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When setting up a business, you expect it to attract customers and grow from the sales you make. One main advantage of setting up a business online is the powerful tools available to market your brand and reach more customers. There are so many forms of marketing that you can employ online. And it is easy for you to be overwhelmed by the choices. What is the best marketing option for your investment?
While 72% of marketers believe that engagement increases with content, 94% of customers will want to purchase from a brand they follow online. Everything here revolves around content marketing. How you place your content determines who you engage, and how they respond to your business.
For this article, we focus on the five most important reasons why you should focus on content marketing for your business. Each aspect of the strategy has an essential role to play in boosting your business performance. By employing content marketing adequately, you will see a growth in performance. Results will depend on various factors, but you will surely have long-term benefits.
Here are the five most important reasons for starting content marketing for your brand.
1. Brand Awareness
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You cannot expect to make sales when nobody knows about your existence. Businesses need to find customers for their products. However, among the many methods employed online, only content marketing can create brand awareness. While many marketers focus on aggressive advertising, intelligent business owners invest in content marketing.
87% of people, when they want to buy something, either in a local store or online, first search for it and learn about the product online. You can be sure that the customers want to know more than the product. Most of them prefer buying from industry experts, because, whenever they need advice, help, or follow-up details, they can rely on the established brand for assistance.
Through content marketing, you can show your expertise and position that your brand plays in the industry. When people read the extensive information about various products, their use, and support, they feel more at ease to use the product. But how you present the information determines who is willing to do business with you.
2. It is More Effective than Advertising
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Some marketers would argue that advertising is an easy and cheaper method to acquire the clicks and, maybe, leads that they need. They will not, however, tell you that your business not only needs valid leads but, more importantly, targeted ones. You need to reach people who are already interested in your business, and that is where content marketing rules.
It is worth noting that 27% of the world’s internet users have ad-blocking software to disable advertisements on their devices when using the web. Greece leads by 42% while the USA has 27%. However, the figures represent ad-blocking as of February 2018. You can expect the numbers to grow as advertisers tend to get more aggressive.
Apart from the advertisers encountering ad blockers, there is also the inconvenience of GDPA on advertisement delivery. The law prohibits companies from storing personal data without the user’s consent. That means, as an advertiser, you cannot even track people who interact with ads using cookies. This makes it hard to target the right audience with the information you are selling.
When a person decides to decline cookies on their computer or phone, you cannot tell what they like or not so that websites showing advertisements can stay relevant. This means that you will be spending lots of money to show information to people who are not interested in your product. Even if they happen to click on adverts, most people will less likely make a purchase.
Content marketing helps you to reach more people with relevant information. While people are reading content online they can easily interact with your product without restrictions or content blocking. Content marketing mainly targets people who are interested in your products, and it is easier to capture your audience and convert them to customers based on how you present your product and the quality of your content.
3. It Improves SEO
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As we all know, SEO is the backbone of any business with an online presence. SEO helps you to get more targeted leads and convert your website visitors to customers. Ranking your site on SERPs helps many customers to find your business with ease when using the internet to find the products they need.
There exist so many ways that you can implement SEO for your business. The most important part of SEO is content. Give your readers more content and not simply content but high-quality content. Customers need detailed information, descriptions, and statistics before they can consider purchasing your products. But that is the same information that Google needs to see in your content before ranking your website on top.
Google ranks content by relevance and incoming links. While you can get the expertise of link building services for high-authority links, you still need high-quality content for the readers. When writing a blog for your site, or a product description, you will need to keep it relevant to the mentioned product and provide valid information. Any misleading news or information about a product can lead to your content being flagged for spam and taken down from the SERPs.
You will also want to publish more content. That explains the power of having a blog on your business site as well as writing fresh and sufficient content on your business web pages. More content around a subject gives Google a hint that your business is about a specific product or niche. You can, therefore, get several page rankings with the best content your audience needs.
4. Content Creates Trust
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Do you want to create a lasting relationship with your customers? Then content marketing should take priority on your to-do list. With the right delivery, people can trust you for business. You can capture the attention of new customers with content, and retain your existing customers with the same.
Relevant content helps to answer the customer’s questions. And you can as well interact with them using captivating content. Let the customer feel safe with your brand. Apart from interacting with your app, making a purchase, or booking, customers can recommend you to their friends through the content you create.
Distributing content across the web also helps to improve your reputation. Let people find your content everywhere. For instance, when an audience is looking for information regarding a product, and they find your post on high-authority websites, they are more likely to trust the information than when it is placed in some other places.
But even if authority websites matter, people hate sales content. Nobody wants a post that describes a product while trying to convince the audience to buy from them. People want to learn That is why it is crucial to hire a content marketing expert for your brand instead of focusing on direct sales advertisements.
5. It is Cost-Effective
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Yes, you read it right. Content saves you money when you are in the marketing industry. According to a study, content marketing is 62% more cost-effective when compared to other forms of advertising. That means that you spend 62% less to market your brand than you would by employing standard methods.
The same research also reveals that you get better results with content marketing than traditional advertising. For each buck you spend on content marketing, your returns will exceed those of other advertising options by up to three times. For example, if you make a 50% profit from traditional advertising, you can expect up to 150% returns from content marketing.
I know you would think that setting up basic advertisements takes less money than creating content. But remember that you are paying every time your advertisement appears on media or online. But with content marketing, as soon as you publish it, that is where it stays. Nobody charges an extra fee for having your information online.
Creating content also takes time. And you might be thinking that before the content ranks or reaches your audience, you could have made some sales with adverts. But also remember that many people ignore or block advertisements online, and they change channels or switch the TV off when adverts are played. All the while, you could be investing in content that your audience delights to read, which guarantees better results.
Summing Up
While all forms of marketing require some form of content, content marketing primarily aims at feeding the audience with the information they are always looking for. Since the late 19th century, businesses have tried to create content to feed their audience and use it to convert them to customers.
The trend has grown over the past decade, putting content marketing ahead of various forms of advertising. Any business that wants to stand the competition must employ the strategy to keep its audience hooked and create brand authority. However, you should know that time investment is vital in creating quality content that your customers need, and you must learn to practice patience in the process.
Jenny is a passionate writer & guest blogger. Writing helps her to improve her knowledge, skills & understanding about her industry. She loves to educate her audience about digital marketing techniques and eCommerce trade via her writing skills. Apart from writing, she loves travelling & photography.