When you run a business, it’s hard not to learn everything you can about every topic related to running your company. You have your hands in development, sales, and even marketing. So as each industry grows and changes, you hear the headlines but little else -- and sometimes those headlines can be misleading.
In the world of content marketing, misunderstandings and misleading truths abound. Here are five content marketing myths that might be holding your small business back.
1. Myth: If you blog, your website will instantly attract tons of new visitors.
We speak with small business owners who are nervous to embrace content marketing because they hear how well it works and think that starting a blog will lead to an outrageous amount of business that they simply can’t handle yet.
As effective as content marketing is, it’s important to understand that it’s a form of marketing that takes time and attention to achieve results. Content marketing is something you should start now so that you can reap the rewards in 6-12 months -- not something that threatens to bring your small business processes crashing down with too much business.
2. Myth: Your only goal is tons of traffic
We’ve already addressed the idea that tons of traffic isn’t the best result of a content or social media marketing campaign. Instead, what we look for with content marketing is a healthy amount of targeted traffic that takes action on your website. “Going viral” won’t help your business if it doesn’t result in customer action.
3. Myth: Skip video, customers and search engines want text content
Video is very much a part of content marketing and can be effective for many industries. Customers who watch product videos are 85 percent more likely to buy products compared to those who don’t, and companies using online video for promotion have seen up to a 20 to 40 percent sales lift. Search engines also appreciate (and rank) video content when it is optimized for SEO, as you can see when you perform any search and see videos from YouTube ranking in your results.
4. Myth: Search optimization is a one-and-done deal
While many small business owners see SEO as a one-time thing, the truth is that your website’s SEO is always evolving and competing for ranking. You can’t check the SEO box off on your to-do list and call it done; you’ve got to do frequent check-ins to assess your progress and make adjustments. As you go along, you’ll add keywords, context, and different kinds of content to maximize your SEO.
5. Myth: Small businesses can’t afford content marketing
This is the biggest myth of all: that only large businesses can afford to break into content marketing. In reality, the opposite is true. Content marketing is an open marketplace that any business of any size can capitalize on. All it takes is time, research, and energy and you can develop a content marketing strategy that uses your website, social media, email, content, and video to build relationships and drive traffic to your website.
Yes, it’s more effective more quickly when you partner with a marketing team to deliver those results, but budget should never be a reason you aren’t participating in content marketing.
Running a small business is tough enough without having to worry about your content marketing. You just need to inform yourself and work with the right partners to make sure you’re achieving the best results possible. The first step in that process? Making sure you update your knowledge about content marketing and bust all of the myths above.
