Place: The Third P in The Marketing Mix That Drives Digital Success
Join Our Mailing List
Grow your business by getting expert web, marketing and sales tips straight to
your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter.
One can bet that ‘content is king’ is one of the most popular sayings related to digital marketing that ever existed. Today, all businesses know how important it is to have a voice online through creating content. What we suffer from in the scene now is not the lack of content, but the lack of content that matters.
Differentiating your content, producing relevant content, and creating content that has substance is the real challenge. Because the digital world moves so fast, it’s sometimes hard to keep up and that’s why many small and medium sized businesses fall behind.
At ProfileTree, we love to empower our local business community with the knowledge to be able to manage their own content strategy, or at least, know enough to discuss it comfortably with a third party. In this article, we tackle what content marketing means and some types of content that suit different businesses and industries surrounding Ballymena.
Did you know that ProfileTree is a leading content marketing agency in Northern Ireland? We have built our internal brands YouTube channels to over 100,000 subscribers on each. We are good at what we do and we want to do the same for your business.
As a full-service digital agency, ProfileTree offers comprehensive content marketing solutions that go far beyond traditional approaches. Our integrated services include:
Before diving into content marketing strategies, take this quick assessment to understand where your business stands and what opportunities await.
Answer these five questions honestly to discover your business’s content marketing potential:
1. Does your Ballymena business have a professional, mobile-optimised website?
2. How often does your business create and share content online?
3. Do you know the top 3 questions potential customers ask about your products or services?
4. Can you track how many visitors find your business online each month?
5. Does your business have a clear plan for attracting new customers beyond word-of-mouth?
12-15 points: Digital Marketing Leader Your Ballymena business is well-positioned for advanced content marketing strategies. Focus on ROI optimisation, AI integration, and scaling your successful approaches. Consider our Professional or Enterprise packages for maximum growth.
8-11 points: Growing Digital Presence You’ve made solid progress but significant opportunities remain. Concentrate on consistency, audience analysis, and conversion optimisation. Our Professional package would suit your development needs perfectly.
4-7 points: Digital Foundation Building Your business needs fundamental digital marketing improvements. Start with website optimisation, basic content creation, and audience identification. Our Starter package provides the perfect foundation.
0-3 points: Digital Transformation Required Don’t worry – every successful business started somewhere! You need comprehensive digital transformation including website development, content strategy, and marketing automation. Our digital training workshops combined with hands-on implementation support will get you competitive quickly.
Before any content marketing strategy begins, you should first get to know what’s happening in Ballymena. It opens possibilities for content opportunities and allows you to jump on local trends.
Retail and Fashion Businesses: A boutique on Mill Street could create engaging content such as:
Professional Services: An accountant serving the Ballymena area could develop valuable content including:
Hospitality and Tourism: Local restaurants and accommodation providers can create:
Manufacturing and Engineering: Industrial businesses can share expertise through:
Take these points into consideration before developing and delivering a content marketing strategy. If you’re exploring opportunities but need guidance, we can help you with expert content marketing services at ProfileTree.
The business landscape in Ballymena is rapidly evolving. Local companies are increasingly recognising the need for sophisticated digital marketing strategies to compete effectively. ProfileTree’s digital training workshops help business owners understand these changes and implement effective solutions.
Our experience working with Ballymena businesses has shown us that those who invest in comprehensive digital strategies – combining content marketing with web development, AI tools, and video marketing – see significantly better results than those focusing on single-channel approaches.
Content comes in so many shapes and sizes. By now, it has been established that some formats are more suitable for specific industries, and it varies according to the industry standards and the online behaviour of your audience. Let’s get to know some of those formats and how you can make the best out of them.
Valuable, or differentiated content is content that you spend time and effort developing it. That’s why we always advise businesses to focus on quality rather than quantity. If you can produce high quality content daily, then sure enough, go for it.
However, what we often see is that businesses focus on sending out more and more content, without focusing on substance. Not only should you spend time writing or designing the content, but you also need to dedicate time to researching and studying your target audience and other competitors. Many companies create content that is ‘out of context’. It is not low quality, and it is not poorly written – but it relates neither to the audience nor to the market.
Our content writing services follow a proven methodology:
To achieve a remarkable presence on social media, you need to build conversations. Conversations are not built through ‘salesy’ or ‘pushy’ content. Straight up sales posts might get you sales. But they will be one-off sales. You haven’t invested into building a relationship with your audience, so don’t expect that they will go beyond that.
We’ve seen cases where customers would make a purchase from Facebook pages, but they wouldn’t even care enough to follow them. These companies would come to us saying that they struggle to acquire new customers. Meanwhile, the real treasure is not in acquiring new ones, but rather building a relationship with those that do business with you.
