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8 Reasons Content Marketing Is Vital To Your Success

Everyone knows that ‘content is king’, but not everyone understands why.

In the past, content marketing was used simply as a way for online marketers and business owners to set themselves apart from their competition but now it has evolved into something that is necessary for every modern business or brand.

These days content marketing lies at the heart of every successful digital marketing campaign. Every great brand has tons of valuable content that connects with the business’s ideal audience in effective ways.

In case you’re still wondering why content marketing is so important, read on to discover why it needs to become a top priority in your own business.

8 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Vital To Your Online Business Success

1. Content Marketing Builds Trust And Helps Improve Your Brand’s Reputation

Great content has the potential to build a brand’s reputation in ways that no other type of marketing tactics can.

Trust is vital in today’s digital marketplace, and if you want to earn your audience’s trust, then you need to consistently produce valuable and useful content for your customers and leads.

By building trust, you establish a brand reputation that is positive and impactful. In addition to that, creating high-quality custom content is a great way of getting to know your customers and leads while also building goodwill for your business.

As soon as people read any of your content, an opinion of your brand starts to form in their minds (whether consciously or not), and if the content is engaging, valuable, and educational, then they will associate all those things with your business.

This means that the more value that you provide your ideal audience with via your content, the easier it’s going to be to build trust with them.

Also, when your customers and leads see you publishing content across various platforms, they might develop a perspective of you as an industry leader.

To help further boost trust within your target audience, you can publish some of your content through different third-party publications or share it with influencers within your industry.

2. Content Marketing Helps To Influence Conversions

Great content will always be able to move people into taking actions on offers. If you want to improve conversions on your site, then content marketing is the easiest and most effective way to do so.

According to recent research conducted by Hubspot, content marketing delivers conversion rates that are six times higher when compared to other methods used in digital marketing.

Also, over 59% of online consumers in America decided to buy a product or service after receiving recommendations on a blog.

The reason content marketing is so good at helping you improve conversions is that it allows you to connect with your customers and leads, and educate them in the most relevant ways possible.

Not only do you have the opportunity to create relationships and build trust, but you’re also encouraging conversions by giving your audience the information that they are searching for to help them make educated purchasing decisions.

In order to optimize your content for conversions, make sure that you include a very clear CTA (call to action) with each piece of content that you produce.

This tells your readers what they must do next and guides them to the next step in the conversion process.

3. Content Marketing Helps Improve Your Search Engine Optimization Efforts

When looking at the role that content plays in helping to boost your business’s SEO, there’s no denying that content marketing is vital to the success of any online business today.

In order to improve your business’s visibility online, you have to engage in SEO efforts – and to do that effectively, you need optimized content.

Content marketing is, without a doubt, the most effective technique for search engine optimization.

Businesses that post consistently on their blogs have more pages indexed by the search engines on average than those that don’t publish content. This means that the more valuable content you publish on your website, the more users will see you in the search results.

Of course, it’s still important to keep in mind that more pages don’t necessarily mean higher traffic numbers.

But, it does give you the chance to rank for a greater number of keywords.

For example, when you create blogs on different topics which are relevant to your ideal customers, this gives you more opportunities to rank for specific keywords that are being searched for by those target users on the search engines.

In addition to all that, the more content that you have on your website, the more reasons your visitors have to stick around and come back for more.

This means an increased on-site time, which ultimately impacts your SEO in a very positive way as Google sees the time spent on a website as an indicator that the site provides content that is valuable, useful, and relevant.

4. Content Marketing Is An Extremely Cost-Effective Way Of Bringing In New Leads

Lead generation is vital for small businesses in order for them to not only grow their brand but also to boost their revenue and sales.

Content marketing is a great way of generating new leads.

It’s also very affordable and delivers a significant return on investment. It costs a lot less than other traditional marketing tactics and generates over three times as many leads.

This is why it’s such a necessary tactic for businesses, particularly small businesses that need to maximize their budgets.

It’s also important to keep in mind that content marketing is a time-intensive tactic, and that results from your efforts can be a bit long in coming (but they do come!).

This is particularly true with regards to SEO.

But, the good news is that with quality content creation – a little goes a long way. Content marketing isn’t just affordable, it’s got a great ROI that small businesses absolutely cannot afford to ignore.

In order to maximize your content ROI, your content strategy has to take your ideal customers into consideration.

