Is content marketing a key part of your overall strategy? If not, it definitely should be!
Today, content marketing is crucial for small businesses. It helps you to engage with your
customers, attract new ones and increase brand awareness. The benefits it delivers are vast,
yet many small businesses still aren’t implementing it as part of their marketing strategy.
Here we’ll look at some of the main reasons content marketing is critical for small
businesses.
It increases your ROI
Did you know that content marketing provides a great return on investment compared to other
methods? Even if you choose to hire somebody to create the content for you, your ROI will still
increase.
It is said to cost up to 62% less to use content marketing than traditional methods. So, not only
will you generate more leads and improve your ROI, but you will also save money too.
All types of content marketing will boost ROI, but email marketing is particularly effective.
Campaign Monitor has shared data which shows a targeted, segmented email campaign can
lead to a staggering 760% increase in revenue.
It allows you to promote without selling
Consumers today HATE being sold to. The days of pushy ad campaigns are long gone. Now,
brands need to be clever when it comes to promoting their business and products.
Content marketing is a great way to promote your brand without selling to the customer. The
key is to provide useful and relevant content your audience wants to read. By covering issues
that your audience face outside of what you offer, they will keep coming back. This in turn
increases the likelihood they will make a purchase from you.
You can use it to build up brand trust
Content marketing is a fabulous way to build up brand trust. Consumers often cite that trust is an
important factor when they make purchasing decisions. If consumers don’t trust you, they aren’t
going to buy from you.
The best way to build up trust through content marketing is with a blog. A study by SMX East,
shows that 73% of consumers prefer to get information about a brand through articles and blogs, rather than through advertising.
It helps you to grow your audience
One of the great benefits of content marketing is that it can really boost your audience. If you
are producing high-quality content, your audience are more likely to share it. This builds up
brand awareness, getting your audience promoting you.
After publishing content, you don’t need to do much additional work to get results. Your content
can draw in new leads for months after it has been published. With other marketing methods
such as paid ads, your leads will stop when the ad stops running.
So, if you are looking to grow your audience, content marketing can really help. However, it will
take a lot of hard work. You will need to create a good strategy to ensure you get the results you
are looking for.
It will boost your SEO
Another benefit of content marketing is that it can boost your SEO. This means it improves your
search engine visibility.
There are a number of ways to boost SEO with your content. Publishing useful content
frequently will positively impact SEO.
Did you know that 24% of enterprise marketers publish content multiple times per week? A
staggering 20% even publish content daily. Posting frequently tells search engines that your site
is active. This is just one thing they look for when displaying websites in their search results.
You can also boost your SEO by including keywords in your content. However, if you do choose
to do this, make sure you don’t stuff the content with keywords. They should be used sparingly
throughout, ensuring the content reads well.
As you can see, content marketing plays a crucial role in business. It costs less than traditional
methods and delivers a great ROI. However, if you want to get the right results, it is important to
learn as much about it as you can. There are a lot of mistakes you will want to avoid, and you
will need a good plan in place.
Start implementing a content marketing strategy into your business today. You might just be
surprised by how effective it can be.
Derrick Markotter started IdealMedia Marketing, a digital marketing company, in 2008.
Over the last fourteen years, Derrick has been developing his marketing skills, concentrating on Internet marketing. He has spent thousands of hours building websites and optimizing them for the search engines, both for his own business and for clients.
Derrick specializes in creating lead generation systems which combine sales funnels, email marketing, social media marketing and pay-per-click advertising.