Top tools to aid your content marketing efforts

You can have bags of enthusiasm for your industry, but sometimes you may struggle to raise awareness of your fantastic products or services. Content marketing for niche industries can often be a slow and steady battle, but it’s not impossible.

With the right tools, insight and plenty of creativity, you can create a content marketing plan that ensures you stand out from the crowd. If you understand your target audience and are capable of answering the questions that they’re asking, you can come up with campaigns that really resonate with them.

To give you a helping hand, we’ve identified some useful tools that can aid your content marketing efforts.

Google Alerts

Print and online publications aren’t always going to talk directly about your business, but they may be interested in taking comment from experts on current affairs when relevant. You could be just the expert they’ve been looking for! When it comes to working with the press, swift action is necessary. You need to be on the ball with up-to-date quotes and ready to give comments on any issues that are relevant to your business.

Perhaps they’re doing a feature on SMEs or something specific to your industry? Whatever it is, you can be sure that you’re up to speed with the latest developments by switching on Google Alerts. In a similar way to Twitter, you’ll be keeping an eye on all industry activity to see if there is anything you can offer comment on. Once you build up a reputation as a leading voice in your industry, you’ll build trust among your customers and journalists will come straight to you for fresh insight.

Twitter tracking

If you’re not on social media by now then we have some serious concerns. Whilst not every social platform is appropriate for every business, you can use Twitter for much more than promotional means. Niche industries may find it hard to tweet consistently about their specific services and products, so instead think about your industry as a whole.

We know you’re busy, but it’s so easy to keep your finger on the pulse these days that you have no excuse anymore. Software such as Tweetdeck gives you the ability to schedule, track hashtags and easily organise your feed with tabs.

So how can you ensure you’re using it to its full potential? Well, there’s a few tricks in particular…

1. Creating lists can be a brilliant way to track particular publications that focus on your industry. By keeping an eye on this list you can see what’s relevant in your field and perhaps even get some content ideas for your own blog. In the same way we’d be using Google Alerts, using Tweetdeck to track a list of journalists and publications can inform a lot of your marketing output.

2. Tags such as #JournoRequest can be a godsend for niche SMEs wanting to connect with journalists. As we mentioned, some will be looking for comment from experts in particular fields. Make sure you have a tab set up in Tweetdeck to track this hashtag in case any opportunities crop up for you. If you’re a small business, you may not have the funds to put into media request services, as such tracking the #JournoRequest tag is a great alternative.
3. Businesses in niche industries can easily blend into the background. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Think about what other subjects and topics your target audience are interested in, and test the water by using social media to talk to these people about something that is not strictly related to your services. While you don’t want to adopt a scattergun approach (it’s important that you bring the focus back to your services/products somehow), you can mix things up a bit, using Tweetdeck to assess which topics are trending.

AnswerThePublic.com

You probably know what keywords people use to land on your site, but what other long-tail terms could you be ranking for? By using AnswerThePublic.com you can find out what questions people are asking and make sure you provide those answers on your website.

If you’re suffering from blogger’s block and struggling to populate your site with articles, AnswerThePublic.com will give you multiple content ideas that could be relevant to your audience.

For many niche brands, the best way to attract attention is to provide useful resources. They might not be the most entertaining things that people have ever read, but if they are informative and help to solve problems, they’ll drive traffic and attract links regardless. Instead of creating content for content’s sake, your site could become a leading authority in the industry by providing informational content that people genuinely need.

Google Keyword Planner

Similar to AnswerThePublic.com, Google’s Keyword Planner allows you to see how competitive each keyword is and gives you useful insight, allowing you to tap into new terms that you may not have previously thought of. Type in the keywords your competition are ranking for and Google will show you similar terms and how many people on average search for them.

This can not only give you an idea of what content to produce for your website, but it can show you exactly what to focus on for landing page content too.

Buzzsumo

Your field may be niche but that doesn’t mean you won’t have competition. You’ll have no doubt seen these businesses creeping up the search rankings, so why not take a closer look at why they’re so successful?

Buzzsumo gives you the chance to scour a website to find its best performing content. Now we must stress at this point that we’re not endorsing plagiarism, what do you take us for? Using Buzzsumo to do this gives you the opportunity to get a few rough ideas, see how your competition are doing so well and take inspiration from their approach. Don’t copy their content. That’s not cool (or legal).

Canva

Want big beautiful content that people can’t help but share? Canva is the tool for you. You don’t need a skilled in-house designer to create great graphics, there are plenty of resources online but Canva definitely stands out for us.

With an easy-to-navigate interface, anyone can create stunning visuals and edit photos for content marketing purposes. The industry in which you operate may not be glamorous, but that doesn’t mean your content can’t be. With Canva, even the least artist people in the world can create striking graphics that help your content to stand out.

No one knows your industry better than you and whilst we can give you all these tips to stand out, it’s up to you to push your way through the crowd and make your business heard. Of course, not everybody has the time or knowledge to run effective content marketing campaigns. This is where we step in. Click here to read more about how we can help you.