Content Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

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Business owners often feel like firefighters trying to put out fire in different parts of the house on a daily basis.

When there’s a need for owners to juggle twenty tasks simultaneously like an octopus, desperately trying to keep the business running like a well-oiled machine, taking time out to contemplate an effective content marketing strategy may not be amongst the top 10 items on your to-do-list. However, content marketing is essential!

If you are looking to:

● Establish a brand identity

● Market and promote your business

● Attract the right audience

● Build a returning customer base

You MUST HAVE a well thought of content marketing strategy.

This actionable guide is written specifically to help you achieve that.

Three Pillars of Digital Marketing

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To create a sustainable and effective content strategy, it is imperative that we understand the three core pillars of digital marketing, which will allow us to take stock of the resources at our disposal.

Owned Media: The channels in which you create and control. Channels such as your company blog, Instagram account, Facebook page, and Youtube Channel etc. Even though you may not technically possess ownership of your Youtube channel or Facebook Page, being able to use them for free qualify them as Owned Media.

Paid Media: External marketing efforts on third-party sites and social media platforms that require a paid placement. Paid Media includes PPC advertising, display ads, and influencer marketing etc.

Earned Media: Your content that’s shared by consumers, the press, and the public via word of mouth and digital avenues. Earned Media often acts as the organic vehicle that drives visitors to your owned media channels, as consumers act as advocates for your brand.

Key takeaway: A digital marketing ecosystem must comprise all three types of Media, though the focus and allocation of time, effort, and budget will look different for each organization.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Of course, businesses that have a strong presence on every platform available reap tremendous rewards.

Large companies with the resources for a full-fledged content marketing strategy have the capacity to be omnipresent, always engaging consumers on every platform in a multitude of ways.

The danger arises when small businesses attempt to replicate what their larger counterparts are doing. Without the same amount of resources, time, and manpower at their disposal, implementing a full-on content marketing strategy will be unsustainable and even counter-productive.

Smaller businesses with limited resources can achieve effective results when their content strategy is laser-focused; and their objectives crystal clear.

So, what’s the solution?

You don’t have to do everything, you just need to go hard at what works for your business.

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Choosing The Right Channel(s)

The next step in formulating an effective content strategy is to narrow down and determine the right channels and type of content.

Things to consider:

● The nature of your product/services (B2B or B2C)

● Where does your audience like to hang out

● Consumer behaviour on each platform

● What has worked well for you

● What has been working for your competitors

● Which are your competitors’ best and worst performing content and platforms

Choosing Channels

Every piece of content has to be conceptualised with the context of each platform in mind. Users expect content on each channel to be contextually appropriate.

Eg. An audience that is looking for a few laughs after a long day of work will not respond well to your request for opinions on serious issues that require much brainpower.

By asking these questions, coupled with some research, you should be able to identify your target audiences’ preferred channels and the type of content they respond to.

Creating Content

Even after you have narrowed down to the select few channels, attempting to produce content for multiple channels on a consistent basis can sometimes feel like a doomed endeavour.

Here are four simple tips:

#1 Content Hub and Cluster Content

Brainstorm for content ideas and categorize them into content hubs and cluster content. Content hubs are either an in-depth guide or resource on a broad topic.

Cluster content is a piece of subtopic content that allows for more expansion and details.

Eg. If Keto Diet is the content hub, examples of cluster content would be “the side effects of Keto Diet” and “Keto Diet for beginners” etc.

#2 Repurpose Content

Develop a content pillar.

A content pillar is a substantive piece of content on a specific topic or theme that can be broken into many smaller pieces of content that can be published on other channels.

By focusing on creating a single content pillar, you can create an enormous amount of content by repurposing that report or Youtube video into shorter blog posts for your website or short-form content for various social media channels.

Eg. Repurposing an 1 hour long interview into several short clips for Instagram/Facebook, or transcribe parts of the interview and use them in your blog articles.

#3 Play to your strength

Are you able to write well? Produce blog articles that address your audience's burning questions.

