits of Content Marketing for Local Business

The amount of online content is unfathomable, and much of it is geared toward marketing. According to Oberlo, Google — which dominates the search engine market — sees 8.5 billion searches each day. People use the internet and social media sites to find answers to their most pressing questions, and your products and services might have the answer.

With so much marketing content to sift through, consumers may get overwhelmed. Without a meaningful content marketing strategy, you risk getting lost in the sea of advertising web users experience daily. Consider some specific advantages of implementing content marketing:

Brand Recognition

As mentioned, generating awareness is often an obstacle for local businesses. You might run an ad campaign to increase visibility, may lose some of the momentum you’ve built once it ends. Content marketing can sustain these efforts because it remains on your website and social media accounts longer, directing prospects who require your products and services to these pages.

Beyond simple recognition, a content marketing strategy can inspire trust in your brand, which is critical to your reputation. For instance, the more blogs you write that answer questions about your industry, the more likely you are to establish the business as a local thought leader. Focusing on educating prospects about these topics, instead of just touting your offerings, lets people know you are a reliable source of information. The more prospects trust your brand for answers, the greater the chances they turn to you when they need your products and services.

For content to produce long-term visibility, it must be relevant. Therefore, you’ll need to refresh landing pages, blogs, articles, and other material that will live on your site indefinitely to ensure it contains the most accurate and up-to-date information.

SEO Value

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves incorporating elements into your marketing content, such as keywords, location information, and links, to increase the chances your content appears at the top of search engine results pages (SERP). One study found that the first result on Google garners about 34% of all organic traffic, while the second makes up only around 17%, with percentages falling significantly further with lower positions. In other words, appearing at the top of SERP is a worthwhile goal.

Once you draft compelling content, you can factor in SEO to maximize the page’s impact. Taking the time to create content can increase SEO value in generating organic traffic to your site.

Social Media Presence

Social media is becoming the dominant realm for online marketing —Statista found that 91.9% of companies use social media for marketing efforts. Posting content on social media can increase awareness because viewers are encouraged to share stories, videos, and other materials they like with their following. Each time someone shares your content, visibility and reputation can grow. It’s also more interactive, as prospects that see your content and want to learn more can reply in the comments section or reach out via direct message.

Hone Your Content Marketing Strategy with Virtucom Group

Content marketing can be the missing piece your local business needs to achieve objectives. If you’re not sure where to begin, turn to Virtucom Group. Our talented team of writers and editors has the knowledge and experience to deliver the personalized content services you need to reach your target audience better. Contact us today for more information about content marketing for local businesses.