This article is part of our Digital Marketing for Workspace series
Coworking space operators tend to have a broad skill-set, including overseeing operations, tech troubleshooting and connecting people. Content marketing may not be part of that skill-set, but with a little time and attention, it can be.
Here are eight tips to help you launch a content strategy in your coworking space.
- Create goals
What do you hope to accomplish with your content marketing strategy? Would you like to attract new members to your space? Educate your local community about coworking? Differentiate yourself from the growing number of coworking spaces? Further the global conversation about coworking? Get newsletter signups or social follows? Get people into the space for a tour or free day pass? An effective content strategy is built around a clear vision of your content marketing goals.
- Define your target audience
Once you know the goals for your content, define the audience you need to reach to accomplish your goals. Get as specific as you can here. If you attempt to reach everyone, you’ll reach no one—your content will be too bland to resonate with anyone. Dig down into who your target audience is—those potential members and advocates you’d like to reach.
- Understand their challenges
Once you know who you’re trying to reach, get to know them a bit. Where are they currently working? How’s that going for them? What is their life like? Where do they live? Where do they spend time online? What kind of work do they do? What do they struggle with? Create a clear customer persona to strengthen your strategy.
- Determine how you can help them
Once you have a customer profile, brainstorm all the ways you can help them. The most obvious way is providing workspace and community, but brainstorm other areas that are important to them that you have expertise in. Tap into existing resources and people in your space, as well, to create content that resonates with their peers.
- Create content that helps solve challenges
Great content is useful, valuable, entertaining, engaging. Keep these things in mind as you create content that solves your target audience member’s pain points and challenges.
Share insights into your community and show potential members how they can benefit from it; compare and contrast organizational software or online tools; do a roundup of local resources for entrepreneurs and freelancers; do Q&A’s with event presenters; offer productivity and organizational tips. The opportunities to be helpful are unlimited.
- Know your keywords
How do people find your website, blog or shared office space? How are they searching for you? Google analytics provides insights into how people arrive at your site and the keywords people search to get there. But it’s not enough to know how people found you—you need to know what you’re not showing up in search results for.
For example, if I ran a coworking space in Boston, I would aim to be found for a variety of keyword phrases, such as “coworking in Boston,” “Boston coworking,” “Boston offices,” “entrepreneurs in Boston,” “Boston shared office,” etc. What keywords do you want to be found for? Research and brainstorm the ones that your target audience may use to find you and make sure your space is in the results.
- Practice smart search engine optimization (SEO)
In addition to knowing (and using) your keyword phrases, there are other fairly simple ways to boost your SEO, including:
- Put your keyword phrases in your title, ideally in the first few words
- Put your keyword phrases in the first sentence or, at least, the first paragraph
- Change the name of your images from IMG23593724, or whatever other random string of digits currently is, to a keyword-rich name. For example, if I was targeting “coworking in Boston” as a keyword phrase, I would name an image: “coworking-in-Boston.jpg.”
- SEO is an art and science unto itself, but you can start with these simple tips to boost your Google standings.
- Include a Call to Action
One of the differences between blogging for fun and content marketing is that, with content marketing, you have a goal of getting your reader to do something. Include a call to action (CTA) in every post. Invite your readers to engage further with you. CTAs for coworking spaces could be: subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, call to set up a free tour, email us to request a free day pass.
Content marketing is a great way to connect with people and promote your space. Follow these tips and you’ll be off to a great start.
