According to the internet marketing website Semrush, 97% of companies use content marketing as a way to reach their target audiences.
It makes sense that many companies devote time and energy to creating content. An effective content marketing strategy is a low-cost, highly effective way to engage with people online.
While this marketing strategy can benefit a company of any size, it’s incredibly beneficial for startups.
In this post, you’ll find out the benefits of content marketing for startups. You’ll also learn how to form a successful content marketing strategy.
Table of Contents
Why every startup needs content marketing
I won’t lie – following through with a content strategy takes time and energy. So, before you get started, it’s smart to understand the benefits of your content marketing for startups.
Gaining a competitive edge
One of the best benefits of creating content is gaining an edge over your competition. Depending on what niche or industry you work in, not all of your competitors might have a strong content strategy.
As your company begins a content strategy, it’s likely to appear in more places online than competitors who aren’t creating content. As you continue a startup content marketing campaign, your company and its website continue gaining authority.
After enough time and effort, your business could be the content marketing success story of its niche or industry.
Giving your startup a big personality
At the end of the day, a company’s owner wants to have lots of customers spending money on its products or services. However, regardless of how true it is, no company’s going to get far blatantly asking for people’s money.
Think of pushy online companies as someone walking alongside you and poking your shoulder with their fingers. It’s obnoxious.
On the other hand, a business with a great content marketing strategy is like an enticing store. You’re not pestering people to learn about your company or buying anything from it. Because of that, customers come to your business.
Showing up in search engines
Every time you create content, especially blog posts and video content, your business gains a chance to show up in search results. These appearances can start driving a ton of clicks and organic traffic to your business.
While it’s certainly not a startup, a great example of a company absolutely owning search engine results involves Hubspot. If you were unaware, Hubspot is a popular company offering digital marketing services.
Because I don’t want to leave and miss out on all the knowledge below, we’ll keep this upcoming example hypothetical. After you finish reading this article, go to Google and search for anything related to marketing. Chances are, you’ll see Hubspot appear in search results. That’s because Hubspot knows how to form and carry out a content marketing strategy.
Like Hubspot, your company can utilize a startup content marketing strategy. If done well, your business can begin to take over content topics and even entire clusters of keywords.
Don’t make these startup content marketing mistakes
When discussing content marketing for startups, it’s good to know how to do things right. However, I’m also a big fan of mentioning things you shouldn’t do. With that in mind, here’s a list of content marketing mistakes to avoid.
Publishing and forgetting about content
I’ll admit – this lesson was one I wished I had learned with I started to create content online. Like you, I’m someone who feels accomplished after hitting that “Publish Post” button. Knowing that your content just went live is an awesome feeling and usually the culmination of hours (and hours) of work.
But “set it and forget it” (post it and ghost it?) is not recommended in a content marketing strategy! In my early days of writing blog posts, I’d do nothing with them after they went live. Looking back, it probably cost me a ton of traffic (and money).
After your company publishes something, one of the best content marketing tips I can give you is to share it anywhere your business can. Another thing to do with the content you have is to repurpose it, which means posting your original piece in another content format. You’ll learn more about repurposing content in a section further down.
Having no plan
Another thing I’ve seen many companies do is create content without a plan. Setting up a plan lets you or your team learn how much content they’re capable of creating during a specified period.
At the very least, I’d recommend setting up primary and secondary keywords. These keywords are what you’ll form your company’s content around.
When you begin your a startup content marketing plan, I’d recommend going after low-competition and volume keywords first. These keyword clusters are typically easier for a new website to rank for.
As you continue your content creation efforts, you can start targeting more popular and competitive keywords.
Not knowing your target audience
The people who read your content make up your target audience. And, as you know, people come from all walks of life. People are of different ages, have different interests, and do various things.
When your website’s marketing efforts pay off, and it starts gaining organic traffic, it’s important to have content that appeals to them. As these people see topics that appeal to them, your target audience spends more time on your website.
Never mixing up your content formats
Whatever particular niche your startup focuses on, make sure it mixes up the type of content it publishes. I’ll admit that I’m a huge fan of blog posts. It’s what I’ve done the most, so it’s what I’m most comfortable with.
Even though I’m not crazy about certain other content formats, I still make it a habit to repurpose the content I create.
There are many types of content you can create. If you need a little inspiration, here are some content formats to try out:
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- Videos
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Whitepapers
It might feel a little comfortable trying to create high-quality content in a new format. But stick with it, and these new formats could bring you a lot of target customers.
Producing low-effort or thin content
Another thing to avoid is low-effort content. Let’s say that your business wanted to create content around the topic of video marketing. Rushing a new blog post with 250 words and no images or sources probably isn’t going to get your website appearing on the first page of search engine results.