Are you blessed with the gift of the gab? Consider shooting videos for Youtube or starting a podcast. Do you have adequate skills in photography or design? Try creating interesting infographics and share them on your social media platforms.

#4 Scalability

Often the channel with the largest amount of audience is the one that you should be focusing on. Having a substantial amount of audience on a particular platform is an indication of an audience’s willingness to engage your brand on said platform.

Key takeaway: Due to having a comparatively smaller budget for Paid Media, small businesses should capitalise on the power of Earned Media by creating extremely shareable content that resonates with their audience on their Owned Media channels.

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Performance Tracking

Unless the performance of each implemented strategy is tracked, businesses are throwing spaghetti (resources) at the wall.

The upside of staying laser-focused on just one or two channels is the benefit of having fewer metrics to track.

Page Views

To understand which piece of content resonates with your audience. This would allow you to tailor your future content to your audience’s interest.

Unique Visitors

Allows you to have a gauge of the size of your audience as well as the number of repeat visitors.

Average Time on Page

High average time on page is an indication of interest. Conversely, low average time on page signals poor engagement, which would require you to either enhance the content or direct your efforts to work other better performing content.

Pages Per Visit

This metric tells you how valuable and engaging the content on your site is in general.

Behavior Flow

Helps you understand how users navigate through your website, hence allowing you to identify and optimize your site for maximum user retention.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who leave only after viewing one page. If bounce rate is high, it is advisable to investigate the technical factors such as page speed, as well as the quality of your content.

Return Rate

Having a good return rate is often an indication of having good quality content on your site that your audience finds valuable, which can then also inform you of the current stage your audience is in with regards to the customer journey.

Follower count

A growing follower base on your social media channels is often a good indication of growth that brings about an increase in traffic, brand awareness, and engagement.

Social Media shares and likes

Having social listening tools set up will help you understand which piece of content resonates with the audience, hence saving you from all the guess work.

Comments

An even more accurate measure of engagement than “Likes” are comments. As comments often require more effort and thought to execute, it is a useful indication of emotional investment an audience has in your brand.

Key takeaway: Depending on your objectives and KPIs, the metrics that you track should always provide you with valuable insights which you can use to understand and optimize your content marketing strategy.

Conclusion

It is essential for every business to have an effective content marketing strategy in this digital age, where content is the knife that cuts through the sea of online chatter and gives visibility to your business.

While the small businesses often can depend on Owned and Earned Media for sustainability, those looking to scale their business would be required to have a solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, as well as an effective Paid Media strategy in place.

Whether you are looking to get started, or require additional support to optimize and scale your marketing efforts, do not hesitate to schedule a meeting with us as our team of experienced marketers are eager to join you on this exciting journey.

Startup Accelerators in Singapore

Why join a Startup Accelerator?

Carving out a career as an entrepreneur takes guts.

But building and scaling a successful startup requires individuals to have more than a great reserve of courage and drive.

With all the complexities involved from developing an idea, to pitching the idea as a feasible business in exchange for funding, having someone who is able to point you in the right direction while avoiding the nasty rookie pitfalls along the way will save you lots of time and tons of pain.

Startup Accelerators are designed to do just exactly that.

By providing the necessary ecosystems for aspiring entrepreneurs to turn ideas into profitable businesses, Startup Accelerators function as the launching pad for entrepreneurs at various stages of the Startup journey.

Be it only having an idea but no clear plan forward, or requiring funding to scale your company, there is a startup accelerator out there that would meet you right where you are.

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Entrepreneur First Singapore

Who is it for: Aspiring Entrepreneurs, looking to get started Do you need to have an idea: Not necessarily

Focus: Tech Startups

Duration: 3 months

Apply here: https://www.joinef.com/apply-to-ef/

Entrepreneur First (EF) is for aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking to build a team and a technology-focused startup. Unlike many traditional ‘accelerators’ that require a developed business idea to pitch to investors, EF assists innovative computer scientists and ambitious engineers in developing deep-technology companies from scratch.

