Content marketing has seen a massive rise in the last decade as more and more businesses turn to this type of marketing to promote their brand, products, and services. But, with so many different marketing channels out there, many business owners question whether the time and resources required for content marketing are really worth it.
The reality is that in the current environment, content marketing is not only effective and beneficial but it’s necessary to stay competitive and to be an industry leader. Here’s why.
Understanding What Content Marketing Is
Before you can make a decision about whether content marketing is right for your business, it’s necessary to first have a clear understanding of what it is (and what it’s not).
Content marketing is simply about sharing high-quality content with a targeted audience on topics that they care about. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines it well as “a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
An essential part of this definition, and of content marketing, is that the content is “valuable.” Content marketing is about producing content that your target audience wants to engage with and actually seeks out.
In contrast, it’s not about simply talking about your brand or products. Instead, it’s about attracting and connecting with your target audience with the goal of creating a loyal audience that will in turn become loyal customers.
How This Strategy Works
While it’s hard for many leaders to commit to a marketing strategy that is not focused on their products or the company, the reality is that this type of marketing works, and here are three big reasons why.
It leads to increased brand awareness, improves the brand’s reputation, and builds trust with a targeted audience.
Building trust with customers or simply with a targeted audience is a key part of building a positive brand reputation and increasing your customer base. Consistently producing quality content allows you to do just that.
Notably, 70% of internet users would prefer to learn about products through content instead of through traditional advertisements. By producing that information on topics that are relevant to your industry or target audience, you enable your business to be the source that your target audience uses to learn about products while also showing your expertise, building relationships with your audience, and becoming known as an industry leader.
It Improves SEO.
Everyone appreciates the importance of search engine optimization. It’s key for driving traffic to your business’s site and to increasing your online visibility. What’s less widely known is that the best way to improve SEO is through content creation.
CMI shares that businesses that regularly post blog content average a stunning 434% more pages indexed by search engines than those that don’t publish content. Further, companies that publish 16 or more posts a month get nearly 3.5 times more traffic than those that publish 4 or less.
Clearly, consistently publishing quality and relevant content will improve search engine optimization and lead to increased site traffic.
It leads to conversions.
What many still are wondering about, however, is whether these other factors are actually leading to conversions. While content marketing might not seem like the most direct marketing strategy, the data is clear: it leads to conversions.
There are lots of numbers to show this, but here are two of the most compelling:
After reading recommendations on a blog, 61% of US online consumers went on to make a purchase.
Content marketing has a conversion rate that is 6 times larger than traditional marketing techniques when it comes to converting readers to leads and leads to customers.
Conclusion
We’ve all heard – maybe too many times – that content is king. Yet clearly, in the current market, this phrase is a cliché for good reason. Effective content marketing campaigns are no longer just a way to gain a unique, competitive edge. Rather, they’ve become a necessary part of the marketing campaign for modern businesses.
Content marketing is currently one of the most effective marketing strategies and is likely to be a central part of the future of marketing. If your business is not already implementing a content marketing strategy, now is the time to start. Reach out to us to learn more about how to build your business’s personalized content marketing plan.
