Last Updated: 8 months ago by BrodNeil
Content marketing is important to help meet your company’s ultimate goal – to earn more sales and generate revenue. When effectively implemented, content marketing gives you an opportunity to:
All these would increase website traffic that will favorably increase website conversions.
Content Marketing in a Gist
Content marketing involves consistently making and sharing relevant online content to attract your target audience, keep them engaged, and turn them into paying customers. These contents include blog posts, videos, images, podcasts, infographics, and social media posts. These contents may be shared in your blog, social media, and email.
So why is content marketing important?
Content marketing is undoubtedly one of the best online marketing strategies you can utilize in this time of digitization. It does not matter if your business is big or small. Here are the reasons why content marketing is important for the growth of your business:
Lead Generation
Sharing content online through blogs can help generate more leads for your business. It allows your target audience to learn more about your business. These leads can turn into prospects, and ultimately, customers.
Build Good Relations with Your Customers
If you find yourself irritated by ads and sales messages you are not interested in, then you will understand the importance of content marketing. Content marketing does not force uninterested people to read, share, or comment on your content. Your content is targeted to a specific audience interested in your share. Because of this, it would be easier for you to engage with your audience and build good relations with them – simply because they are interested.
The challenge in keeping good relations with them is to keep them interested. That is why you must consistently create and share relevant, interesting, and timely content with them.
Build Your Brand Identity
When you consistently provide useful content to your audience, there is a good chance that they will return to your website and maybe even subscribe to your blog, like your Facebook page, or follow you on Instagram or Twitter.
As you get them to visit any of your online channels frequently, you are gradually building your brand identity. They will remember your logo, your design, and even the color and the distinct style that you have, which distinguishes you from other brands.
The effect – whenever they need useful information or want to avail of something related to your product or service, your audience will most likely remember you.
Create Trust and a Positive Brand Image
Brand image is the perception customers have of your brand, including your products or services. This impression is formed over time through their experience and interactions with you. Content marketing can help you create trust and thus, a positive brand image.
Prospective and existing customers can have a wonderful experience with your website (and your brand) as you provide them with the timely and relevant information they need through the content you make. They may not necessarily be exactly about the product you sell or service you offer, but something very related.
If you sell gardening tools, for instance, you may want to share some indoor gardening tips, tools people use in different gardening activities, and gardening how-tos. The topics may be endless, but they must be relevant and useful for your audience. When your audience learns to trust you as their source of useful information, this creates a positive brand image. Your audience may show this trust by doing more than just visiting your website or liking your posts, but also by sharing them with their family and friends and ultimately availing products from you.
Gain Competitive Advantage
Content marketing gives you a clear advantage over your competitors who are not into content marketing. If you are running a small or medium local business, there may be a great chance that your competitors are not utilizing content marketing. If this is the case, then this is your chance to get some positive exposure and positive brand image through content marketing that your competitors cannot get.
Compared to other B2B companies who are not into content marketing, you have a competitive advantage of being discovered and preferred by prospective customers. This is because of your visibility as well as the quality content you consistently provide your audience.
What about those competitors who are also into content marketing?
Well, it may not be that simple. As long as you stick to the key elements of content marketing – consistently creating and sharing relevant, interesting, and timely content with your target audience – then you will be doing great.
The challenge is gaining a competitive advantage. To do this, you have to be unique. You have to go where others are not going. You have to innovate and find ways to help you reach more of your target audience and keep them engaged.
Promote Your Brand and Your Products with a Wide Reach
Besides sharing content that interests your audience, content marketing allows you to directly promote your products and services. Newsletters, for instance, allow you to share new product offerings, sales, promotions, company events, and more with your subscribers. A blog post can also be created for the same purpose and shared on different social media channels.
If content marketing is done correctly by creating relevant online content and consistently sharing it in the right channels, you will increase your website traffic and increase sales.
The key is to prioritize your target audience – that you make content for them, something of value to them. When they know they are valued, they learn to trust you. When they trust you, that is when revenue comes in.
Efficiency
Since you will be catering to businesses, expect a lot of inquiries and information-sharing about your product or service offering, your past and present customers, and more. With content marketing, you can prepare materials like infographics, product demos, white papers, webinars, and case studies that you can easily share with your prospective customers anytime. This will make your business operations a lot more efficient and time-saving.
Community-Building
Consistently creating reliable and up-to-date content makes your blog a place for your audience to find relevant information. Your social media channels will also have an audience when you have great content. With many followers, your channels can become hubs for target businesses in your industry to gather and interact, creating a community where they can learn and share.