In the business world today, content marketing is of vital importance. Some say it is the future of online business and for good reasons. Content marketing has proven to be one of the effective ways companies can utilize their online presence to achieve business goals. It is a result-driven method for increasing brand awareness, building online visibility, growing audience engagement, generating leads and driving sales.
Research shows that 53% of marketers prioritize content marketing above other marketing methods. In addition, most companies that provide B2B services, allocate 29% of their marketing budget to content marketing.
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Social media is the new marketplace as many companies now employ digital marketing against traditional marketing. As a business owner, your best chance to stay on the radar is to include content marketing in your promotion campaign. It is a more conventional marketing strategy. Moreover, it is cheaper compared to traditional marketing.
In this article, we will look at some of the reasons why content marketing is important for the growth of your business.
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Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Important For Your Business
1. Content Marketing Improves Brand Visibility
When starting a business, your first aim should be to increase brand awareness. Building awareness is the first step in growing your business and making sales. Content marketing is the most effective way to build brand visibility and awareness. Creating content online puts your brand in the limelight and exposes your business to the world.
Consequently, more people will get to know about your products and services. If you provide valuable content, your audience will share it with others which increases your online reach. In addition, it could even go the extra mile to support your brand through word-of-mouth marketing. Most importantly, it will make people recommend your services to their friends which will help you get referrals and make more sales.
2. Content Marketing Creates Credibility
Content creates goodwill and helps you gain the trust of your audience. Therefore, creating content that educates and informs your audience about your company, helps them see the behind-the-scenes of what you do. And it also shows that your business is transparent which gives them a positive impression about your brand.
For the first few months, provide useful content that teaches and educates them without asking for anything in return. It creates the impression that you care about them and they will trust your advice and recommendation.
Subsequently, they will be willing to buy from you when you eventually make a sales ad. Ultimately, content marketing builds your brand reputation which drives sales.
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3. Establishes Your Niche Authority
When creating content, ensure to provide useful information that answers your audience’s questions. It should provide solutions to their problem. Creating high-quality content builds your brand authority. Your audience will regard your online platform as a credible place to get valid information.
In other words, such content projects your unique brand proposition and differentiates you from your competitors. Thus, you will be considered as an expert, and authority in your field which gives you a level playing ground with other industry leaders.
4. Builds Social Media Traction
As your content begins to trend, it helps you gain more visibility. Likewise, it improves your social media traction by increasing your number of views, shares, and followers. As a result, this social engagement, organic visits, and brand mentions will increase your brand influence and popularity.
As more people begin to read your content, they will come to value your brand which helps you make more sales. Subsequently, your business will begin to earn from other subsidiaries aside from your core offerings like influencer marketing, consultancy, training, and speaking engagement.
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5. Improves SEO Ranking
Content marketing can also drive traffic to your brand website or blog and improve your SEO efforts. Research shows that companies that use content marketing get five times more leads, 97% backlinks, and approximately 55% site visits. With this rate of activity on your business blog or website, your Google ranking will increase.
If your content provides value, as people visit your site and engage with your content, your company website will become more visible on Google. When internet users run a search on their browser, your website will appear on the top search result. If your content provides the information they need, they will most likely bookmark your website or even subscribe to your notification mail.
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6. Content Marketing Generates Lead
Generation of leads to your business website just got easier with content marketing. It is advised that you should include call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your post. CTA is an invitation that instructs your audience to take the desired action.
Your call-to-action could be to click on the PPC (Per Per Click Advert), visit your website, share your content, read more content, or hit your landing page. A good CTA should direct your audience to your web landing page where they can make a purchase or subscribe to your email list.
If your audience enjoys your content, they will most likely take the next step included in your call-to-actions
7. Increases Sales Conversion
The main goal of every business is to generate profit through the sale of its goods and services. With content marketing, making sales in your business can become a whole lot easier. In order words, it helps your business grab the attention of a good fraction of the online community. This increases your chances of getting new customers.
The competition in the business world is intense. The best way to stay above the crowd is to create content that endears your brand to your target audience.
Every customer goes through a buying journey from awareness to consideration, decision, and retention. Content marketing improves your chances at each stage of this journey. It helps to create awareness about your business. Finally, it convinces your prospects to make a purchase and eventually build a long-term relationship with your company.
8. Drives Other Digital Marketing Channels
Content marketing is the best investment you can make for your business. Importantly, content marketing is low-cost advertising. Firstly, it gives the highest return on investment when compared with other marketing strategies. It is the fuel that ignites and drives other digital marketing campaigns.
All your company’s social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and YouTube) need content to grow. Your brand cannot build social engagements without content marketing. Even sponsored ads are weaved around quality content.
Content marketing is the backbone of your SEO campaign. That is to say, you must create content on your website before applying SEO standards. And your content must be user-friendly and SEO compliant.
In addition to that, building your email list also requires content. You need content to generate leads and keep your email subscribers engaged. In the end, all your digital marketing strategies fall back on content marketing.
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Conclusion
Content marketing is pivotal to the growth of your business. However, the quality of your content determines the success of your content marketing campaign. Yes, not all content is king, only high-quality content is. Start creating content today.
The first step is to research and understand your target audience. Set your content objectives and create a topic pool that answers the frequently asked question in your niche.
Most importantly, plan your workflow, create your content (written, visual or audio) and distribute to your various online platforms. Remember to be consistent in posting your content.
Preparing a content calendar and using scheduling tools like HootSuite, Postcron and Buffer make the process easy. Take a step back and measure the performance of your content and improve your content.
Entrepreneurs.ng can use content to position your brand as the preferred choice. Contact us today to put your business on the world map.
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