This means that you shouldn’t create content simply for the sake of it, but you must be strategic in your choice of topics, as well as the types of assets that you produce, and the methods you use for promoting the content.

5. Content Marketing Allows You To Showcase Subject Matter Expertise

A major reason why content marketing is so vital is that your consumers want to know that they’re dealing with an expert who knows everything there is to know about the industry.

You can use content marketing to demonstrate your expertise in the field while supplying your readers with valuable knowledge that helps them to make better-informed buying decisions.

Each time that you publish a blog post or any other type of content, you show your readers how much you know about your industry as well as the challenges that your prospects and customers face.

So when the time comes for them to make a purchase, you’re going to be the first person they think of because they will remember that your brand provided them with information that helped them better understand their challenges, solutions, and the options available to them.

When it comes down to it, customers will always be more likely to purchase from a business that publishes informative and valuable content on a consistent basis than one that doesn’t.

This is because, to the consumer’s mind, the business with more content has demonstrated that they have industry knowledge and expertise, so they have the peace of mind of knowing that they will be taken care of by knowledgeable experts who will be able to answer any and all questions they might have regarding their product or service, as well as troubleshoot any issues.

6. Content Marketing Allows You To Build Great Relationships With Your Customers

Publishing great content helps you to build powerful relationships with the people who do business with you.

As previously stated, content is vital for you to build trust and establish a positive reputation for your brand. This helps you reach new leads and grow your audience as well as to keep in touch with those people who have already bought from you.

If repeat sales are your business’s bread and butter, then you have to find ways of strengthening your relationships with your customers. This is an area where content marketing excels.

You don’t stop providing great content after your leads turn into customers.

On the contrary, creating valuable content for your customers will increase brand loyalty and strengthen the relationship you have with them.

This, in turn, encourages repeat sales and helps you to establish powerful advocates for your brand.

Content that is most effective for building brand relationships includes how-to videos, brand guides or comparisons, and any other types of informative visual assets that can help your current customers get as much value from their purchase as possible or make smarter purchasing decisions in the future.

The more value you give them, the more trust you build, and the more likely it is that they’ll return.

7. Content Marketing Allows You To Set Yourself Apart From The Rest

In today’s saturated marketplace, it’s vital to differentiate yourself from your competitors in order to be noticed.

This is where content marketing particularly excels. It’s a very effective means of helping even small businesses to show what makes them special.

The topics that you choose to create content around as well as the value of the content that you provide can be the difference between someone choosing you over your competition.

Almost all major buying decisions these days begin online and if the buyer is researching about their problem and the products that can help solve it, they are more likely to go with the business that provides them with the most helpful information.

Also, content marketing has a huge role to play with regards to developing your brand personality and a unique voice.

Even beyond the type of content you produce, you’re also able to set yourself apart through your language, style, and the way that you present your information.

For instance, your brand personality can be serious and professional, fun and educational, or even a mix of both.

Determining the way you want to portray your brand can help you in creating content that is truly unique and shows readers that your business is special.

8. Content Marketing Is Vital For Your Marketing Funnel

Each step of your marketing funnel can benefit immensely from your content marketing efforts.

The three major areas that you need to focus on when developing digital marketing campaigns are:
1. TOFU (Top of Funnel)

At this stage, your prospects are just becoming aware that they have a problem. This is also the stage where they become aware of the solutions that are available.

You can create content to educate them at this stage and give them all the information that they need to help them make smarter decisions as to which type of solution might be the best for them.

2. MOFU (Middle of Funnel)

At this stage, leads are assessing their options for solutions and the content that you provide for them should educate them on what the different options are so they can narrow their choices down and move closer to that final purchasing decision.

3. BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)

As soon as leads get to the bottom of the funnel and they’re ready to convert, it’s time to provide them with the type of content that is designed to give them that final nudge to encourage them to make an informed buying decision.

As you can see, content marketing plays an essential role during each of these stages.

In Conclusion

The benefits outlined above make it very clear that small business owners cannot afford to ignore content marketing as a means of helping them meet their business goals.

It not only boosts your visibility in the search engines but also helps you build strong relationships with your customers and prospects.

So get started right now and develop your own content marketing strategy with your target buyers at its core so that you can boost conversions and increase customer retention.

Feel free to post your comment below.  An email address is required but it will not be shared with anyone, put on any list, or used for any kind of marketing, just to alert you if there are any replies. Thanks and happy hunting!

