If you are really serious about getting your online business in front of the people who matter to you the most, content marketing is your best bet.
Without content, your online business cannot reach its intended audience. And will not bring about any profitable rewards for you.
In this post, I will run you through the different content marketing channels that will not only help to skyrocket your online business but will also help you put the day-to-day running of the business on autopilot.
The first belief I want you to get rid of is the belief that you only need to be on one channel to grow. That’s a big fat lie that many ‘experts’ have spoon-fed you for years.
You don’t have to stick with only one channel, in fact, the more spread out you are with your content, the better for you, and the more likely it is for your business to reach more people and succeed.
I too used to be trapped by this belief until I read a book by Gary Vee, Crushing it! In 2020. He explained that content marketing channels go out of popularity all the time, especially social media channels.
So imagine that you started on one platform and you continued to build on that platform for years, your audience and your customers know you on that platform and a few years down the line, your account gets hacked or the platform gets banned for life, what happens?
Scary right?
So you need to be strategic about how you distribute your content across different channels. I’ve said enough, let’s get into the crux of the matter.
Oh, wait! Before we do that, here’s an ebook that I created for you, if you want to learn how to start an online business from scratch, then grab it. It’s absolutely free.
Now, let’s get into the crux of the matter.
BLOG
When we talk about content marketing, a blog is one of the most important, if not the most important content marketing channel.
This is because as long as people keep searching for things on Google, blogs will never go out of fashion.
So when you are thinking of starting content marketing for your online business, the first platform that should come to your mind is a blog.
A blog is what you are reading now, it’s a platform that helps you to share information about your business offerings and helps you reach many people who would originally not know anything about your online business.
Here are a few benefits of having a blog for your online business.
1. It helps drive traffic to your website
Normally, a website is a static platform. All the content on your website does not change because you won’t really update it regularly. That, my friend, is not SEO-friendly.
But with a blog, you get freshly updated content regularly, depending on how often you choose to update it.
When you create a blog post, you get the chance to be seen by Google because Google’s bots will actually crawl through your website for fresh content, index it and show it to people who are searching for related content (provided your post is well optimized).
So you’re basically letting Google know that your website is not dormant and your content is fresh and up to date. More traffic can translate into so many things for your online business.
2. It helps you convert those traffic to leads
Leads are people who have shown a form of interest in your business. As people come to your website, if you have a good lead-generation tactic to capture them, like a freebie, they can become prospects.
For instance, at the beginning of this blog post, I offered you an ebook that will help you get started with your online business. If you signed up to get it, you will find it absolutely valuable and who knows, you may become a paying customer.
With a blog, you can grow your email list by simply offering people very valuable freebies in exchange for their email addresses. You can then start sending them emails pitching your products or services.
When you write a new post, consider it an opportunity to generate new leads for your business. That’s why so many bloggers offer content upgrades for each blog post.
Content upgrades are simply freebies that you offer to your blog visitors in exchange for their email list, but in this case, the freebie is specific to the blog post. That’s why it’s called a content upgrade.
So your freebie could be anything from an ebook to a free guide, trials, webinars, etc.
3. It helps you get content for your other platforms
Sometimes, it gets really difficult to come up with content for social media. But if you have a blog, you can simply repurpose your blog posts to these other channels.
Say you have written 2,500 words on a particular topic on your blog. You can begin to pick out snippets from the blog post and share them on your social media. That way you won’t run out of content ideas.
Another good thing about it is, when you write a blog post, you have created content that people will be able to share on their own social media platforms, hence, introducing you to a new audience.
SOCIAL MEDIA
I don’t think anybody needs convincing about having a social media platform for their online businesses.
Social media is to your business what air is to your lungs. It’s where your target audience goes to find you.
But if you are not there, they find your competitors and you lose prospective customers.
Millions of people use social media and it’s a great opportunity for your business to reach a large pool of people that are interested in your products or services.
Many online business owners point to social media as the major player in the success of their business. Especially Instagram, being the number one platform where they get customers from.
Let’s see the kind of people who use various social media channels.
1. Facebook
The highest audience on Facebook is men and women between the ages of 35-44.