That being said, it is tricky to create content for social media. The nature of social media is quite different than say, search engines, websites, or email marketing. That’s because the content that brands publish on social media channels is interruptive, whether it is organic or paid posts.
People are not on social media platforms to essentially buy something. They may buy something they stumble upon, but you don’t scroll your homepage looking to purchase something. You’re most likely scrolling to see posts or memes that your friends share, watch your favourite bloggers, or get inspired for your next trip.
Social media content is perhaps the most popular form of content. It is true that social media platforms have given brands and businesses enormous potential by providing them with the tools to establish a voice and have instantaneous two way conversations with the customer. That potential was increased when most social media platforms announced that they will give more visibility to local businesses. Local businesses are more likely to convert, that’s why they’re promoted by the platforms.
Creating Content for Social Media Channels
Your content on social media should entertain, inspire, and engage. You wouldn’t eliminate sales posts altogether, but they shouldn’t make up more than 10 to 20 percent of your social content. Here are some ideas for social media posts that you can incorporate into your content and tweak accordingly:
Video content has become the most engaging format for reaching Ballymena customers, with local businesses seeing 300% higher engagement rates compared to text-only posts. This is a service that ProfileTree excels at.
ProfileTree’s video production services help Ballymena businesses create compelling visual content that drives engagement and conversions. Our team handles everything from concept development to final editing, producing:
Our YouTube strategy services focus on building long-term audience growth and lead generation. We help businesses:
A webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted through the web using some type of video conferencing software. A key feature of a webinar is its interactive elements, as it possesses the ability to give, receive and analyse information in real time.
Through the webinar software, participants can share audio, documents and applications with attendees, this being very useful when the webinar host is holding a conference or an information session. Webinars are powerful content marketing tools because they are interactive, and people register to them with the willingness to listen, learn, and interact. This is a content marketer’s holy grail.
Webinars are suitable for B2B businesses and services that require a lot of explanation and training so that users can fully utilise them. That’s why software service products particularly find webinars beneficial. But that doesn’t mean that other businesses can’t make use of them.
Educational businesses can offer a lot of value through webinars. As a digital marketing agency, we have employed webinars multiple times to talk about digital marketing and educate businesses on the best practices. Entrepreneurs use webinars to raise awareness about new product innovations. In fact, if you want to interact with your community about their topics of interest, regardless of what it is, webinars are great tools to build a community.
There’re many ways through which you can promote for a webinar. Since webinars are personal and interactive, it is recommended that you invite people personally. However, you can still announce it on your social media channels or reach out to the audience through an email.
An underestimated tool is to mention it to any customer who enquires about your product or service. For instance, someone asking an FAQ about your product, you may reply to them sufficiently and then send them a link to a webinar so they can listen to the in-depth details to find the best answer to their questions.
Not those long business presentations with seventy-five slides. That would have to be an e-book, and that’s a different story. What we’re discussing now is those mini, bite-size presentations with five to seven slides maximum and a strong Call To Action at the end.
Although you’d need a designer to create presentable presentations, it doesn’t take much time to produce those presentations. So, even if you don’t have an in-house designer, you can hire a project based freelancer – it doesn’t cost much as you will pay them per hour. Alternatively, you can use Canva to create a presentation with a design that stands out.
What’s unique about those slides is that they’re multi-purpose. You can put them into a PDF and upload them to your website. You can use a slide or two for a social media post. You can send out the presentation through an email. It’s a unique way to deliver information, in slightly more detail – but not the sort of detail that would require your readers to spend an hour reading. A presentation shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes tops to go through.
Although it’s usually B2B businesses that take advantage of mini presentations, B2C businesses shouldn’t be scared to try them. A presentation for a B2B or a product-based company is essentially a product catalogue where you get to tell a story about your products. Catalogues are not out of fashion, trust us. Just think how IKEA’s catalogue is still a huge success and a trademark. Catalogues still deliver, but you need to make them worthy, engaging, and visually pleasing.
For content marketing in Ballymena, we’re proud to do things our own way. That’s because we not only use knowledge we’ve built up and tested over many years in our own business, but we also apply expertise in SEO, web development, video marketing, social media marketing, and much more. All in effort to produce a tailored, results-driven strategy for your digital business.
Northern Irish companies often ask us to step in to take their digital or content marketing to a ‘professional’ level. When they’ve outgrown their initial digital efforts because the business has grown, and their digital presence needs to reflect this. Since, like us, you’re a local small or medium sized business, you’ll know that every investment needs a good reason, a clear view of the right outcomes needed and the right strategy to make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, some of these factors are often ignored. That’s why, instead of jumping off straight to solutions, we’ll press ‘pause’ and take a little time to make sure your content is on a firmer footing.
