All about Content Marketing

Content Marketing has now become an indispensable feature for any actual brand. 

But what is it exactly? 

Content marketing is the heart of the most successful digital marketing campaigns. Behind every great brand is a wealth of valuable and relevant content strongly connecting with the company’s audience. But, why is content marketing so important?

If we need to choose one definition of Content marketing, we can say:

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that is wrapped between the creation, publication, and distribution of content to specific audience in order to bring new traffic (and therefore new customers) to your business.

But to make it clearer, let’s see the advantages:

Building trust through to improve the reputation

One of the greatest benefits that can show the importance of content marketing is the reputation building qualities of great content. In today’s busy digital marketplace, it’s vital that businesses work hard to build trust with their leads and customers. Building trust can help your business establish a positive brand reputation for a long time.

Creating original content is a fundamental tip to get to know your leads and customers while building goodwill.

Great content helps you build trust. At the moment the consumers read your content, they start to develop an opinion of your brand. If the content that they find is engaging, educational, and valuable, then they will automatically start to think the same things about your business. The more value you can provide with your content will be easier to build trust with your target audience.

In addition, when your leads and customers start to see that you are consistently publishing content across platforms, they start to see you as a leader in the industry. Publishing content through third-party publications or sharing it for example with influencers can also help you further build trust.

Great content to influence conversions

Here are a few of the stats about the importance of content marketing when it comes to improving website conversions:

• Content marketing provides big conversion rates: 6 times higher than standard digital marketing methods. (ABG Essentials)
• After reading recommendations on any blog, 61% of online consumers decided to make a purchase. (Content Marketing Institute)
• According to 75% of surveyed companies, content marketing has increased their marketing leads in quantity and quality. (Curata)
• Video content also helps to provide a great ROI (Return on Investment) and significantly increase conversions, according to 72% of surveyed businesses. (CrazyEgg)
• Inbound marketers double the average site conversion rate (from 6 to 12%) in a big part due to their content marketing efforts. (Hubspot)

So, quality content marketing will significantly help you improve your website conversion rates.

Content marketing helps to improve conversions because thanks to it you connect with and educate your leads and customers. You are not just working to build trust and relationships, but you are also encouraging conversions by giving consumers important information they need to make the correct an educated purchasing decision.

To optimize your content for conversions, you should include a clear call-to-action. Your CTA (Call to Action) tells the reader what they need to do next, guiding them to the next steps in conversion processes. Converting can be making a purchase, getting extra information, contacting your sales team, etc. It’s important to make it clear (for the reader) within the content what you want them to do next.

Improve SEO efforts optimizing content

The importance of content marketing becomes clear when looking at the role that content plays in helping your business build and improve SEO (search engine optimization). We know that SEO plays an important part in improving visibility for your business online, however, if you want to improve SEO you need to create optimized content.

We can say that content creation is the most effective SEO technique. For example, business sites that post consistent blog content have an average of 435% more pages indexed by search engines than those that don’t publish. More content you have on your site: more pages the search engine has to index. And obviously, show to users in their search engine results.

But we also know that more pages do not necessarily result in higher traffic. It does by giving your brand the opportunity to rank for more keywords. For example, creating blogs on different relevant topics (to your target audience) gives you more chances to rank for the keywords that these users are searching for.

The more content you have on your site, the more reasons you give visitors to stick around it. This also means a higher on-site time, which also positively impact your SEO. Google sees time spent on site as one of the indicators that your site provides valuable content!

That’s why our SEO Blogging services are so important for the general content marketing strategy. 

Creating great: a cost-effective way to bring in new leads

Why is content marketing so important? Just take a look at all the ways that content can help your business bring in new leads. Lead generation is totally important for small businesses that rely on consistent traffic for growing their brand and boost sales. This is not only great for lead generation, but it’s also affordable.

Content marketing costs about 65% less than traditional marketing tactics and it generates about 3 times as many leads. The affordability of content marketing makes it a totally necessary tactic for small businesses that want to maximize their budget.

It’s also important to note that content marketing is time intensive and usually can take a while to see the results of the efforts. We can see it very clear when it comes to SEO. However, when it comes to creating quality content, very little can go a long way. According to Social Media Examiner, more than 80% of marketers found that they experienced a clear increase in traffic by investing just 6 hours per week in their social media content.

Content marketing is not only an affordable tactic, but it also provides a return on investment that small businesses just can’t ignore.

The importance of content marketing is easy to feel when you consider the return on investment. Because creating content is fairly affordable and highly effective, many small businesses see an impressive ROI on their content marketing over time. In fact, the statistics say that per dollar spent, content marketing efforts produce up to 3 times as many leads as paid search ads.

The key to maximizing content ROI is to create a content marketing strategy that takes your target market into consideration. You should not create content ”just for creating it”. To can really see your money’s worth, your content should be strategic in specific topics, types of assets you produce, and promotional methods.