The first 14 weeks, known as FORM, will be spent on finding the right co-founder and developing and refining one’s business idea. At the end of FORM, participants are expected to pitch to the Investment Committee to gain funding.

Selected team will proceed to a three months long phase known as LAUNCH, where the team would take part in structured training and work with experienced advisors to accelerate their growth. All the effort and hard work will culminate in a region-wide Demo Day, where teams will present their companies to hundreds of leading investors in the world.

Lastly, selected teams will then attend several weeks of fundraising office hours, where investors will be invited in with the goal of raising a seed round that will allow participants to grow and scale.

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Build 80 by Reapra

Who is it for: Ideation stage or those who have recently started building their business

Do you need to have an idea: Yes

Focus: Asset-light and scalable business in fields where there are no known dominant players

Duration: Dependent on progress (approximately 5 to 9 months)

Apply here: https://reapra.com/the-build-80-journey

Build 80 is a venture builder programme under Reapra that looks at aspiring founders or founders at an early stage of their startup journey. Reapra helps startups to reduce the risk of failure by functioning as a co-founder that helps to turn innovative ideas into profitable businesses.

Build 80’s applicants should be at Seed or Series A funding levels, with a few exceptions. Those whose applications are successful will be invited for a week-long “Sprint”, which they will be involved in a series of meetings focused on assessing the potential of their business ideas.

Applicants whose ideas are deemed a good fit for the Build 80 programme will proceed to kickstart their entrepreneurial journey with the hands-on support from the Reapra team and partners.

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Antler Singapore

Who is it for: Aspiring Entrepreneurs, looking to get started

Do you need to have an idea: Not necessarily

Focus: Tech Startups

Duration: 6 Months

Apply here: https://www.antler.co/apply

Antler specializes in supporting aspiring entrepreneurs who may not possess anything concrete besides drive, grit, and a really good idea. Antler allays the common fears of budding entrepreneurs by providing support that demystifies the entire process of building a company from scratch.

From finding suitable co-founders, to providing world-class mentorship, Antler supports passionate individuals in their entrepreneurial journey and helps transform potential ideas into successful businesses.

To help participants focus on building their businesses, each individual will receive an individual grant during the first phase of the program to help offset some living costs. The second phase will include companies who have been selected to receive continued support leading up to the investment round.

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ImpacTech

Who is it for: Early stage Tech Startups

Do you need to have an idea: Yes

Duration: 3 to 4 months

Focus: Impact-driven Technology startups

Apply here: https://impactech.com/startup-sign-up/

Understanding that no two startups are alike, ImpacTech believes in providing personalized support for each startup that joins its programme.

Besides bringing together innovative startups to develop market changing technologies and products, ImpacTech believes strongly in preparing entrepreneurs to be future leaders who will make a positive impact in the world. Hence, the program seeks to enhance soft skills such as self-leadership, negotiation skills, influencing techniques, which will enable each graduated startup to “Do Well by Doing Good”.

Teams will kick start the program by first defining its goals, milestones, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by which the performance would be measured. Teams will then be assigned experienced mentors who will provide the guidance and support they need throughout the duration of the program.

Participants will also be engaging in special sessions with leading investors and influential companies, allowing them to glean entrepreneurial wisdom that can be incorporated to refine their business as they prepare for “Demo Day”.

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The Unilever Foundry

Who is it for: Mature Startups

Do you need to have an idea: Yes

Duration: Long-term partnership with Unilever

Focus: Tech, Ecommerce, Supply Chain, Logistics

Apply here: https://www.theunileverfoundry.com/contact-us.html

The Unilever Foundry seeks mature startups to engage in partnerships with the goal of addressing the strategic priorities of Unilever’s brands and functions. Spaces such as Digital Marketing, Ad Tech, Enterprise Tech, Ecommerce, Wellness, and Supply chain are the areas of interest in which Unilever is looking to make an impact.

The partnership programme has helped pilot more than 200 startups and has invested approximately $20m till date.

