5 Ways Small Businesses Can Generate Better Marketing ROI

Small businesses face a key challenge of increasing ROI with a limited marketing budget and resources.

This challenge has been further enhanced currently with the onset of the pandemic, where all brands are focusing on digital to capture clients' attention. That’s where content marketing plays a very vital role. Quality content has the power to engage your customers across the buying journey and drive conversion rates.

The key to a successful campaign however is to identify where you need to invest and what you need to invest in to make an impact. Here are the 5 key areas to focus on as part of your content marketing strategy to increase your ROI.

1. Use Video Marketing

According to research, over 70% of consumers prefer watching a video to  learn about a product or a service than read about it. Furthermore, video has seen a better ROI- an increase of 10% YOY! This clearly shows that video content should be an integral part of your content strategy. Small businesses can use video tools like Lumen5 and inshot to create explainer videos, product demo videos, testimonials and video blogs. With the recent huge improvements of video and audio quality in mobile phones and laptops, video content can be produced by businesses of any size in a few simple steps.

2. Personalize and Experiment Frequently

Key aspect to focus while developing content is to ensure that you are customizing it basis the customer pain points and not carry a one size fits all approach. Research shows, 74% buyers prefer content being curated specifically to their requirements. With the advent of artificial intelligence and marketing automation tools like Zoho, Hubspot etc, its easy for marketers to customize content basis the client search and preference. Small businesses too can tailor content to the needs and interests of potential customers leveraging these tools.

3. Interact & Engage with Your Audience

Interactive content captures audience attention better than static content. Research shows there has been a 33% increase in interactive content over static since 2020. Small businesses can create interactive content formats like simple self-assessments, calculators, quiz, games among others to engage the customers better. Using wordpress plugins can help develop such content and publish on your website/blog.

4. Leverage User Generated Content

Research shows that there is no better way to gain customer confidence than having user-generated content. 90% of users trust user-generated content and it acts as a key influencer in buying decisions. It offers 5x click through rates than traditional content. For small businesses, user-generated content carries the advantage of being a low-cost marketing strategy. Video interviews, podcasts, guest blogs among others can be content formats you can explore with your target users.  

5. Increase Your Visibility with Voice Search

According to a recent research, over 54% US respondents already use voice search on a daily basis. This means it’s important to increase your visibility by tailoring your content to suit voice search. For small businesses, once you integrate this aspect into your content marketing strategy, scaling it up requires comparatively limited resources.

To conclude, the content marketing landscape is evolving in a dynamic manner and it will continue to do so! By keeping a close watch on the emerging trends and adapting the content marketing strategy closely with it can help small businesses create the right impact while not needing huge marketing budgets.