Is content marketing right for small businesses?
In this blog I will explore how I personally find small businesses approach sales and marketing and in particular content marketing.
I have been running some free content marketing courses locally over the last year to local small business owners. What I find is that everyone seems to agree that creating useful, valuable content will provide the answers to your prospects questions and in turn a steady stream of leads.
However there is not a great deal of content being produced here in the UK at a small business level. Start-up's seem to get it and so do larger companies. Its not that there is a lack of content because its quite clear there is so much content out there. The problem is there is not enough time to consume it all.
My feeling is that there is a much higher acceptance and willingness to invest in content in the USA. There are companies in the UK just not quite as many and certainly not small businesses.
So  is content marketing right for UK small business owners? I still think so yes. But before I explain why I think so I wanted to explore why?
Time is the obvious excuse but I wonder if its more towards a lack of understanding. The very idea of inbound and content marketing must be a daunting prospect to many sales and marketing managers. Â Getting a telesales team to keep plugging away and interrupting as many businesses as they can is how they have done sales till now. Just get in front of them and then demo your stuff. Then after follow up and then follow up some more until you get a yes or a no. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Now when someone comes back into the office and starts saying you have to blog and create videos and even audio, it is a million miles from traditional lead generation.
But the truth is sales are still needed and in fact are crucial. Marketing and sales needs each other and when they work together on the same goals magic can happen.
I think we need to stop measuring vanity metrics like followers, likes a shares and start working as a team towards some smarter goals.
Content marketing is great for sales people when they see them as tools. Getting marketing to create content based on the questions the sales team get is simple tactic.
As soon as small business realise that there prospects are searching online for them, their products and services and your competitors I hope they see the opportunity to truly be the best teacher in your area at what you do.
My fear is that by the time many small business owners realise the need to be considered thought leaders and great teachers, a competitor will have already created tons of amazing content and sales as a result.
So I 100% small business owners in the UK should be considering content marketing as it already is the norm have we buy products and services.
What do you think? Is content marketing something you think is right for small business? Or are they still too busy?
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.