“AI isn’t replacing human creativity in content marketing; it’s amplifying it. We help Ballymena businesses use AI to create more targeted, effective content while maintaining the personal touch that local customers value.” – Ciaran Connolly, Director, ProfileTree
For Beginners: Essential AI Tools
For Advanced Users: Professional AI Implementation
Our AI training programmes help local businesses:
ProfileTree’s AI transformation services are specifically designed for SMEs across Northern Ireland, focusing on practical implementation rather than complex technical solutions:
Data Protection and GDPR Compliance: All AI implementations comply with UK GDPR requirements, particularly important for businesses handling customer data across Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and mainland UK markets.
Local Language and Cultural Nuances: Our AI training includes specific guidance on Northern Ireland terminology, cultural references, and local business practices to maintain authentic communication with your audience.
Cross-Border Marketing Considerations: For businesses serving both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland markets, our AI tools are configured to handle different currencies, tax structures, and regulatory requirements.
Understanding the financial return on your content marketing investment is crucial for business owners in Ballymena who need to justify every marketing pound spent. This section provides a practical framework for measuring and calculating your content marketing ROI.
For Beginner Business Owners: Start with these fundamental metrics:
For Advanced Digital Marketers: Track sophisticated performance indicators:
Basic Content Marketing ROI Formula
ROI = (Revenue Generated – Content Marketing Investment) / Content Marketing Investment × 100
Step-by-Step ROI Calculation Example
Step 1: Calculate Your Total Content Marketing Investment
Step 2: Track Revenue Generated from Content Marketing
Step 3: Apply the ROI Formula
ROI = (£8,200 – £1,250) / £1,250 × 100 = 556%
This example shows a 556% return on investment, meaning every £1 spent on content marketing generates £5.56 in revenue.
Seasonal Adjustments for Ballymena Market
Industry-Specific Benchmarks
Visual Content Needs for ROI Tracking:
Infographic 1: “The Ballymena Customer Journey” This visual would illustrate how local consumers move through the content marketing funnel
Chart: “Content Marketing ROI for SMEs” A comparative bar chart showing:
Diagram: “ProfileTree’s AI-Enhanced Content Process” A detailed flowchart showing our five-step methodology:
Find Out ‘The Why’
A small word but a big question. Why is the content being created? Why should the audience react (e.g., click through from Google search)? Why should they react to your ‘Call To Action’ on your website page? Why should they continue to keep in touch through your email marketing or social channels?
A critical look at your content process puts you in the customer’s shoes. From the initial audience research to their first discovery and their initial reaction, to their steps on a customer journey – all are integrated, all part of the user experience.
A business should constantly ask ‘why’ the customer would react in the way it is hoped and, most of all, examine if the customer is being responsive in the way THEY would want to behave or in the way the business would want the customer to behave. If your customers are accommodating to you, it’s only a matter of time before they replace you with another company.
Find Out ‘The How’
Again, simple but very powerful. How does the customer convert from your landing page? How do they convert if they aren’t ready to buy…yet? How do they promote your business to others? Examining the customer journey and asking ‘how’ the customer moves from stage to stage, bearing in mind different customers will behave in different ways and should have options, can make sure potential buyers have the things they need when they need them.
What Does Success Look Like?
It can be tempting to see success as people reached, reactions, or other similar metrics. But ultimately, measuring the number of customers who have moved along the path you need to support your business and marketing goals forms the ideal measurement of your investment. You may want to promote more test drives, you may want to invite prospects to an information evening, or you may want to boost the numbers of an online community. Whatever the case may be, starting with your businesses needs and shaping your goals will mean a clear focus on how you want content marketing to work for you and how you’ll measure which elements have worked best and which to adapt.
The Right Reasons
If you’ll run a business, you’ll know that ‘being seen’ doesn’t fill any cash registers in its own right. However, reaching the right people and using useful content to draw them towards your business does. Knowing how you want your audience to react, and how you’ll turn this into a sales process, is key. After all, time and effort spent online can be a wasted opportunity without the right content delivered in the right way for the right reasons. We’ll show you how.
The Right Channels
Talking to your audience in the most appropriate places might seem a basic tip, but businesses will often invest time and money in their ‘comfort zone’ platforms. Instead of attempting to make your potential customers change their habits, go where they want to be found and start having real conversations. ProfileTree can help shape your online presence around sound research and a focus on performance.