If your online business focuses on this age group, Facebook is the best option for you.
Although many people seem to be getting off Facebook because they think it’s becoming old, I think it’s a good place for your business to be.
Personally, I recommend Facebook to all of my clients because I know running adverts will be part of their business strategy, and what better place do you go to run an ad if not Facebook.
2. Instagram
Instagram is where the big boys and big girls reside, lol and I mean that literally.
According to this report, 48.4% of all Instagram users are female while 51.6% are male.
31.2% of Instagram users are 25-34-year-olds and out of the 25-34 age group, 16% are male and 14% are female users.
31% of Instagram users are 18-24 years old. Out of them, 17.9% are male, while 13.1% are female users.
For someone like me whose audience is mostly men and women between the ages of 25-34, Instagram is just the best platform for me.
3. TikTok
TikTok did so well that Instagram had to roll our Reels to compete with it or risk losing users.
YouTube also rolled out Shorts for this same reason.
On TikTok, ages 10-19 are 25% of users, and 20-29 are 22.4% of users. On TikTok, ages 30-39 are 21.7% of users and ages 40-49 are 20.3% of users.
The best part is, you can repurpose one content for TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts.
PODCASTS
Podcasts are my new favourites, it’s the new kid on the block for me. I particularly love podcasts because I can listen to them while doing something else.
A podcast is simply a digital audio program that you subscribe to. Think of Podcasts as YouTube where instead of videos, you share audio programmes.
Podcasts are even better because your audience can be listening to you while they are driving, cooking or even extremely busy.
Since they can’t watch your video or read your blog while doing these things, your podcast will be useful.
How to start a Podcast?
1. Decide on a topic and a name
First of all, what do you want your podcast to be about? A few podcasts that I follow talk about faith, business, purpose and so on.
You want to make sure that you pick something that you are passionate about or really experienced in.
Then you want to decide what to name your podcast. A podcast that I follow is owned by Jessica Fortunes, she talks about what it feels like to be a twenty-something in Nigeria. And conveniently, she named her podcast twentysomethings rant.
So you want to name your podcast appropriately.
Once that is done, you want to get a domain name for it and build a website for it. You can build a website for it that redirects people to your podcast player or simply link the domain to your website like Latasha James did with her Freelance Friday Podcast.
If you want, you can grab the social media handles for it before it gets taken or you can just use your own social media platforms to promote it.
2. Set an objective for your podcast
Ordinarily, I’d advise that you do this first.
What exactly do you want your podcast to do for you? Get awareness for your business? Make you a thought leader in your niche? Or simply drive traffic to your website or build a personal brand?
Once you know what the objectives are, you can then come up with a strategy that will help you achieve your goals.
Once you’ve done this, you want to plan how often your podcast episodes will go out. Weekly, Bi-weekly? You decide.
3. Come up with a few episodes
You don’t want to do all the planning work and end up posting just an intro episode.
Like I always tell people who want to start YouTube channels, you need to outline a few episodes before you start at all.
What happens when you can’t record any new episodes? What happens when you get burned out?
You want to make sure that you have a list of recorded episodes scheduled to roll out at any point in time.
So having prerecorded episodes on ground will allow you to share more so that your audience will know you are consistent.
It also gives them the opportunity to binge your episodes, like I do for any new podcast that I find.
4. Design
The best part.
Your podcast needs a cover. This is the most important part of the podcast.
I have a keen eye for design and sometimes, I choose podcasts based on covers.
You also need to get a logo, and social media templates too.
Another important thing is your intro, your outro, and your music.
5. Gadgets
The equipment that you choose for your podcast will determine how easy it will be for you to create episodes.
You want to get a good quality microphone, not a lapel. You can search through Jumia, Konga or Amazon for one.
You also need a good laptop to write your script. Most podcasters do this, don’t think they speak from their heads.
You will also edit your episodes with your laptop with tools like Audacity, Garage ban and so on.
6. Hosting your podcast
A Podcast host will help you share your podcast on distribution channels.
If you want to get your podcast on platforms like Spotify, Google, Apple podcasts, etc. you need to use a host.
An example of a podcast host that I will totally use is Anchor. That’s all I can say on podcasts.