PlanetBizOp.com

->Steven

Updated: Originally published November 3rd 2018

This Post Has 15 Comments

  1. Susan

    Content is definitely key. There are so many things to consider aren’t there. ROI SEO top of the funnel (heck what’s a funnel) there are so many things to learn. Finding a place that can teach you everything in an easy to learn broken down fashion is key here too. Branding, becoming an authority! OMG so very much involved! It’s great to have a platform that can help you through all that! 

    1. Steven

      I know exactly what you mean. There are a lot of little concepts to put together to create a perfect marketing ‘machine’ that is efficient. I’m still learning and always will be. Keep studying, stay curious, it will all fall into place as you go.

      Thanks for the comment Susan!

  2. Matthew

    Content Marketing is, without doubt, the bread and butter of my websites and you have hit the nail on the head with every single one of your points you have made. You mention that it builds trust and makes your brand a reputable one but that is only if you are writing to inform people and not just to make sales and for self-gain.

    Your number 1 priority when writing content should be to inform and educate your readers and once you have earned their trust they will keep coming back, providing you keep giving them what they came for.

    Do you think that you can create perfect SEO content posts every time or do you find it hard to keep finding what will keep bringing visitors to read your content?

    1. Steven

      I don’t worry too much about SEO. I keep it in mind, but I don’t focus on it exclusively, when creating content. I worry most about quality, which in the long run, is the best SEO practice of all.

      Write for your readers, build a following, everything else takes care of itself.

      Thanks for the comment Matthew!

  3. Slim King

    People have to be aware of what lies within the image you show to them. That is the only true way to show people the true value of what you present to them. Content marketing is very vital and should not be overlooked. Only the best aim at marketing the base core of their projects.

    1. Steven

      Honesty is the only way to build a business that will last. People pick up on BS pretty quickly and word gets around fast on the Internet.

      Thanks for the comment Slim King!

  4. Jimsolo247

    Hello Stephen,

    You have just said the whole truth, nothing is better than content marketing when it comes to selling products online, it helps to gain trust and credibility from your clients… Also, when reviewing a product, make sure you give an honest review about that product, whether good or bad.Am also a content marketer and I work very hard so I can give quality review about the product I am advertising.

    Cheers,

    1. Steven

      Sadly, there are a lot of phony review sites out there that are really just sales pages in disguise. People pick up on this pretty quickly though. Keep giving honest reviews and you’ll do well in the long run.

      Thanks for the comment Jimsolo247!

      1. Jimsolo247

        You are welcome Stephen

  5. Brenda

    I think content marketing is indeed important and you have nicely stated the reasons for this. I like the first reason as personally I believe that building trust really affects how successful your business will be and what better way to do that than to produce quality content that helps people and of course market it. The internet today makes it convenient for us to market our content.  As you right said it is cost effective and give us authority in our online business.

    Thanks for sharing.

    1. Steven

      Content marketing is the best way to sell just about anything. It’s gentle and builds trust. Once you have the trust of your audience, they will recommend you to others and keep coming back.

      Thanks for the comment Brenda!

  6. Taetske

    Good Morning Steven,

    This was a good and clear post on Content Marketing, I have learned a couple of concepts.

    You have explained very well why Content Marketing is so important, more than in the past. 

    I understand that writing helpful and interesting posts your readers will come back for more. Over time you will have developed your own writing style and your posts will have a similar layout, which will make it easy to recognize the writer.

    One has to build this trust with your visitor so they will accept your recommendations. 

    I can see that when a website matures and more content rich posts are published the website could become a reference.

    It will take time to develop your brand personality and being seen as a unique voice, I suppose with hard work and patience one will get there.

    Regards, Taetske

    1. Steven

      Time, work and patience are the magic formula. If you’re willing to devote those you’ll be successful even without spending much money. If you can spend a little money as well, it helps to speed things up a bit.

      Thanks for the comment Taetske!

  7. Demetra

    This blog came right on time! I considered focusing on content marketing and figured it was vital. I am am now sure that copywriting is a important skill alongside video content.

    However I am still figuring out who am I speaking to specifically and how my products will benefit them long term.

    As far as email marketing I wonder what angle am I focusing my content and how often am I creating more value for my audience?

    I appreciate you breaking down funnels as well!

    Overall this is phenomenal blog and easy to understand thanks so much for this, now time to create some content haha 😀

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