In the past, people would swarm their websites with advertisements to attract new clients. However, ‘salesy’ content no longer appeals to customers, and any forward-thinking marketer has to embrace a long term content marketing strategy. If you have not incorporated content marketing into your business, you are missing out on many benefits. Read on to know more about content marketing and its benefits to your business.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing uses engaging pieces of content to attract customers instead of pitching products or services. The approach focuses on creating valuable content consistently to retain a clearly defined audience while driving them into action.
Traditional advertising methods may be useful, but they capture the audience’s attention for a short period. Besides, they do provide less value, and customers do not have a reason to stick around. Blog posts give customers informative and engaging content so that they can stick around for more. By the time the user decides, you will be their go-to site for information and products.
What Are the Benefits of Content Marketing?
Many businesses are wary about splurging money on content marketing because they do not understand its benefits. Getting people to think highly of your brand sounds exciting, but what other benefits of content do you get?
1. Increasing Site Traffic and SEO
In the past, most websites used keyword stuffing to improve their rankings on SERPs. However, with search engines improving their algorithms frequently, a website cannot thrive with low-quality content. Content marketing provides high-quality content that will enhance your rankings. Statistics show that businesses that combine great content with intelligent marketing strategies improve their search rankings. For instance, top blogs get 66.47% traffic from search engines due to high-quality content. With consistency in publishing valuable and relevant content, customers are likely to find your website. Repeat visitors will also share your content through their social platforms and drive traffic to your website.
2. Strong Brand Visibility
In digital marketing, businesses have to earn their customers’ respect and trust to make sales. Valuable content introduces you to potential customers and increases your online visibility. A strong brand personality will shine through your content, and you will carve out a market segment for your products. You can inject your personality through eccentric content like videos, infographics and strong calls to action.
3. Helping Customers With Purchasing Decisions
Customers go through a purchase funnel before buying your products. The decision to buy an item begins with searching for information on search engines or seeking referrals. Therefore, if you have high-quality content that provides relevant information, prospective buyers will land on your site. An excellent content marketing strategy will speed up the buyers’ journey, and they are likely to buy from you. Another way of influencing your customers’ purchase decisions is through the sales funnel. However, the process is slow, and the conversion will take a long time. Highly targeted content will help your potential customers to make up their minds faster.
4. Positioning Your Site as an Authority and Thought Leader
Digital marketing is levelling the playing field between giant companies and small start-ups in the same niche. Small businesses can compete with others by creating valuable content. However, if you want to increase your products’ visibility, you need to establish a footprint in your niche. You can use different types of content to engage and educate your audience. People will be more receptive to your products if they have contact with your brand through content. Besides, brand authority builds trust, and you can increase sales by converting readers to buyers and repeat customers.
5. Increased Sales
Nowadays, people are blocking ads that pop up on their browsers. Therefore, businesses need to find additional ways to generate sales. Creating a blog for publishing content is a great way to create new leads. High-quality articles will invite your target audience to engage with your products. This engagement allows you to convert readers with minimal effort. You can also use content to increase subscription to your mailing list, where you can provide personalised marketing and improve your sales.
6. Improving the Relationship With Your Audience
Content marketing allows you to focus on a specific segment of your audience. You can use your targeted content to guide new prospects through the buying cycle and lead them towards conversion. As you engage your audience, your bond will become stronger. If you nurture the relationship, your audience will be repeat customers and advocates for your brand through social shares and referrals.
7. Fuelling Your Online Marketing Channel
There are many popular types of content marketing media, including blog posts, videos, infographics and press releases. These pieces of content can fuel various marketing channels in your business. For instance, a single blog post can attract social shares, and you can feature it in your weekly newsletter. You can also use the post as gated content, where readers fill out a form to capture leads and collect data.
8. Improving Your Social Following
Referrals are any online business’s dream since 82% of customers seek recommendations from a friend before purchasing a product. Therefore, you can improve your website’s online presence by providing useful information that customers can share on their social media platforms. If you have a sizeable following, but you are not converting sales, you should also use content marketing to gain traction on social media. Ensure you maximise the value of your content through campaigns and tracking its performance.
9. Generating Leads
You can use your content marketing campaign to generate leads through calls-to-action that encourage customers to make informed decisions. For instance, you can guide customers to your landing page or another article that could provide additional information. If your customers enjoy your content, they will likely click the CTAs and proceed to make purchases.
10. Improving Your Conversion Rate
Sometimes you generate many new leads through your sales funnel, but your conversion rate is low. That can be detrimental to your marketing efforts. While various factors affect conversion rates, you can leverage the benefits of content marketing to improve conversion. Use high-quality content to answer questions about your products, improve your brand’s personality and highlight the benefits of choosing your brand.
Harnessing the benefits of content marketing will help you improve your brand’s visibility and increase your ROI. Your website will be authoritative and a valuable source of information in your field. You also have an opportunity to expand your reputation and invoke loyalty among your audience.