If you want to know more about starting a podcast, read this article.
EMAIL NEWSLETTERS
Email newsletters are great content marketing platforms to use to distribute your content to your audience.
The first thing you need to think of is getting people into your email list. And you can do that with freebies (I mentioned that earlier).
By the way, you can snag this one.
Once you have gotten them in, you can begin to send them emails.
But before sharing your freebies on your blog or website, you want to first set up the backend of your email service provider.
Set up forms, triggers, automated emails, and so on. Then set up your freebies.
The best kinds of freebies are ebooks, email courses, free guides, webinars, checklists, content upgrades, etc.
There are so many ways to deliver newsletters to your subscribers.
1. Email Automations
You can set up email automation in such a way that as soon as someone takes an action on your website, or your sales page or buys a product from you, they get automatically integrated into your email system.
And after a while, your emails start dropping on autopilot, depending on how you have set them up.
Automations are really great because a lot of work will be going on in your business while you fold your arms and sleep. But you have to first do the job.
An example of automation is when you register for a 5-day free course on a topic, and everyday, for 5 days, you get emails.
2. Drip Campaigns
A drip campaign is when you send a limited number of emails to your audience automatically, at a set time, based on actions they take or changes in their status
Drip marketing can help you boost sales by turning visitors into buyers, increasing repeat purchases, and re-engaging a dormant audience.
An example of drip campaigns are abandoned cart emails that you get from e-commerce businesses.
3. Broadcast
Broadcast emails can also be called email blasts. Here, you send a piece of email to everyone on your subscribers’ list at once.
When you do this, you want to check your analytics to see how many people opened it.
If you are not satisfied with the number, you can resend the email to people who didn’t open theirs, using a different subject.
There are different email service providers out there, but the ones I recommend are Mailerlite (which I currently use), Convertkit, MailChimp, SendPulse, and so on.
YOUTUBE
There are millions of accounts on YouTube and in Nigeria alone, there are over a million YouTubers.
YouTube is a highly rewarding platform, they pay creators a good amount to create content.
As an online business owner, you need to be on YouTube. There, you can share your expertise, talk about your business offerings and share helpful content.
Preparing a YouTube video
I have a YouTube channel where I talk about starting online businesses and also share tutorial videos. If you dig videos, you can check them out here
There are a few things that I do when I want to start shooting a YouTube video and here’s just a summary.
Planning
First, I decide on the information I want to share in my video, who I want to speak to and how I think it will benefit them.
Once I’ve made the decision, I come up with like a few topics and drill it down to five of the ones I think are best.
Then I search for the topics on YouTube, I use Tubebuddy for my YouTube SEO, so I check if the topics have a high search volume.
Depending on what TubeBuddy tells me and what I see on the search results page, I pick the best one.
Next, I outline the video or come up with a script for it. I check my hair and makeup, decide on the background and once that is done, I move to the next step.
Shooting & Editing
I set up my gadgets; tripod, light, mic, laptop, webcam (depending on the video), etc.
I mostly shoot with my phone, an android phone. I shoot with my front camera and when I’m done, I edit.
Sometimes, I edit on my phone using Inshot, other times, I use Capcut or Veed IO.
But I mostly edit with Inshot because I find it easier.
Once that is done, I send my video to YouTube, I then design my thumbnail with Canva and then I upload the video.
Promotion
This is a very important part that many people leave out.
People will find your video on their feed if you are lucky. But you cannot depend on that. You need to actively promote it.
So here’s what you can do. First, upload it on social media. You can create a design for it with Canva and then share it on your Instagram page.
Share a link to it with that same design on Twitter because somehow, YouTube preview links don’t show on Twitter. Follow that with a few copies and tweet it.
But that’s not all, you want to make sure that you tweet as many times as possible by being dynamic with your tweets.
Don’t share the same tweet you shared before, change the copy and share it so that you don’t appear desperate or worse, be seen as a bot.
Here’s an image below:
Conclusion
So now that you know that you can spread your business across different content channels, what’s the first step to take?
I want you to bookmark this page and come back to it as often as you can to check them out.
Your online business needs to be visible otherwise, your people won’t know you exist.