There are many reasons why content marketing is influential to any company's marketing plan. Audiences are now looking for content that does more than self-promote; they’re looking for content that entertains, educates, and serves a greater purpose. This is why it’s important to take a look at the benefits of content marketing and how it will give your business a competitive edge.
“Quality content is at the heart of an integrated approach to marketing.”
1. Increases Engagement with Targeted Audiences
Unlike the ads-for-everybody approach in traditional marketing, content is target-savvy. In other words, content can be tailored to center on the needs of a brand's target audience and their exceptions to grab their attention. This ultimately improves credibility and trust of a brand's services in the eyes of the target audience.
Content is King
The more content you create - and the more time spent building and polishing it - the more engagement opportunities you create for yourself and your brand.
- Content created is interesting, enlightening and entertaining, people want to share it with their social networks. Your messages are delivered by trusted peers, and are more likely to be read than unsolicited sales messages.
- Content marketing is a powerful promotion of your brand and makes your website easier to find.
2. Builds Brand Awareness
Content marketing develops higher levels of engagement and relationship with target audiences. The higher the quality of content you provide, the greater the authority and awareness you will generate for your brand.
By building brand awareness through online content, your business can ultimately generate a higher level of authority, trust and respect from your target audience. This, in turn, will influence the purchasing decisions of at least 52% on customers who rely on blogs for information according to LeaderWest Digital Marketing Journal.
People are driven back to your website, where they find other shareable content. They spend longer browsing around your website and looking at what you have to say.
3. Generates More Leads
By conducting an effective content marketing campaign, all your inbound traffic and engagement generation efforts can deliver better results - up to three times more leads for every dollar invested.
According to HubSpot, companies with content-rich websites and business blogs generate 97% more leads than companies without a content marketing campaign strategy. In addition, the cost is 62 percent less than leads acquired through paid advertisements.
The more people that share your content, the more it’s validated in the search engine’s eyes as being high quality and relevant, so the more your rankings will increase.
4. Increases Sales and ROI (Return-on-Investment)
The better your targeted customers understand and appreciate the benefits they can gain from your business, the more likely hood they will become paying customers.
Compelling content drives successful social media campaigns that lures consumers to your website. With the right driving forces and calls to action, this increased traffic can be converted to increased sales.
- 67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from brands they follow.
- Blogs are 63% more likely to influence purchase decisions than magazines.
5. Gets More Inbound Traffic to Your Website
The power of content marketing for generating more inbound traffic is by providing target audiences with relevant information that can provide a solution to a particular need. By regularly posting valuable, useful content in blogs (or third party sites) and sharing links with brand followers, you are increasing your website's chances of attracting viral traffic. Visitors that have a positive user experience and spread a good word-of-mouth via social networks increase even more traffic.
The more pages and posts you have that provide highly-targeted custom content, the higher the amount of inbound traffic that your sites will generate. For instance, custom content is favored by up to 68% of customers for the basic reason that it caters to their interests or particular needs for information (Custom Content Council).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AJaye Ranes
Founder, AR Digital + Design
Specializing in digital marketing and creative business development, AJaye is passionate about helping brands succeed in a rapidly evolving world. Connect with AJaye on Twitter at @ajayeranes or via his profile.