We all know that any small business budget is tight, and several things need to be covered with it, so finding alternatives that help us use this budget wisely is key. In regards to the content creation of your site or different online platforms, there are also different approaches that you may follow. In this article, we will show you all of the options that you have to create your content efficiently and maximize your content marketing budget. Also, you will find additional tips that will increase the impact of your content on your audience.
Know Your Content Marketing Budget
First of all, it is important to clarify what a marketing budget is. When you are running a business, it is important to have an awareness of what the total budget to develop your activity is, and how to divide it into the different areas that your business requires.
If you are selling products, a part of this budget will be destined for manufacturing or buying them from a distributor. Another portion of it will be spent on promoting it through online ads or any other form of advertising.
But there should also be a part that is destined for content marketing creation, that is, generating online posts, videos, blog articles, and related online content that has to do with what you do and helps expand the limits of your brand. This would be your content marketing budget, and you may choose different ways of spending it, according to your needs, resources, and time.
Make Your Content Suit Your Budget
Once you assign a certain budget for the content creation activities, you will have to decide which way to go to start with the process of actually generating it. This is where some possibilities appear, and you need to make a decision based on different aspects: How much does content marketing cost in one way or another? How much time do you have to dedicate to this activity? How many people are part of your team? The answer to these and some other questions will guide you to your preferred way of generating your content.
Generating Your Content Yourself
When you are making your first moves in the digital world, you will likely have to take care of more things than you would like to. If you are in this position, you probably will end up generating your online content.
The good part about it is that you will have total control of what is being generated, and you will be able to align all your different content (videos, social media posts, blog entries, etc.) to your content marketing strategy, which will create a more consistent image of your brand to your customers. Don’t forget this also implies having a strong SEO background, which requires understanding the basics of keyword search, such as checking keyword difficulty.
The bad part: You will need to spend time doing it that you could be spending doing something more valuable for your brand. Also, you will have to spend a lot of time writing your content which could be a difficult activity if you are not used to it. We recommend using writing apps like Instatext to make sure that your writing is neat and ready to be uploaded to your different platforms.
If you are part of a team, you could always delegate this activity to the most appropriate person on this team, which is what we talk about in our next title.
Delegating the Content Creation to Your Team Members
If you are growing your business and it is not possible for you to take care of everything anymore, you will be thinking of building a team. Consider which qualities you lack and seek those qualities in your team members, so you can complement each other.
In those cases in which you have a team working with you, you may delegate all the things related to the content creation to the member who is best qualified for those activities.
It is still advisable to use a third-party app to help with your content, such as grammar and punctuation software and a tone checker, but you will also have an additional guarantee that the activity will be taken care of by the most suitable person. The best grammar checker apps provide a vast array of tools and resources for teams to leverage.
Outsourced Content Creation
One last option that is a great way of generating your content, is delegating it altogether to a third party, whether it’s an agency or a freelance writer. With this, you not only will save time for yourself to be used in other important activities for your business, but also you will gain additional benefits.
There is one benefit of outsourcing content creation that is probably the most important one, and it is related to reducing costs. You will be paying for just the content that you need, instead of having an in-house writer focused 100% on this task.
At least half of the companies today outsource at least one part of the content they create. Some of them also use a hybrid model, in which some things are written in-house while others are left to agencies or freelancers. That way, companies maximize their creative content marketing budget, which is in general tight when we are referring to small businesses.
Tips for Your Content Creation
No matter which option you choose to generate your content, that is, creating it yourself, delegating it to your team members, or outsourcing its creation, there are some things that you need to be aware of when performing a quality check on it. We will share some tips that you may consider to ensure that your content will have the desired impact on your audience.
Check for Quality Content
It is best to have fewer social media posts, blog entries, or videos uploaded to your platforms, than continuously posting content that does not have any value added to your audience and wasting your content marketing budget.
Consider what your audience is looking for in a brand like yours, and adjust the content that you create to those standards. By doing it, you will have a bigger impact on your audience and generate a better engagement, through shares, likes, and comments.
Align Your Content Through Your Different Platforms
Before starting with your content creation, it is important that you think of the overall marketing strategy that you will follow, and that you replicate it through all your different online channels.
You need to think about what the objective of your campaign is, and align all your content to be consistent in your blog posts, social media posts, videos, and any online platform that you use. That way, the message of your campaign will be clearer and you will increase the possibilities to achieve your goals.
See What Your Competitors Are Doing
One last piece of advice that we would like to share is to check what your competitors are doing with their content.
By performing this practice, you not only will obtain information about trends and hot topics, but you will also be able to see the things that they are lacking, and you will be able to provide it yourself and attract new customers. You or your team can also run a plagiarism detector to avoid falling into this avoidable practice by mistake.