The Right Audience
Some good news? Content can be shaped to speak WITH–not to–very select groups of people. Knowing your segments means talking to the perfect audience for your particular product or service. Not sure how? ProfileTree can design a content strategy build around results for your business. How do we do this? By using the methods tested in our own business, and local businesses like yours, to drive results. We always test all our content marketing tactics on our own internal brands first: Connolly Cove, Learning Mole, Amazing Food and Drink, Amazing Cars and Drives.
The Right Responses
Attracting traffic to your content is only half an achievement. Why? Planning how you want your audience to respond is the next part of the content process. Want more sales enquiries? Event attendees? Content can help target customers to convert once they are ready, and to stay in touch in the meantime. So, instead of hoping your online activity achieves the results, content can shape both your traffic and how those potential buyers behave online.
Our web design and development services create the perfect foundation for content marketing success. We build websites focused on:
Whether you need WordPress development, Wix customisation, Shopify setup, or Squarespace design, our approach puts content marketing at the centre of your website strategy.
ProfileTree’s digital training services help Ballymena businesses develop internal capabilities:
Working with so many different businesses over the years taught us to work with different budgets and requirements. We have created multiple packages for each of digital marketing services. Of course, every content marketing project has its own requirements but generally, we use your requirements and budget to come up with a suitable content marketing solution. And we hardly ever give our clients one solution – we usually give them multiple to choose from. In other words, you set the requirements, we tailor a package within the limits of your spending. Our content marketing packages start at £450 for one month’s content.
Starter Content Package (£450/month)
Professional Content Package (£750/month)
Enterprise Content Package (£1,200/month)
These client experiences demonstrate how ProfileTree’s comprehensive digital marketing approach delivers measurable results for businesses across Northern Ireland.
Dorothy Cairns, Business Owner “I would strongly recommend ProfileTree. I had been struggling with social media platforms and also Canva. The idea of learning new things really did freak me out. I was teamed up with Gabbi Ferrin from ProfileTree – she was absolutely fantastic. She took me step by step explaining to me in layman’s terms, showing me how to do things, how to schedule posts, how to edit videos and use Canva, even TikTok. So I went from absolutely dreading it and hating it to loving it and really enjoying it.”
Dorothy’s transformation illustrates our approach to digital training – patient, personalised guidance that builds genuine confidence in content creation and social media management.
Ciaran Coleman, Business Owner “I had an outstanding experience working with ProfileTree. Their videography team demonstrated a deep understanding of my business goals and delivered creative, results-driven solutions. They crafted a comprehensive marketing strategy and video marketing strategy that not only elevated our brand but also significantly increased our customer engagement and sales. What impressed me most was their ability to blend innovation with practicality, delivering measurable results within our budget.”
This testimonial highlights our integrated approach combining video production with broader digital marketing strategy, delivering tangible business growth through professional content creation.
Victoria Campbell, Wilson Power and Energy “Wilson Power and Energy recently had the pleasure of working with ProfileTree, and I can confidently say that their expertise in social media and YouTube marketing will enhance our online presence! Their tailored strategies for our social media platforms will completely redefine how we engage with our audience. They provided invaluable insights into best practices for managing our YouTube channel, helping us enhance our video content and attract a wider audience.”
Victoria’s experience demonstrates our comprehensive approach to YouTube strategy and social media marketing, showing how professional guidance can transform business growth potential.
Content marketing attracts website traffic, builds brand awareness, and generates leads by creating valuable content your target audience enjoys. This translates to increased sales and growth for your business in the Ballymena market.
We offer a wide range of services, from blog writing and social media management to video production and email marketing. We cater to specific Ballymena industries and tailor our strategies to your unique needs.
Consistency is key! Regular, high-quality content keeps your audience engaged and improves search engine ranking. We help you develop a content calendar and manage the process efficiently.
Costs vary depending on your project scope, desired outcomes, and chosen services. We offer transparent pricing and free consultations to discuss your specific needs and budget.
Absolutely! Visit our website or contact us directly to see how several local businesses achieved significant growth through our content marketing strategies.
A content marketing audit is where one of our expert team members goes through your digital marketing channels such as social media pages, website user experience, and content performance and analyses it to give you a brief of your brand’s digital well-being.
What Our Content Marketing Audit Includes:
Fill the form and send us your questions, we will be happy to answer all of them. Please do let us know if your business is registered in Ballymena. Alternatively, you can book a chat with one of our team members to audit your content marketing channels for free and find out how we can help you establish a strong content marketing strategy in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Contact ProfileTree Today
Transform your content marketing presence and discover how our proven strategies can drive business results in Ballymena and beyond.