7 Ways to Grow Your Startup with Content Marketing

As a startup, online marketing is a great to tool for growing and scaling your business. Find out how below!

Every small business owner or startup founder can tell you from experience that content marketing is a great growth tool. However, as many of them have also learned to their detriment, it’s about much more than just publishing a blog post here and there.

If you want to do content marketing right, carefully consider these seven content production tactics. Read on to learn how you can utilize these powerful strategies to reach your target audience. 

1. Use Different Content Formats

Relying on one type of content will only take you so far. Instead, aim to include several different formats whenever the topic demands. 

For example, if you are writing a how-to post, adding a short video that shows the process will ensure that you improve time on page while providing extra value, which your audience will certainly appreciate. 

You’ll also be able to leverage these different content formats to promote your topic across different social media platforms, via your newsletter, etc. 

Take a look at this post on paddle boarding for beginners. It takes you through all the required steps, but it also features several videos that show you how to actually execute all the tips. 

You can also enrich your content with images, infographics, timelines, charts, and graphs. Any visual aid that makes the post easier to understand will work. 

2. Use More Than One Content Length

To rank better and gain more traffic, you’ll also need to utilize different content formats. Focusing on just long-form content, for example, will cause you to miss out on all those valuable search terms that aren’t looking for an in-depth article. 

Which content length you will need to focus on more will depend on your industry and audience. As you start out, aim to cover less competitive topics where you can easily gain some traction. Over time, you can work your way up to the biggest topics in your niche. 

You can take the example of Search Engine Journal. Although SEJ is not a startup, it’s a great blog to demonstrate the importance of aligning content length with the topic at hand. Their post on long-form content, for example, is long. But they then have a local SEO post that is very short while still providing actionable tips and plenty of value. 

3. Write for Different Stages of the Sales Funnel

A well-rounded content marketing strategy will also cater to different stages of the sales funnel. Top-of-the-funnel audiences will require broader topics that don’t use jargon and that are easy to understand. This post on search intent is a good example. You don’t need to be a marketing expert to understand it.

On the other hand, the same brand has this WordPress vs. Shopify post, written from a purely SEO perspective. If you are an SEO novice, you won’t understand half of it. 

The key to producing content that converts is understanding search intent and your audience’s needs. By analyzing what people want to get from a post, i.e., whether they want a product recommendation or to learn something, you can nail all of your different posts. 

4. Explain a Complex Topic

Content marketing also gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as a subject matter expert. By covering complex topics in-depth, you are also increasing your chances of ranking well, as well as adding some much-needed credibility to the blog. 

Bear in mind that your goal here is to help: not to make yourself sound smart and experienced. Some brands make that mistake too often and/ end up alienating their audience instead of attracting it. 

A good example of an expert article is this one on glucose monitoring. The topic is complex and can certainly benefit from a scientific approach. The brand found the right blend of expert terms and simple explanations that make the article easy to understand. 

5. Write Outside the Box

Another way to use content marketing to your advantage is to think outside the box, so to speak. 

Most marketers will tell you to always have your target audience in mind when writing and to cover the topics you know they’re interested in. However, this is somewhat limiting. What if there are others who are interested in your product or service who are never likely to read about the topic you’re currently covering?

Let’s take this example of a post on AI-generated dog images. The brand has cleverly created a post that will appeal to dog lovers in the AI, marketing, and tech worlds, where they are more than likely sharing this post. 

Simply by expanding their horizon a little bit, they’ve managed to widen their reach significantly, enabling themselves to tap into new markets. 

6. Stick to the Point

Don’t forget to cover topics that are quite simple but that likely see a lot of search traffic every so often. You don’t always need to focus on the extensive, long-form, mega-useful content. Sometimes you can provide an insane amount of value with a straightforward topic. 

Here’s what we mean. This post listing stock market holidays will probably see a decent amount of traffic, especially during the pre-holiday season. It’s not flashy and it doesn’t offer any special advice — it’s just a list of dates. 

However, the brand has added a pop-up that will likely capture the attention of their visitors, who are clearly into trading (since they want to know when the stock market will be closed).

This is a great way to gain more qualified traffic that you can then convert further. 

7. Never Forget About the Visuals

Finally, in order for your content marketing efforts to work well, you need to remember the visuals. Not only will adding another content format help add another layer of depth to your content, as we’ve already discussed, but the visual elements will also add extra interest to the page and make it easier to read. 

Take a look at this mattress guide. It has a lot of text, but the illustrations, icons, boxes, and CTAs make it much easier to digest. It shows you that you don’t even need to add actual photos. You can feature the simplest of visual elements, and they will work.

As long as you remain cohesive and leave plenty of white space, you’ll improve readability and boost the value of your content in the eyes of search engines. 

Wrapping Up 

As a startup, you can significantly boost your reach and value with content marketing. Remember that you always need to align your efforts with your product, service, brand voice, and audience.