‘Content marketing’ is term that we hear a lot in the marketing world. Whether we are being told that content is king, content is the future, content is what drives a business, everything seems to come back to creating quality content - but why?
In 2017, 53% of marketers claimed that content marketing was at the top of their inbound strategy. And with 90% of businesses already using content marketing to generate inbound leads, there are no signs of content marketing slowing down. Despite 87% of content writers admitting to struggling to produce material that engages their buyers, being able to create high-quality and engaging content is something that all businesses want to achieve.
Besides being a key driver behind generating leads and sales, a strong content marketing strategy can bring many benefits to a business. Here are our 10 key benefits that you should be aware of:
1. Content Brings More Traffic to Your Website
Starting with one of the most obvious but also most important factors, great content drives more traffic to your site. Whether it is in the form of a blog post, video or white paper, creating content is a simple and easy way to encourage your target audience to visit your website. With a click of a button, they can be transported to your service pages and then encouraged to either make a purchase or submit an enquiry.
Whilst making any sort of effort to share content online will be beneficial, regularly creating content will help to build and maintain a steady stream of organic and referral traffic. In fact, according to Hubspot, companies that published more than 16 posts per month received almost 3.5 times more traffic than those that only published four or fewer posts. So for the best results, be sure to set time aside to provide fresh and original content each week.
2. Personalised Content Enables You to Target Specific Audiences
By offering a variety of products and services, your business will appeal to different types of people and groups. But being able to connect with each customer group can be difficult. A simple solution is to create unique and engaging content that appeals to specific personas within your target audience. With a content strategy, you can plan and deliver personalised content that not only addresses their interests but also fulfills their needs.
Whilst other marketing tactics such as paid advertising provided detailed targeting options, this only controls who sees your ad and where. Content marketing can be tailored to connect with consumers in specific ways that maximise your effectiveness with each individual.
3. Content Drives Valuable Conversions & Quality Leads
47% of buyers view at least 3-5 pieces of content before they contact a sales representative. Similarly, 96% of B2B buyers look for more information from an industry leader before buying. So there is no doubt that content marketing helps to increase your conversion rate and generates more leads than other marketing tactics.
Besides creating more conversions, quality content can also improve the quality of your leads. A customer who has dedicated the time to read your article or watch your video is more likely to be interested in your products and services and is therefore more likely to convert. This could be due to 70% of customers feeling closer to a business after engaging with their content, but either way, 74% of companies found that both the lead quality and quantity increased after introducing a content marketing strategy.
4. Quality Content Supports Multiple Goals
With the ability to create content in many different formats, you can use your content strategy to achieve multiple goals. Whether your goal is to build brand awareness, increase SEO performance or generate more leads, creating content can be a great way to achieve all of these.
What’s more, with a strong content strategy, you can align each piece of content to support the user at each point in their journey. By addressing the users’ needs at different stages during the buying decision process, you can not only be more useful with the information you provide but also more effective in encouraging them to convert.
5. Unique Content Generates Better Social Engagements
On average, B2B marketers use five different social media site to distribute content. Therefore, content plays a vital role in enabling you to build a strong social presence and interact with your customers on a daily basis. Without creating content, you will be limited to posting character-restricted tweets and posts that will not be as engaging and useful to your customers.
Whether it is a blog post, short video or an interesting infographic, there are lots of ways in which you create quality content that will increase your engagement levels.
6. Custom Content Creates Stronger Connections With Customers
One of the secrets to having a successful business is making your customers feel valued and part of something special. But being able to do this is not always easy and can sometimes take brands years to master.
Content marketing can be a great way to not only begin but develop your relationships. 78% of customers perceive a relationship between themselves and a company using custom content. Similarly, 82% of consumers feel more positive about a brand after reading personalised content. So by taking the time to create a personalised email or an article that provides useful information for specific users, you can create stronger connections with valuable customers.
7. Quality Content Builds Credibility and Authority
All brands want to be seen as thought leaders, but this requires publishing quality content that it well-received and respected by potential customers. This can include anything from delivering a creative, memorable marketing campaign to providing informative and reliable white papers.
Consumers also turn to industry leaders before making important decisions. Whether it happens before considering a purchase or making a big, possibly life-changing decision, consumers search for reliable, credible information that helps them to understand their needs and resolve their problems. By creating content that supports consumers in doing this, you position your brand as an industry thought leader and build valuable credibility and authority.
8. Content Marketing Maximises Customer Touchpoints
Every customer goes through multiple stages before they commit to making a purchase or submitting an enquiry. Whilst all these journeys are different, content marketing can help to maximise your customer touchpoints and speed up the process.
To start, consumers need to recognise their needs and then identify potential solutions. Depending on their needs, the process of finding solutions can be one that takes a matter of hours, days or even weeks. By creating useful content that can support them in finding the answers they need, you can guide them through the journey and encourage them to make a purchase decision more quickly.
9. Original & Quality Content Boosts Your SEO Efforts
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Whilst this involves using a number of different technical SEO techniques, it also heavily relies on creating fresh and original quality content.
Besides showing search engines that you are regularly updating and releasing new information for online users, you are simply producing more content to be found online. For example, if someone searches for ‘What is digital marketing’, they may find a blog that you have written, click-through to your website and become valuable organic traffic.
Content marketing also brings great SEO value in the form of backlinks. If you produce high-quality content that other people want to share or link to, this helps to build your backlink profile and boost your search engine rankings.
10. Content Marketing Can Be Extremely Cost Effective
With content marketing costing 62% less than traditional marketing and generating three times as many leads, creating content is one of the most cost-effective marketing solutions.
Publishing content in the form of blogs, infographics or even eBooks can be fairly inexpensive to do, sometimes even free. Whilst creating videos is one of the more expensive methods, there is a wide range of free tools available on the market and the results can be equal to those of a professional.
With so many benefits to content marketing, it is easy to see why so many marketers are making bigger investments in the time and resources needed to deliver a strong content strategy. No matter how big or small your business may be, or which industry you’re in, there are many ways to utilise great content to deliver the results you need to grow your business.
If you need help in developing a content strategy or understanding how quality content can help your business, speak to our content marketing experts today!