
No matter what industry you are in, your business can benefit greatly from content marketing. Content marketing done the right way can increase sales and help you build trust and authority in your market. Only relying on word of mouth to spread the good news about your business is no longer viable, and paid advertising is expensive and slowly becoming unreliable.
Why is content marketing so effective? It's simple. Great content gives your customer value while benefiting your brand.
When you produce high-quality, well-produced content, you are giving something to your prospects before they ever do business with you. This is much more effective than traditional advertising. The best part about using content to raise brand awareness is that is won't be hidden from people using ad blockers.
Targeted Content Captures Your Audience
The more targeted your content, the more engaging and effective it will be. A piece of content can answer a specific question or solve a problem. Content serves as the foundation of your relationship with your current customers and prospects. The more personal it feels to the reader, the better.
Content Marketing is Cost Effective
Paid advertising gets expensive very quickly. It can be extremely disheartening to shell out your hard-earned money on advertising only to lose money. Content marketing can negate this problem. Content you create on your own only costs time, and outsourcing content creation still costs less than traditional paid advertising.
Because of its non-traditional form, content generates more leads than traditional advertising methods. An ebook can do a considerably better job at generating leads for your business than a banner ad. The value that people gain from your content makes them more likely to give you their email address.
Content Marketing is Less "Salesy"
Self-promotion is hard to do the right way. Traditional means of promoting your business can come off as boisterous, salesy, and downright annoying. Using social media for content marketing allows you to carve out your own little corner of the internet that people follow because they want to. This gives you a strong advantage because you can assume that most of your followers actually care about what you post.
Even your most loyal followers will be turned off if you are constantly self-promoting or rattling on about your products. Your social media should be used to add value to your viewers' lives, as it is a key part of your overall content marketing strategy.
Content Marketing Builds Your Authority
How cool is it that the same content that earns you customers can also earn you a spot as an authority in your industry? Every industry has an elite group of people who are always posting great content that is informative, engaging, and free of errors. If you can position yourself as an industry leader, customers will turn to you when they need answers. This leads to sales for you down the road. Educate, build trust, and watch the sales increase.
Content Boosts Your Website Ranking
Relevancy is an important factor for ranking in Google. While quality is subjective, Google actually scores your content based on how "fresh" it is. Your content's freshness is based on several factors including when it was made, updates made to it, how often it is updated, how many inbound links it receives, and traffic. Why is freshness important? It allows you to rank organically in the search results, drawing in free traffic and generating leads and sales.
For brands that have to nurture their leads heavily before the sale happens, content makes satisfying your prospects easy. They can learn more about you, solve some of their problems, and start to trust you as you interact with them through your amazing content. These nurtured leads may even share some of your content, helping to spread the news about your business.
Any small business can benefit greatly from content marketing. An effective strategy can do so much more to generate leads and increase sales than paid advertising alone ever could. Content builds relationships, adds value, and still manages to make sales happen. Traditional advertising won't make your brand awesome, but amazing content tailored to your audience will.
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