Content marketing is an important part of any good digital marketing strategy.
The upfront effort can be time consuming, but once you’ve nailed your content marketing strategy and created quality content, it can bring you leads for years to come.
Here’s why:
Most people don’t want to talk to other people
68% of buyers don’t want to talk to a sales rep.
While this stat is from 2017, I find it hard to believe it’s gone down in our increasingly internet-reliant society.
The good news? This can save you time. And money.
Great content can work as your 24/7 salesperson. It can answer questions outside of working hours, guiding a potential customer down the marketing funnel while you sleep.
To get the most out of your content, it’s important to have a content strategy that covers any questions your target audience may have.
Regularly look for any gaps and consider if it’s worth publishing long-form content like white papers to go into more depth about your business or industry. This content type will show off your industry knowledge.
You could also gate the long-form content and use it to collect emails for use in email marketing, too.
Content is evergreen
Many people put so much focus on creating good content that they forget to promote it. Or don’t promote it enough.
But once you’ve created your quality content, whether that’s video content, social media content, or blog posts, it can bring you leads for a really, really long time.
Video content published to YouTube, when optimised for searches, can show up in YouTube and Google searches.
When you optimise visual content for TikTok, those videos and slideshows can keep ranking – and attracting your target audience – years later, too.
Blog posts, when optimised for search engines, will bring you results for weeks, months, or even years.
Sometimes, you might need to refresh that blog post to ensure it still contains valuable information and the latest industry statistics, but that doesn’t have to take long. (Especially if you outsource your content updates.)
You can answer questions quicker
Type what you want into search or social, and boom! You can tell if that company has content that answers your question.
If a customer has a question, it’s faster for them to ask a search engine or the search feature on your site than email you and wait for a reply.
It’s also less frustrating than dealing with a chatbot, which can feel impersonal.
People crave a personal touch. Quality content provides that. Chatbots don’t.
You can save money
Traditional marketing is expensive and can be hard to measure results. Traditional advertising like a TV advert can cost thousands to create, then thousands more to air on TV. It’s then difficult to measure those results.
Content marketing has a low barrier to entry, meaning that as long as you know how to write, you can dive in.
Over time, you can learn how to refine your brand voice, optimise your content for search engines, create eye-catching graphics to share on social media platforms, create video content, and repurpose your ideas so that you get the most out of them.
None of these content types cost huge amounts to learn, and you don’t have to use expensive tools to get them right.
It’s also easy to measure success using tools like Google Analytics and the ones built-in to social media platforms.
Content builds trust
Have you ever searched for a business only to find they have little to no social media or blog presence? I don’t know about you, but that always makes me question a company’s legitimacy.
When I search for a business’s name and they come up as the first hit, I know they’re legit and putting the work in to be found.
Likewise, if they regularly post on social media and engage with their audience, it shows they care about their customers and see it as a reciprocal relationship.
People want to deal with businesses they trust, and when businesses are open about their practices, it helps build that trust.
This brand loyalty means customers will spend more money with you and could even recommend your product to their friends.
If you’re lucky, they might even create user-generated content for you without you needing to ask.
(But it never hurts to ask your superfans, especially if they’re already active content creators.)
You can show off your industry knowledge
The more you talk about industry trends, the more it shows your audience that you know what you’re talking about.
This further builds your know, like, and trust factor and builds your industry reputation.
You can repurpose content
Most of your audience won’t see your content the first time around.
Nobody has a 100% open rate for their email marketing, and on platforms like TikTok, it’s rare for your followers to see what you post – most traffic comes from the For You Page.
So if you have quality content and a great content strategy, why wouldn’t you repurpose that valuable content? It’s much easier and quicker to repurpose an idea than come up with a new one.
One idea can give you:
- A white paper
- A blog post
- A press release
- An infographic
- A slideshow
- A YouTube video
- A reel/short/TikTok
Oonce you’ve created all of those assets, you can repost that content regularly.
(Some platforms, like TikTok, prefer that you make tweaks for each version, so be mindful of that. But my point is you don’t need a whole new idea, just a new way to execute it.)
Sometimes you may find what doesn’t resonate with your audience the first time might the second time around.
I’ve published the same video multiple times to my author TikTok account.
The first time, it was in the 200 club.
The second time, it hit several thousand. Nearly two months later, it’s got over 14,000 views and is still going.
When I reposted the video again, it was back in the 200 club.
All I changed was the background music.
So you never know when content will take off.
How it performs isn’t always a sign of quality content, either. Sometimes it’s as much about your content marketing strategy and how you use social media marketing.
Never underestimate the power of keyword optimisation and captions, particularly on visual platforms.
You can connect with your customers more deeply
User-generated content is an effective way to show your target audience how they could benefit from your product or service. This could come in the form of written content, video testimonials, photos, or social media content from existing customers.
Many fashion brands use user-generated content, getting influencers to share their hauls on social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram with their followers. This increases the brand’s reach and grows their brand trust.
Candidates can see what it’s like to work for you
Content marketing isn’t just about building brand awareness and attracting your target audience. It’s also great for your employer brand.
The type of content you publish says a lot about the type of business you run.
If you often talk about your employees and share their successes, it shows you value their contributions to your company.
Letting them take part in content creation further shows you trust them not just to do their jobs, but to build their personal brands. Even if they might outgrow you or get headhunted by your competition.
If you only use your blog and social media to boast about company achievements, it shows you might have an old-fashioned approach to marketing. Which could put off more forward-thinking candidates.
Conclusion
When you regularly answer FAQs, share industry insights, and highlight your employees, it shows you’re at the forefront of your industry and will attract people who want to be, too.
Content marketing can do some seriously heavy lifting when it comes to attracting, nurturing, and retaining customers and employees. So long as you’ve got a content marketing strategy that works for you.
Want help optimising your content marketing strategy? Get in touch to see what we could do.