Content Marketing is the tool every entrepreneur should have in their marketing toolbox and use every day. It is the best tool to increase customer engagement and attracting your target audience online. However, a lot of companies from solopreneurs to Fortune 500 companies, are already doing it. This makes it harder to stand out and be recognized as a thought leader in your industry.

Do you dread walking into a car dealer’s lot? As soon as your feet hit the pavement at least one salesman is hot on your trail. My son says it feels like you’re being stalked.

Obviously, you don’t want to be perceived as being only interested in the money and you certainly don’t want your audience to feel stalked! When your target customer clicks on a link or ad for your business, they are looking for solutions to a problem or answers to questions. Your job is to make sure they receive it from you.

Follow the tips below to stand out and deliver what your audience is looking for.

When you create content, write as if you’re talking to one reader and he or she is your friend.

When I was in college, I had to take a statistics class. The same class was available in two departments. So I did my homework and learned one class was held in an auditorium with 100 plus students attending. The other class was held in a conference room and had 10 to 12 students seated around a conference table with a professor. Which would you choose? If you wanted personal attention, you would choose the one I did, the small class.

People tune out when they feel that they are just a number to you. If you created an ideal client profile, post that where you write and create content speaking to them. It might seem a little strange at first but it will keep you focused. Remember your goal here is to engage your audience while making them feel special and appreciated.

Create a distribution strategy for your content.

How are you going to get more people to read what you are creating? For example, you might add an article to your site, share it on your social networks, or email subscribers about it but is that the end? Does that piece of content you toiled over now rest in moth balls never to be seen again? That’s sad.

“Content is King but Distribution is Queen and she wears the pants.”

~ Jonathan Perelman of Buzzfeed

Your distribution strategies should push your content beyond social media. This would be through methods such as content curation sites, bookmarking sites, and inbound links as well as many others.

Hate writing? Outsource to a freelancer to help you create and distribute the content. Unless you effectively communicate with your audience on a regular basis, they will forget about you. Keep them coming back by supplying the content they search for.

Guest post on top ranked sites.

Guest blogging is used to increase blog traffic, extend your reach and establish yourself as a thought leader. At its simplest, you agree with another blog owner to post an article on their site.

Choose a site that will allow you to use an outstanding bio with a couple of links to your sales pages and website. Write unique content that is specifically focused for each site’s members, which should also fit your target market’s profile. Brands that have successfully used guest blogging are Intel, Xbox and Sales Force. Learn more about their success in this post from The Social Media Examiner.

Reference influencers in your content.

“It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know.”

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A niche influencer is a person who has an established name in their field of expertise and within the social networks through the content they publish online and their niche-related activities, such as appearing in interviews, conferences and more. If we hear the names Bill Gates, Gordon Ramsey, Robert Herjavec, or Steve Jobs, we immediately know what niche they are associated with, and the fact that they are high-profile because of the media attention their activities garner.

Connecting with a few key online influencers will give you far better results than connecting with lots of people who have no influence, don’t know that much about the niche, and don’t know or care who you are or what you do. If you can get their attention, it can open up a new range of opportunities and a much wider audience.

A few ways to do this are:

1. Follow the influencers. See what kind of content they are publishing in relation to your niche.

2. In your blog post, include a simple quote by an influencer and tag or notify them. It’s a great way to get their attention and potentially encourage sharing.

3. Interact with the influencers. Comment, like, and share in a structured way related to your marketing strategy.

While these tips for connecting with niche influencers will increase your chances, it’s up to you to make it worth their while. So, start your transformation into becoming an influencer in your own right and see how many niche influencers you can connect with on a meaningful level.

If you apply these content marketing tips to every content piece you create, you will see your results improve.

Article Written by Karen Repoli of Business 2 Community