Interested applicants should already have a proven product, service, or technology that has been tested in the market that they are ready to pitch to Unilever if shortlisted. Successful pitches will be granted the opportunity to pilot with one of the Unilever brands. A budget will also be allocated to cover the cost of developing the pilot if the pitch to The Foundry is successful.

In the event that Unilever wishes to partner with a startup following a successful pilot, both parties will enter a new agreement on a case-by-case basis.

If the above startup accelerators are not for you, have a look at the full list below.

The complete List of Startup Accelerators in Singapore:

1. Tribe Accelerator

2. Accelerating Asia

3. Found8 Elevate SG Founder Programme

4. HyperX hackathon-to-accelerator programme

5. Oracle Startup Accelerator

6. Muru-D

7. Startup Autobahn Singapore

8. Collective Campus Corporate Accelerator

9. Singapore Ampersand Accelerator

10. EthAum Accelerator

Join Co-Founders Matching Singapore

If you are not ready to join a startup accelerator and you'd like to find a co-founder to bootstrap your way through, we welcome you to join our Co-Founders Matching Singapore community.

What is co-founders matching?

For those who want to build their own startup but don't want to do it alone, our networking events allow you to meet your business half, network with like minded people and kick-start your startup journey!

SEO Strategy for eCommerce Websites

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SEO is a beast.

When done right, it has the ability to increase website traffic and conversions by many folds. As of 2019, 39% of global ecommerce traffic originates from search engines and 80% of shoppers tend to ignore paid advertisements on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Having an effective SEO strategy in place allows businesses to rank high on the SERP, creating a strong online presence that generates long-term organic traffic without having to depend heavily on paid advertising for visitors.

Without leveraging on SEO to bring about a steady stream of visitors that forms the backbone of every eCommerce business, companies are missing out on revenue and sales that are going to their competitors.

In this guide, we will be walking you through some of the best On-Page, Technical, and Link-building strategies you can adopt to optimize your website in order to enjoy the long-term benefits of SEO.

Let’s get optimizing!

Getting Started

First off, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consists of three main categories, namely On-page, Off-page, and technical SEO, with some overlaps. Like a three-legged stool that requires all three legs to work properly, it is imperative that a SEO strategy cover all three categories.

Sounds intimidating?

Fret not. We will be covering everything you need to know to get started on building an effective SEO strategy for your website.

On Page SEO

When it comes to On-page SEO, there are two important factors to keep in mind: Users and search engine. Ensuring that each piece of content answers the searchers’ questions, while remaining understandable to the search engine is imperative.

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1) Choosing Keywords

Choosing the right topics and keywords relevant to your products and services has a direct impact on the quality of traffic that visits your site. When considering content topics, keeping the buyer’s journey and searchers’ intent in mind will help you decide on the suitable keywords and topics.

Keyword tools such as Ubersuggest and Keyword Surfer are perfect for identifying long-tail keywords that are not overly competitive and have a decent amount of monthly search volume.

Searchers’ intent and buyer’s journey tools such as Answer the Public and Questiondb are perfect for uncovering searchers’ questions and intent that you can use to create useful content targeting each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Pro tip: Studying your competitors webpages for content ideas and keywords is one of the most reliable and cost-efficient ways to understand what would work for you as well.

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2) Html Elements

Html elements are valuable places where your keywords can be optimized for search engines and users to better understand what your page is about.

Here are some of the best practices to optimize each element:

Urls:

Keep Urls structured and easy to understand for search engines and users.

Eg. www.timberland.com.sg/products/timberland-premium-roll-top-boot/

Title tag:

Keep Title Tags under 70 characters and start off with a target keyword if possible, as search engines tend to place more emphasis on the initial few words in title tags. Remember to only use one target keyword for each title tag.

Meta description:

Keep Meta Descriptions under 160 characters and include keywords and phrases in the form of compelling sentences to encourage users searching for your products to click through. Two questions to keep in mind when crafting a meta description:

• What product are you offering?

• Why should people buy from you?

