6 lessons I learned using content marketing to start a business

Photo credit: Pixelcreatures.

A few days ago, I came across a question on Quora: “Is content marketing really effective?” We’ve already heard so much about content marketing. In fact, more than 70 percent of big companies hire someone to do their content marketing strategies for them.

But for many startups and small businesses, it might be a bit of a stretch to invest time and resources into this approach, which may or may not directly result in a profit.

In this article, I’m going to try to make a case for content marketing as a business imperative by sharing the lessons I learned when we were starting HighSpark, a presentation company using low-cost (or no-cost) strategies.

1. Get online and deliver value to your target audience

Back in 2013 when I decided to start offering presentation design as a freelancer, I didn’t have any customers or a track record. As you can imagine, it was terribly hard for a 19-year old poly student to sell anything to businesses. Decision-makers weren’t going to entrust important work to a provider that they knew nothing about.

By accident, I discovered SlideShare, which at the time was an excellent avenue to build authority and get organic traffic from B2B users. At the same time, a user named Jesse Desjardins had used the platform to snag his dream job at Tourism Australia. It seemed like the perfect medium to give prospects an idea of what they could expect if they worked with me.

I spent the next month putting together a deck about presentations before uploading it and hoping for the best. Naturally, I thought I had it all figured out—build useful content that would imply I was an expert on the topic. Easy enough, right?

My first real SlideShare upload.

2.You can’t exist in a vacuum. Outreach is crucial

What happened next was disappointing. Although I did receive some inquiries, the piece of content I spent so much time on fell below expectations. I didn’t have an existing following and there was very little traffic going to my SlideShare presentation.

After reading some blogs and following the examples of successful experts like Emiland de Cubber and Hawaii-based presentation team Empowered Presentations, I started reaching out to some of my favorite content producers on and off the platform. I sent a link to about 20 different people who I considered experts in the industry via LinkedIn to get some validation.

3. Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint

4. Milk your best platforms and diversify your touchpoints

5. Build a list

6. Keep learning