Unfortunately, there’s no magic number of words to include in your content to start gaining search rankings and traffic. However, you can check out what’s currently ranking well for your keyword of choice. That should give you an idea of how long to make a post when writing content.
There are also programs like Surfer and Frase that will automatically scan and calculate word counts for your keywords of choice.
Bonus tip: Check out all of your website’s current content. If you see short blog posts, check out what other companies are talking about regarding this subject. Chances are, you’ll find ideas to add to your company’s relevant content.
Making all of your content promotional
At the end of the day, a company needs to turn potential customers into active buyers. I get it. While content marketing for startups can help you sell your business and what it offers to the world, don’t make every piece of content promotional.
There are many ways to drive organic traffic through non-promotional content. Here’s a quick list of ideas to educate readers instead of selling to them:
- Keep readers up-to-date with your company’s latest developments.
- Conduct interviews with people that appeal to your relevant audience.
- Create how-to pages or tutorials that help your readers complete a task.
- Make fun visual content, such as a video that shows off what it’s like behind the scenes of your business.
Expecting overnight success
In a perfect world, the content creation process would always provide overnight results. With paid advertising, it can. But an organic content marketing strategy will take time before your business sees results.
For instance, it can take weeks or months for a blog post to begin showing up in Google’s search results. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to speed this time up.
That’s not to say you should avoid content marketing for startups, which remains one of the most cost-effective ways for a company to advertise itself. Keep creating high-quality content, be patient, and your efforts will pay off.
How to create the perfect content marketing strategy
The best way to learn about content marketing for startups is to do it for yourself. Don’t worry – I’m here to help! Let’s dive into how startups can form successful content marketing strategies.
Setting goals
One of the first steps is to set goals or KPIs (key performance indicators) for your content. Setting goals gives your company a benchmark to continuously measure the performance of its content.
If you’re new to startup content marketing, it can feel difficult to know what goal you’re trying to reach. Typically, content marketing for startups focuses on one or all of the following factors:
- Increasing awareness about your startup
- Gaining more customers
- Acquiring online traffic
- Getting better SEO results
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself about goals. The main thing to focus on is creating content. Goals become important as you continue making content and fine-tuning your marketing plan.
Gathering content ideas
If you have ideas ready for your target audience, that’s great! But, eventually, everyone’s well of ideas runs dry. That’s when it’s time to step back and get some content ideas.
With content everywhere, there’s never a shortage of places to go for new ideas. When inspiration isn’t striking, here are some of my favorite places to get ideas for content.
Industry-related forums
Many companies get content ideas that appeal to prospective customers from browsing forums. Ideally, you want to check out forums relevant to your industry or niche.
For instance, you probably wouldn’t find many content ideas on an automotive forum if you run a website about audience development.
What’s great about forums is that these relevant communities are typically free to join. In most cases, all you have to do to join them is create an account. Usually, you only have to wait about a day to receive approval to join a forum.
Most forums have rules for new users and what they must do before they can start making posts. But you don’t have to contribute to join most forums (especially if you’re there for keyword research only).
Bonus tip: More than almost any other platform, it’s best to avoid being overly promotional on forums. I encourage you to share helpful information with people and groups from these websites, though.
Question and answer websites
You can also learn what your target market wants by checking out question-and-answer websites. In the past, Yahoo Answers was the place to go. But, with that website gone, there are other Q and A websites you can check out.
Whether you need ideas for YouTube videos, social media channels, or website posts, browse around the following websites for inspiration:
- Quora
- Stack Overflow
- Ask.fm
- Blurtit
Check social media for trending topics
You probably don’t need me to inform you that many different social media platforms exist. But I can tell you that social media can be an amazing source of startup content marketing ideas.
Simply type in a relevant hashtag, hit the search button, and you can start seeing what people are saying about this topic in real time. You can also use social media as a smart way to learn about trending or new topics before your competitors do.
News websites
No matter what industry you operate in, it’s a safe bet that there are many news websites around your niche. Check out these reputable sites to gain a ton of inspiration about new topics in your niche.
Your competitors
This method is a bit sneaky, but it’s also great for uncovering ideas for content. So, build your brand’s presence by getting ideas from the competition.
Chances are, much like your startup, these startups are using the same promotional channels in an effort to gain the most search volume.
So, why not see what keywords and topics they’re covering? If you have strong enough competition, you should have no trouble finding potential ideas for content from them.
Nailing search intent
At this point, you should have ideas for future SEO content. Before you start writing or typing, I’d recommend taking a look at what’s known as search intent.
This term involves what the person making the search is looking for. Search engines like Google also use this intent when displaying results in its top ten results.
Let’s say that you searched for “buy a new car.” The intent for this keyword is buying. So, you’d probably get lots of results from car dealerships.
If you searched for a “2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee review,” your intent is informational. At this point, you’re probably not quite ready to buy. Instead, you’re looking for helpful information. This search would likely show results from review-based (informational) websites.
