Some entrepreneurs and small businesses are reluctant to invest any money at all until they know a particular strategy will work, which leads to a perpetual cycle of non-investment. That’s not smart. Others, don’t know how much is appropriate to invest, and therefore can’t make a budgetary decision on whether or not to move forward.

Before explaining how things work, it is important to know that content marketing takes time, but on long term can add huge value and, done right, can attract customers for a lifetime.  What’s in it for me, as a brand? Well, that good content marketing you create for the customers can lead you to more sales and conversions, increase the traffic, or strong brand reputation.

Long story short, behind a great content marketing lies a greater strategy.

A strategy can also provide fuel for your social media marketing campaign, giving you valuable updates you can post for your followers, for your email marketing campaigns. Or you can use your best content as a landing page, to drive more conversions in a paid advertising campaign. Rather than a marketing strategy that offers a strict return for your investment – the way paid advertising does – content marketing involves creating and maintaining fixed, semi-permanent assets.

How much should you invest?

 First, you should invest enough to produce high-quality content!

 You may be tempted to produce as many posts as possible, as cheaply as possible, but this strategy doesn’t work for content marketing. Quality is much more important than quantity, so it’s better to invest heavily in a handful of exceptional posts than in low quality ones. At the same time, you need enough posts to attract attention. Usually, is good posting new content at least once a week, but without damaging the quality.

Second, keep investing even if your initial ROI is low. Content marketing takes time to quantify the returns. Early in your campaign, you won’t see much of a return on your investment, but if your posts are permanent and your reputation mounts over time, your ROI will increase as you spend more time and energy on your campaign.

Grow your investment over time to see higher and higher ROI. Starting with a smaller investment gives you time to gather information about your audience and what the potential results might be.

I’m often asked how to create great content marketing. There is no simple formula for success, but there are a few guidelines for creating a reasonable content marketing that I live by, both personally and professionally:

• Be & Distinguish yourself. If you want to stand out, find a way to distinguish yourself by offering niche content and serving a niche audience. The content should come from the essence of your brand and what it is all about. Bottom line, your content should make sense coming from your brand and hopefully, your brand alone.
• Set specific goals. Have a strategy in mind before you begin. The more focused your efforts are, the more likely you’ll be to become successful.
• Engage with your audience. Remember, content success is all about making your audience members happy, so keep them engaged with your work, and listen to them when they bring you feedback.

• Change the channel. It’s important to understand all the various social channels and how to use them. If you have highly visual content, then perhaps Instagram is a great place to inspire your audience. A highly B2B-oriented business might consider thought leadership pieces on LinkedIn. Facebook is more social.
  
•  Follow the 90/10 rule. Don’t talk about yourself all the time because you’ll quickly become boring, and you’ll turn customers away. I personally follow the 90/10 rule. Talk about other topics 90 percent of the time. Talk about your brand the other 10 percent.

It doesn’t matter if your business is a startup or not; if you can follow these basic principles for success in content marketing, you can build your reputation and start reaping the benefits.