Almost 85% of businesses reportedly have content marketing strategies. However, only 35% of these organizations actually have a dedicated person or team who works on it full time.
Perhaps the disconnect comes because businesses don’t understand how beneficial content can be. Content can create leads, increase brand awareness, and bring many other advantages to the forefront of a business.
Content marketing campaigns form just one cog in your digital marketing machine but if you can keep that piece well-oiled then you’ll see positive returns. Keep reading to find out how content marketing benefits your business!
The Concept Of Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategy for engaging your audience and increasing your client base. It is done through the creation of relevant and valuable content.
This strategy has the ability to attract, engage, and add value to a brand’s audience. This method improves your brand’s perception and generates more business for your company.
It’s no longer a market trend, but a strategic investment in the future of your company. A brand should seek to gain more relevance and higher visibility online. As well as increase brand recognition, by using content marketing campaigns.
A company should want to stick out in people’s minds and avoid being lost in the competition. They usually try to do so through the content they produce.
Being online is no longer sufficient. The question now is how to be visible and relevant to the audience while online.
Content marketing is important because it helps you build trust, develop relationships, improve conversions, and generate leads by answering your audience’s questions. Customers expect high-quality, consistent content from their favorite brands in today’s world.
The Benefits Of Content Marketing
Other internet marketing strategies rely on content marketing as a foundation in order to function at high returns.
You’ll need relevant content if you choose to work with social media marketing. When it comes to email marketing or corporate blogs, the same thing applies: you’ll always need content.
Any marketer will tell you that content truly is king. You can accomplish a variety of goals by using content. Goals such as teaching people how to use your product or showing them how your service can solve their problems. Even simply educating them on your brand.
It’s important to remember that people nowadays have the ability to choose which content they consume. There is so much of it out there, they are becoming more and more selective on what they spend their time on. They are flooded with information, and you must provide them with the best options if you want them to choose your brand.
1. Increases Website Traffic
It’s difficult to help people find your company among the vast amount of information available online, but your content makes you discoverable, especially for search engines like Google.
Relevant content also draws attention in social media or email marketing campaigns, resulting in more visitors to your site. In other words, content marketing significantly increases traffic to your website from your most effective traffic source (organic search). What does this mean to you personally?
Higher-ranking content in search engines attracts more clicks from people looking for the best answers to their questions.
Furthermore, because this traffic comes from people who are looking for very specific answers, it means that it is highly targeted. Your content then comes across as highly tailored to that audience, so, with strong calls to action, you can turn prospects into customers quickly.
2. Build Trust And Be Seen As An Industry Leader
Content creation is, in essence, the development of a relationship between your company and its target audience. You can interact with customers and answer their questions. Your audience is more likely to trust your advice and recommendations if you provide value. Always, without expecting anything in return.
Your brand’s reputation will improve when your content appears in the right place at the right time with the right audience. Customers are more likely to engage with your company and its positive content if they see it frequently.
Another benefit entirely: if your content is high quality it will drive up your external links. In turn, it can power your backlinking strategy. This means that other websites will link to your content because it is valuable and relevant. Furthermore, it will drive up the authority that your brand has on each of those topics.
3. Drive Audience Engagement
Increased engagement is one of the most important advantages of content marketing for your company. Your target market will like, share, and comment on content that they find useful, interesting, helpful, and entertaining.
Engagement is a great way to connect with your audience while also increasing social proof.
When your content gets a lot of likes or is shared a lot, it shows that it’s valuable to others. It shows potential customers that your content is worth their time and that your company is knowledgeable about the subject.
In 2022 and beyond, social media users cannot help but stop and look at a piece of content or read a blog that has thousands of shares, comments, or likes.
4. Target Buyers At Specific Stages
The content that you create isn’t done so with a one-size-fits-all approach. The first thing that you would have done was to research your ideal target audience and know where to find them and how to talk to them.
There’s a second stage to this: your audience will be made up of members that are in different states of interaction with your brand. For example, some are just beginning to become acquainted with your business while others may be at the stage of becoming a customer. In this way, you can nurture your content the same way that you would nurture a relationship with a customer:
The first step in driving users to your website or other online points of presence is to create awareness content. This content is designed to educate them (blog and social media posts, whitepapers, and infographics, for example).
