Why Content Marketing is Important to the Success of Your Business
We all know that content is king, but not everyone knows how to market it. The quality of your content marketing decides how much you’ll stand out from other brands in your industry. Here are five ways that a good content marketing strategy makes or breaks your overall business success.
Improves brand visibility
One of the most immediate benefits of content marketing is improving the visibility of your business. Content marketing strategies are key to your SEO plans, both short-term and long-term. SEO as a whole requires more than good content, but the content itself is what “puts you on the map”. It’s what you optimise.
First, polish your website copy and landing pages. Next, produce some long-form content rich in relevant keywords. This can be blog posts, industry articles, etc. Then share both as widely as you can.
Include links to your website and blog in your email signatures, social media About sections, and anywhere else they might be noticed by your target audience. Even if someone consumes your content without clicking through to those pages, they’ll remember seeing the links. It makes you easier to find and interact with, meaning it passively increases your reach.
Drives lead generation
Not all leads are created equal. Your content marketing should focus on minimising cold ones (casual leads not really interested in your brand) and maximising warm ones (genuinely interested in what you have to offer). People who are actually interested in your product, service, information, and story are called “qualified leads”.
Good content marketing is the most sustainable and long-term effective way to generate and nurture those qualified leads. Focus on quality. Every piece of content you put out should either educate people on a specific subject or help them troubleshoot a particular problem.
Common examples include educational articles and informative landing pages. These provide immediate value, make you look qualified, and establish your brand as relevant and trustworthy. They prime your audience to accept your expertise and encourage them to explore your pages further.
Helps with talent acquisition
Good content brings good leads, but a forward-thinking content marketing agency knows that some of those leads are more than potential sales. Depending on what specific type of content you publish, you can use it to attract the attention of professionals looking for a position.
The most direct strategy here are targeted posts. Publish blog and social media content specifically tailored to the professional talent your company needs to acquire. These shouldn’t be blatant job baits, but valuable industry experience. Tailor the content to inspire professional curiosity.
A less direct way is fine-tuning your overall digital presence. Strategically optimise your social media, email copy, landing pages, etc. to reach this subset of your audience. Present your company as a place worth working at and subtly hint that you’re open to new people.
Builds industry authority
Content marketing is highly effective at establishing you as an authority in your niche. Quality content travels fast and far. The more valuable it is, the more it gets shared, and the more your reputation grows. That said, content can have several forms of value:
- educational (how-to’s, tips and tricks, “all about” guides)
- entertaining (human stories, before and afters, behind the scenes)
- persuasive (opinion posts, debate prompts), etc.
The type of value you produce affects the reputation you develop. While it’s good to keep things varied and interesting, you should still have a clear primary direction.
Whatever you focus on, consistency is the essential strategy for building authority. If you deliver value regularly people will see you as reliable, credible, and overall serious about what you do.
A consistent stream of content maintains audience satisfaction and builds loyalty. People know exactly when to expect new posts from your business, so they keep coming back. The best way to maintain consistency is to develop a content calendar. Consider having one for every platform you’re on, tailored to that specific audience segment.
Effective long-term marketing
Creating content is much more affordable and time-efficient than traditional advertising. It also allows for more creativity, which makes it easier to connect with the target audience. Content marketing is especially efficacious because it compounds over time.
To begin with, any content you produce is there to stay. It remains on the web until you decide to take it down, and even then copies may persist. This is great because even “outdated” content has value. For example, your customers can go back for information regarding older product models and find your own first-hand info instead of some rehash by a third party.
More importantly, with every subsequent piece of content, your total reach and impact gradually grow. This is what we meant by “compounding”. Greater quantities of content increase the chances of each piece to be seen. So long as your content production remains consistent, your incoming traffic will steadily increase.
To sum up, content marketing affects your business in several key ways. It dictates your brand visibility and directly affects your lead generation rate. It can also bring in leads for hireable talent, as opposed to customers. Moreover, strategic content marketing is the most sustainable and effective long-term approach. Depending on what you post, it can establish you as a reputable expert in your industry and increase your reach and impact with each new cycle of your content publishing calendar.