Content marketing allows your brand to show itself as an expert

Consumers want to know if are they dealing with experts who know the ins and outs of the industry. Content marketing allows your brand to demonstrate the expertise in the field while providing valuable knowledge that, again, help readers make a more educated purchasing decision.

Every time that you publish, you’re showing leads and customers how much your brand knows about the industry and the challenges that they face. When the time to make a purchase comes, consumers will remember the brand that provided them with the specific information they needed to better understand their problems and solutions.

Building good relationships with customers

Consider how great content marketing can help you build relationships with your customers.

Previously, we discussed how content is a fundamental part of building trust and establishing a positive brand reputation. This will help you to grow your audience and reach new leads.

What about those who have already purchased from you? Repeat customers are the bread and butter of many any small/medium businesses. According to BIA Kelsey, 60% of SMBs (small and medium-sized business) say that half of their revenue comes from repeat customers. For example, Marketing Tech Blog reports that a loyal customer is worth, on average, up to 10x as much as their first purchase.

Loyal customers are nothing but an advantage to your business. If repeat sales usually make up a significant portion of your company’s revenue, then you need to find new ways to strengthen your relationships with them.

Content marketing comes in providing great content and doesn’t stop after a lead becomes a customer. Content that provides good value for your customer base will help increase brand loyalty by strengthening the relationships that you have with customers.

Your customers want great content

Your leads and customers want to read great content. In fact, more than 20% of the time that internet users spend online is spent reading content.

Statistics show that 68% of people like to spend time reading about brands that they find interesting. Additionally, 80% of internet users like to learn about companies through the specific content they provide.

So why to not give the people what they want? It can be entertaining, educational or another but always use your content as an opportunity to show consumers what your brand is all about.

The key to creating effective content that helps you connect with your audience is focusing on topics that are relevant to their needs, interests, challenges. And always be original showing personality to help consumers get to know your brand and what sets you apart from the rest.

Position your brand apart from competitors

It’s vital that your business differentiates itself from competitors and that is the real importance of content marketing. Content marketing is an effective way that businesses can work to set themselves apart from others in the industry and therefore show what makes their special.

The topics that you create content around and their value can mean the difference between a consumer choosing your brand over a competitor’s. If a buyer is doing research about their challenges and certain products that can help solve those challenges, they will be inclined to work with the business that provided them with helpful information.

Consider the role that content plays in helping you develop a brand personality. Beyond just the type of content that you publish, you can also set yourself apart from the competition through your content’s language and the original way that you present your information. Is your brand personality serious and professional? Or it’s fun and educational? Or maybe a mix.

How do you want to portray your brand? Developing a brand voice can help you create content that is unique to your business. One of the best ways to show this personality is through content marketing.

Marketing Funnel

There are three major areas of your marketing funnel that you should think about while you’re developing your digital marketing campaigns and content marketing plays a role during each stage of the funnel:

• Top-of-Funnel: Your prospective customers are starting to become aware of their problems they are also starting to become aware that there are solutions available. During this stage, content can help your brand to educate them and get them the information they need to decide which type of solution might help.
• Middle-of-Funnel: Leads are evaluating all their options. Content during this stage is meant to educate leads on what their different options are. They will start to narrow their choices and start coming closer to a final purchasing decision.
• Bottom-of-Funnel: Here they are ready to convert. Content during this stage is meant just to give them a final nudge of encouragement and empower them to make an informed purchasing decision.

When you are creating content marketing to reach potential customers at each stage, be aware of what each lead needs. Prospects at the top of the funnel usually need more general information that helps them to better understand their challenges and potential solutions. Leads reaching the middle of the funnel need more detailed information that encourages them to evaluate their options. And leads at the bottom need content with specific details about your unique product or solution to help them make an educated purchasing decision.

Content helps to support all other digital marketing strategies

Content marketing helps to support every other part of your digital marketing strategy. Most small businesses have several tools in their digital marketing toolbox. From email marketing to social media to Pay-per-click ads. There are a lot of different tactics that you can use to attract and engage your ideal audience.

Guess what all of these strategies have in common? Great content!

All business needs to create engaging/high-quality content as part of any digital marketing campaign tactic. You also have to develop email content that is engaging and encourages readers to take the next step. For that, you can also use pieces of previously created content to help nurture those leads.

There should no longer be any doubts about why is content marketing important because content marketing integrates into all other areas of your digital marketing strategy. Content’s also the glue that holds together your campaigns and ultimately helps make them successful. Without good content all you have are ideas. And no matter how good they are, they do not convert by themselves.

Conclusion

With all these benefits described before, it’s easy to see why is content marketing fundamental for any businesses of any size. Content marketing not only does help you boost visibility but also help you build a stronger relationship with your leads and customers.

Work on developing content marketing strategies that have your target buyers at its core. Then you will be on your way of creating valuable content that helps boost conversions and therefore improving customer retention.

From now on, when you read ”content marketing” on any place you will know exactly all the work that there is or should be behind it.

Also, remember that this is one of the main features of our services.