Consideration content allows your users to learn more about your specific offerings. This content shows how they compare to other options. (For instance, case studies, webinars, and reviews). Conversion content aids in the validation of your prospects’ decision to choose your solution over others. (For example, demos, and free trials).
Retention content strengthens and supports your offering by providing ongoing value. It assists your customers in making the best decision possible (e.g., help documentation, customer newsletters).
Approval content shared with long-term customers entices and empowers them to recommend your product. These referrals come from a position of trust (these can be things like testimonials, referral requests, and also webinars).
5. Improve Lead Generation
The ultimate goal of content marketing is to attract new customers to your company who you can sell to. Content marketing allows you to reach out to people who haven’t made up their minds about buying yet. Or perhaps they may not even know what solution they need to the problem they are having.
They become interested in your business after reading all of your relevant content. When they arrive at your website, you provide them with more information that converts them over time. The best part about this stage of the marketing process is that your competitors are completely absent.
It can, however, get even better! A good content marketing strategy will make your business readily available for those actively searching for it. Once they find you, this content begins to generate leads. These are ideal leads because they have already decided that they require your services.
So, content marketing can help you generate leads from any position within the buyer journey. This is true whether they still need much more convincing or just a nudge over the line.
6. Aid SEO Efforts
The more high-quality content that you produce and publish on a regular basis, the more it will contribute positively to your SEO tactics.
The content you’re creating will be based on your keyword strategy and what your audience is searching for. So really, the two go hand-in-hand. The more content you publish, the more your rankings will improve because your content is constantly being shown to people searching for it.
The more people who view it, the higher your brand will come in those search engine results.
7. Form a Foundation For Other Digital Marketing Avenues
Almost every, single avenue of digital marketing uses content in some form or fashion. Social media channels all require various types of content, your website requires content, email marketing requires content, and even traditional marketing methods require content.
If you didn’t have a content strategy that was driving your content marketing campaigns, then your platforms and content would seem disjointed to your audience.
But your content marketing campaigns are not so! This means that the content that you’re creating is scalable and changeable for the places in which it can be used. There’s consistency in the branding and the topic of the content itself is based upon a solid foundation of research.
So, your content can move around on platforms, it can jump from Facebook to LinkedIn to YouTube and to your next email newsletter. Your content marketing media should become a library of content than can be repurposed, redesigned, or reused as and when you need it so.
Content Can Build Brand Awareness
It’s impossible to overestimate the power of a well-known brand in influencing consumer purchasing decisions. But imagine you’re just getting started and haven’t yet established a strong presence.
In this case, a content marketing strategy that emphasizes your company’s distinct identity will still be beneficial. Viral content, such as videos, popular trends, blog posts, or audio, could be used in your strategy. Whatever medium you use, a distinct voice for your company is likely to resonate with the people it wants to reach.
We have mentioned consistency before, but this isn’t only about how often and when you post, it’s also about keeping your content itself, consistent. Designs should be easily recognizable, templates can be used to make this happen. The tone of your messaging should be monitored so that your brand can present one unified tone and voice when engaging with your audience.
The Biggest Content Marketing Mistake To Avoid
When businesses start to post and actively publish their content marketing campaigns there is one big mistake they often don’t realize that they are doing.
This error can do more harm than good even if some of your content is great and the rest not so much.
Avoid, at all costs, publishing irrelevant content just for the need to post something. Quantity does not trump quality when it comes to your content marketing.
Every piece of content that is created and published for your brand should be in line with your strategy and made with your audience in mind. Rather, focus on the messaging and the value that you’re adding to your audience through your content. Post quality content rather than opting to post for the sake of simply putting something up.
When content creators take the time to learn about their target audience, they can produce high-quality content. Then it will do more than fill a page but also leaves a lasting impression, and that is your ultimate goal with content marketing campaigns.
Create Compelling Content
Everything you do with your content marketing campaigns should be measurable and trackable. Aside from the content creation itself, you need to ensure that you have systems in place to track the performance of your content so that you can see what is working and what may need to be changed.
Content marketing is not a cemented strategy and it will evolve with your brand and your audience as your industry shifts or your products change.
But, once you know how to do content marketing then changing direction for better results can be a little easier.
If you’re still overwhelmed and not sure how to get a handle on your content marketing strategy, contact us, we can help you move forward.
