Content Creation for the Successful Small Business

by Maria Botta

A focused content strategy is key to reaching your customers with the right message at the right time

In my current consulting practice, I am advising more and more clients about not only content creation but about creating a sound content strategy. The undirected or one-off creation of content is simply not a great business investment or a good practice. This is important, because today’s marketing budgets are moving away from traditional spends and focusing more and more on content creation—all part of a new focus on “pull” rather than “push” marketing.

If you have a Hispanic business or a business that caters to this demographic, there are even more compelling reasons to have a strong content strategy that leverages this demographic’s usage habits and language preferences. Consider every piece of digital and analog content that you put out there as a key part of your business. Hispanics are currently the fastest growing demographic online. Couple that with the fact that Hispanics use mobile devices more than any other demographic to research and purchase, and you can see that a strong and sound content strategy will help to deliver these consumers.

“One thing you want to have is a content strategy so you understand what content you’re producing and how it’s going to support your overall mission,” says Alisa Maclin, vice president of marketing for IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative.

 

 

What is Content?

Content is really anything that you create for use online in visual, written and audio formats:
• logos and icons
• photography
• Facebook posts
• Twitter tweets
• blogs
• articles
• games
• white papers
• reports
• videos
• podcasts

Your organization can create its own original content, curate content from different sources or do both. Your objectives, budgets and specific demographics will determine what is best suited for your strategy.