Image alt tags:

Keep Image Alt Tags under 125 characters and make them descriptive and specific. As search results based on images have increased over the years, it is important for eCommerce businesses to ensure that their products are discoverable.

Schema markup

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For eCommerce businesses, Product and Offer markups are of particular importance. They allow product information such as price, ratings and stock status to appear in the SERP and allow your content to be featured as a Rich Snippet that often enjoys high click-through-rates (CTR).

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Enhancing Content on Product Pages

Having a visitor landing on your product page is often the result of countless hours of hard work. You do not want to squander all that effort by not fully optimizing your product page for conversion.

Here are a few tips.

Tip #1: Create unique product descriptions

Writing content that includes information such as size charts, features, ways to care for a product, and answers to various questions potential customers may have will increase the likelihood of purchase.

Tip #2: Provide customer reviews

Customer reviews and other forms of social proof are powerful weapons in your arsenal that can nudge those “on the fence” consumers to make the purchase. Customer reviews also keeps your content updated, which is good for SEO as we all know search engines love active and long-form content.

Tip #3: Keeping out-of-stock product pages live

Add a “notify me when available” message and encourage visitors to key in their email addresses to be notified about the product status as well as future offerings.

Tip #4: Include links to related product categories

Have you ever found yourself looking to buy an office shirt online at 2am, only to end up with an extra pair of pants and a polka dot skinny tie that your sleep-deprived brain was convinced that it’s something that you need?

Recommending products related to the product of interest not only increases the probability of getting more sales, it also indicates to users that your business pays attention to what consumers need.

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Technical SEO

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No matter how awesome your content and website may be, without optimizing the technical aspect of SEO, you are depriving your site of the traffic it could otherwise be getting.

Ensuring the crawlability and indexability of your site is paramount as Google can’t rank what it can’t crawl. Fixing broken links, duplicate content, and various site errors are crucial to overall SEO performance and will help improve the usability and conversion of your site.

A few excellent audit tools to help you check and improve SEO performance are Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and Hubspot’s Web Grader.

Link Building Strategies

Internal Links

Internal linking helps Google to recognize your site as useful and valuable to searchers as they spend time reading and clicking through to different pages of your website. The key is to use internal links to guide users to the content that provides answers to their next possible query.

Pro tip: Include links to your best products or popular category pages in performing articles that have generated a high volume of visitors. That is to ensure that your best products are being seen by prospects who are already interested in your products or services.

External Links (Inbound Links)

External links, often referred to as Inbound links, are links pointing from other sites to yours. As part of the Off-page SEO strategy, having inbound links is a huge plus in the eyes of the mighty search engines.

Having established sites linking to yours is equivalent to them giving you a thumbs up, signalling to the search engines that your content is something worth ranking. It also adds to the visibility of your site as inbound links are a great source of free traffic.

Tip #1: Provide product samples to influential bloggers

Offering free product samples to influential bloggers within your industry and niche is a great way to get coverage, drive traffic, and increase engagement via their link to your website.

If you need help searching for influential bloggers to work with, check out popular tools such as Majestic and Buzzsumo to assist you in your efforts.

Tip #2: Email Outreach

Though some may shudder at the thought of shooting a direct email stating clearly your purpose to partner on a project, many bloggers actually appreciate that as it saves them time and all the back and forth.

Pro tip:

By creating valuable content(infographics, reports about consumer behaviour etc) the other party can benefit from will greatly increase your chances of acquiring a backlink.

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Tip #3: Reverse engineer your competitor’s strategy

Reverse engineering is the tested and proven link-building strategy that has stood the test of time.

Ubersuggest and Moz Link Explorer are great tools for uncovering where your competitors are getting their backlinks. If you competitors are able to get backlinks from those webpages, there’s a good chance you will be able to as well.

Conclusion

Hope these strategies are useful in showing you how to get started on building an effective SEO strategy that’s integral to the success of your business!

If you would like to have some help to get started, we would be more than happy to assist you with that!

You can do that by scheduling a consultation to get the ball rolling.

Do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any query!