As a small business creating and maintaining a site is very important. To actually achieve the full content marketing success you need first to understand your audience. In the next lines I am going to talk about the groups inside a companies audience from a branding perspective. Some firms forget that managing their relationship with some actors in the business scene is as important as gathering more clients.
Internal and External audience
Of course your main concern when building up your site is that clients and future clients can find reference in it. In the end it’s not called a content marketing strategy for nothing. When you consider the audience of your company you need to think a little further. When you think about audience you immediately consider your clients and customers, they can be past, present or future but they are none the less the ones you think about. Truth is they are in fact only a small part of your external audience.
Your suppliers, influencers, journalists and media reporters are also part of your external audience. From their perspective it is important to find support on your site. In your content marketing strategy consider adding a page on your site where they can find the contacting information of each department of your business. The clients will most likely contact support but journalist and suppliers are interested in different aspects and need to speech to someone else.
It is also a good content marketing approach for your business to actually create a press release section of your site, from where reporters and influencers can quote you on the subjects. As far as suppliers and other sourcing companies you work with go, if there is information they need to be reminded, and other general announcements don’t hesitate to add to your site. It’s probably the first place they will search.
Your internal audience, meaning your employee, are just as important for your business. If your company works in the service field your employees are your brand. For a content marketing perspective there are some ideas you can implement. Creating on-line spaces where they can organise their work and communicate is vital. Weather you are using Trello, Microsoft Office 365 or groups and communities on different social media sites, make sure you personalise them. It might seam as a lot of work for nothing, but personalising it in the work procedure and the design, will constantly remind your employees about what your business stands for.
Content marketing = I want the same again but different
The tricky part with taking into consideration all these parts of your audience is keeping up a coherent and consequent image of the business. You need to keep in mind that the company has to send the same overall message in all it’s content marketing strategy but also personalise to each groups needs and expectations. If the opinion from different groups are different the overall impression of your company will be confusing if not negative. Make sure your partners, from supplier, employees, journalists and customers, are having a great experience with your company. It is important for your on-line marketing success.
Have you ever considered your internal audience in your past content strategies ? Tell us all about your experiences in the comment section. And don’t forget to share.
