Content marketing takes time and skill. Few business owners have time, and many believe they don’t have the right skills. At the same time, they don’t have the budget to outsource content marketing to an agency.
What can you do in such a situation? First of all, do not despair. Secondly, remember that you can learn anything your set your mind to. And thirdly, that many other small businesses manage to run an effective content marketing strategy on a shoestring budget, just like you.
Start Small and Grow With Your Business
For many new business owners, the landscape of branded content they see around them is daunting. Big brands invest in sending influencers on holidays to share their impressions, organise focus groups with customers and create stories from them or work with the best advertising and marketing agencies to publish sponsored posts in major online magazines and newspapers.
There is no need to aim that high from the start. You are not competing for the same audiences, at a global level. What you want is to find leads in your local area and to convert them into customers. They are people like you – your neighbours, people you pass by in the street.
So, How Can You Build Your Content Marketing Strategy on a Shoestring Budget?
1. Writing Is Too Hard? Get In Front of the Camera
Content marketing goes beyond blog posts. While written content is great for SEO, video content performs wonderfully on the social media, especially on Facebook™. So, until you build the necessary budget to hire a writer, you can create content as short videos or even go live on various occasions.
What kind of content can you share in videos? You can tell your brand story: what motivated you to open your business, how you want to help clients and how you do things differently from your competitors. You can also demonstrate your products – and since seeing is believing, this type of video will help you sell more than the most skilled product description.
Last, but not least, you can create tutorials, showing your prospects how to solve a problem or perform a certain task.
2. Invite Others to Write For You
Guest blogging goes both ways; while some entrepreneurs are trying to get their content published on various blogs, you can invite writers to post on your business blogs. Create a list of guidelines for the kind of content you are looking for and invite potential guest writers to read them before they click on the “Write For Us” button.
This will save you a lot of time sifting through dozens of articles that have nothing to do with your niche.
3. Ask Your Team to Show Their Writing Skills
Some people are talented at writing without knowing it. You may be surprised what great blog post your assistant or production team leader can create, given the opportunity. All it takes is to pitch them an idea to write about – for instance, what motivated them to join your business.
Stories with a human interest are extremely valuable in building a great brand image. You can cover weeks of content marketing strategy by asking everyone in your team to contribute their story to your business blog or social media pages.
4. Find Cheap Freelancers
First things first, you should know that you usually get what you pay for. These being said, there are lots of talented freelance writers living in areas where payment expectations are below those in Australia. While some of them may not be native speakers of English, they know it at a sufficiently proficient level to create good content. You can usually find them on freelancing platforms like Upwork, Textbroker or Freelancer.
5. Create Infographics
Infographics are an important part of content marketing and people love them because they can visualise and contextualise abstract information. You can find dozens of free or very affordable platforms, like Canva, where you can create beautiful infographics from scratch or starting from a ready-made template.
As you can see, content marketing does not have to be expensive and you can start doing it as soon as you have opened your business. Good luck!