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