There are many marketing methods to use when running a business or to get your name out there. But one of the most overlooked strategies is content marketing.
If you’re in the search marketing game, you’ve heard the phrase “content is king.” But marketers turn a blind eye to content as part of their digital marketing strategy because some do not believe it is cost-effective. In this article, we will explain why content marketing should not be ignored and the benefits if used correctly.
What Content Marketing Is
The term “content marketing” was coined by Joe Pulizzi around 2001, but the practice has been around for much longer. Content marketing is creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, get, and engage a defined and understood target audience—to drive profitable customer action.
Content marketing can be used across all channels. It uses various forms of media such as blogs, social media, infographics, eBooks, or case studies to help spread the word about a company’s products and services. This makes it easy to reach potential customers wherever they are online.
Benefits of content marketing
- Brand loyalty
Content marketing helps build brand loyalty by creating a sense of community around your business. By sharing valuable information with your audience, you can become the go-to source for information related to your industry—which will help you stand out from the competition. - Building trust
Your business wants to know that your customers can rely on you as an authority on your product or service category while building relationships with customers who may not be familiar with your brand or products. The content you create can be used as educational material on your site or shared elsewhere on the web. This helps build trust with potential buyers and keeps them coming back for more information about your business. - Establishing yourself as an expert
Content marketing strategies allow you to promote your brand without alienating readers by interrupting them with advertisements. It’s a more natural interaction that helps you engage with your target audience. You can create content that people will find helpful and shareable, which allows you to build your reputation in your field.
It can be by creating and sharing valuable insights, tutorials, videos, or other types of resources that answer your audience’s most pressing questions. This is much more effective than participating in social media where you’re one of many voices in the crowd.
Also, writing content for your website and social media helps you establish thought leadership. When you’re known as a leader in your field, it gives people reason to trust you. They’ll be more likely to buy from you since they feel like they know what you stand for and how you operate. - Increased engagement on social media
Like with any other marketing campaign, you want to tailor content to your audience—one way you can do this is by targeting specific social media platforms with different types of content. It’s vital to create content related to each platform in a way that allows you to capture that platform’s users’ attention. Take a look at ways you can leverage each type of content to increase engagement on your company’s social media pages.
The great thing about content marketing is that it gives you so many opportunities for creativity. You can use anything from social media posts and infographics to blog posts and long-form articles to communicate with your audience—so long as it’s valuable and interesting, people will want to share. - A more targeted audience
You don’t want to provide content for the sake of providing content and link baiting—you want to create valuable content for the reader. Content marketing helps you reach exactly who you want to reach by creating content that appeals to them. This specificity level means you’re much more likely to convert leads into customers.
You can start by researching what they want to learn about and then create content that meets those needs. This helps you build trust and credibility with potential customers, which leads them to buy from you when they’re ready. You can use it to promote products, services, events, and other news about your business. Your content will be more relevant to your target audience because it comes from you—not from Google or other search engines.
Conclusion
With all the advantages that content marketing brings to the table, it is becoming necessary for businesses to take advantage of its many benefits. Content marketing wins by producing relevant, targeted, and engaging content for your target audience. This increases trust and engagement with your business and can increase sales or conversions. Content marketing is a win-win for the company and the consumer; everyone’s a winner!