I used to waste so much time and work as a content marketer by not checking the intent of a keyword before working on it. Don’t make that same mistake!
Always Google the main keyword you work on before writing a word about it.
Choosing the right content formats
If you want to maximize the size of your primary audience, it’s helpful to mix up your startup content marketing strategies. To help you avoid making the same page over and over, check out these content formats.
- Blog posts – A content marketing classic. You can use blog posts to cover topics in a variety of ways. Plus, blogs are super easy to share.
- Case studies – Getting a little more technical, case studies help your business dive deep into a topic.
- Videos – Step in front of that iPhone camera! Video marketing is a great way to reach an audience. Like a blog post, video content is also easy to share down almost any distribution channel.
- Podcasts – A great way to branch out is by also creating audio content. These days, you only need a phone mic or something similar to get started.
- Testimonials – If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas for content, why not have your customers provide it for you? That’s the magic of testimonials. You’ll need to reach out to these customers to get a testimonial or review. However, the effort spent on this task can lead to testimonials that are worth their weight in gold.
Distributing your startup’s content
With your content published, it’s now time to distribute it. While this might sound complicated, this crucial part of the startup content marketing process is easy for anyone to do.
Social media
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok are just a few of the world’s most popular websites. These social media websites highlight the seemingly undying popularity of these platforms.
I urge you to make sure that your startup has active social media pages. That means not only claiming these pages but also regularly posting and sharing content to them.
Content distribution websites
There are also websites that you can use to distribute your content to a wider audience. One of the websites I’m currently a big fan of is Medium. If you have a primary or secondary audience in the B2B niche, I’d recommend sharing your website’s posts through the LinkedIn articles feature.
Outreach
One of the best ways to distribute your content is by making guest posts. A guest post is a piece of content on a website that’s typically from another writer and company. In this case, you’ll be the creator of a guest post.
If you know other companies that are at least somewhat relevant to your industry, these websites could be great places to submit guest posts. In other cases, you’ll need to find relevant websites, and either look for a contact page or an email address.
Once you have a way to reach these companies, make your pitch. The best thing I can tell you about outreach is to be patient. It could take a while to get another website wanting to list your content on their site. However, as your website builds authority and a history of guest posts, it becomes much easier to get other websites to share your content.
Email marketing
If you’re running or working for a brand-new startup, this business might not have an email list. If so, that’s perfectly fine. But if your startup currently sends out emails, it has a great distribution channel for sharing content.
People who have already subscribed to your startup’s email already have a connection with your company. So, make use of that connection and include links to new content your startup recently published.
Promoting your content
Do you have some room in your startup content marketing budget? If so, you might get faster results by checking a few content promotion methods.
Influencer marketing
If you spend a lot of time online, it’s likely that you follow and could be big fans of influencers. I’m not wild about this term, but it can apply to many people. The term influencer describes any person or personality with a large online following.
When you think of an influencer, you might imagine a person snapping and uploading selfies every five minutes. While plenty (too many) of those people exist, that’s not the only trait of an influencer.
An example of influencer marketing is the YouTube channel Game Grumps (5.37 million YouTube subscribers). Game Grumps is a channel in which two people play video games. If a channel this large does an in-video ad about a new game, lots of people (many of whom enjoy video games) learn about this product.
Paid advertising
Another great and fast way to get your content in front of audiences is with paid advertising. You can launch paid ads on many of the web’s most popular destinations, including Google, Facebook, Bing, TikTok, and other platforms.
As the name implies, paid advertising costs money. But, with this platform’s range of keywords and audience grouping, it’s possible to find paid ads that work for any startup’s budget.
Repurposing existing content
Another tried and true startup content marketing strategy is repurposing. This term means taking content in one format and making some changes to publish it in another format. It’s helpful to better understand this concept with a few examples.
Let’s say that you publish a blog post. Instead of publishing it and doing nothing else with it, you could turn this post into one or several infographics. You can also take your content and turn it into a podcast discussion or a video.
Thank you for checking out this look at content marketing for startups. I’ve had the pleasure of working with quite a few startups in the past decade. Because of that, I wanted to create a post about a topic I’m very passionate about.
Does your startup need a helping hand with:
- Content creation?
- Guest blogging?
- Content outlines?
- Short and long-form content?
If so, Content Marketing Life is here to help. Our business creates high-quality content that’s friendly for all marketing budgets.
Alex Eagleton is a copywriter and digital marketer passionate about helping companies connect with customers. Throughout the past decade, he’s worked with companies including Referral Rock, Connecteam, and Ramsey Solutions. He’s a versatile writer who understands how to align with companies, truly matching their voices and tones.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and playing guitar.
You can reach him by emailing alex@contentmarketinglife.com.