adminWe have moved from days of traditional marketing in business. Long gone are the days when people actually had to sit and watch commercials in between their favorite shows. With the fast paced developments in technology in recent years, people can now set their TV or DVR (digital video recorder) and skip all the television advertising.
Magazine advertising is not as effective as it once was anymore either. These days people just simply ignore it. And those banners and buttons that used to get clicked online, well internet traffic has become somewhat immune to those too.
Smart online marketers know this type of traditional marketing is no longer effective. And so that’s where content marketing comes in.
In this article we are going to look at what is content marketing and the benefits that businesses get from it.
What is Content Marketing
So, for businesses, content marketing is a simple marketing technique that requires website owners to create and distribute valuable information or content to it’s customers or prospects on a consistent basis. The objective is to get web visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up for a mailing list, making a purchase or simply to develop the company’s brand and establish it’s expertise in a particular niche or industry.
7 Benefits Of Content Marketing
As you can imagine there are a ton of benefits associated with this type of marketing, providing it is done effectively. Below I will share seven of those benefits with you.
Benefit #1 – Generation of Sales
It goes without saying that as a business owner you depend on sales in order for your business to survive. Now, the problem is the average small business owner does not have as much of the customer base compared to their large competitors. That means small businesses have to do much more in order to drive traffic, generate sales and keep customers engaged and coming back.
Without a doubt, content marketing is one of the most effective ways for any business to draw in more customers and ultimately more sales.
It is a fact that being of value to customers, and offering content they can actually use it to build long-lasting relationships, and loyalty that can last a lifetime. And regular engagement with customers can be done through web content or email content.
Benefit #2 – Establishes You As An Expert in Your Field
Content marketing is a great way to differentiate or separate yourself from all the other businesses in your market or niche. If you are not afraid to say something bold and to express a different point of view on a particular topic it will really make you stand out in the crowd. It will make you look like the expert that everyone would want to listen to and follow.
When you establish yourself as an expert there is no limit to the amount of money that you can make particularly online. Most people go online to get ‘expert information’. One such way is when people are looking for product reviews online before buying a product or engage in a service.
Benefit #3 – It’s Cost Effective
When you compare content marketing to other forms of marketing you will see just how cheap it is. While it won’t cost you a lot monetarily it will cost you a lot as far as your time goes as it can take time to create unique and engaging content, and it also takes patience to continue to do it on a regular basis. If it makes sense for your ROI (return on investment) then outsourcing can always be a great option to consider – outsourcing will certainly save you on writing time.
In most cases the rewards from content marketing won’t be instant. It will take some time before you start to see any returns. But once the ball starts rolling and you keep at it, it certainly will all be well worth it for your business.
Expect to spend anything between 20 to 40 hours a month creating content (depending on how fast a writer you are) – that’s if you are not hiring someone who can write for you i.e. the option of outsourcing. Again, the results will take time but it will be well worth it in the long run.
It is important to also think outside the box when it comes to content creation, sometimes we instantly think of written text, but, did you know that video converts 80% better than text on sales pages? And, channels like YouTube get millions of viewers each month? People love video and so that is a great form of content to create.
Benefit #4 – Making the Money
This is the best benefit of all. Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies on the internet. It delivers your message in a very quick and efficient matter. If done correctly, a good content marketing strategy can bring in quite a bit of money in conversions for calls to action on your site.
Benefit #5 – Brand Building
Brand development is another important benefit of content marketing. The fact is that when people get reliable, useful and accurate information the payoffs for establishing brand reputation can be significant. A smart strategy is to go beyond how the content serves the company or business, but to consider how it serves the user. Make sure to consider what are, and how to solve the users’ problems as they pertain to your niche and industry. Once you do this on a consistent basis you will establish long term and prosperous relationships from a grateful audience.
Benefit #6 – Drives Traffic to Your Website or Blog
The simple fact is that the more site pages you have, the more traffic you will get going to your website or blog. Content brings search engine bots and the more pages of a site those bots index the more traffic they can bring back, and traffic means more opportunities to convert any calls to actions that are on that site whether sign ups or purchases.
Benefit #7 – Social Media Benefits
Content marketing is the food for social media campaigns. High quality can go viral, as it gets shared and it can be posted on the various popular social platforms. In turn, social media marketing campaign brings more traffic, more leads and allows companies to build relationships with their customers.
This is what is Content Marketing and The Benefits mentioned are not all there is but some of the key benefits you get.
Remember though that for any marketing strategy you use in your business, you need a clearly laid out plan in this instance a clearly laid out content marketing plan.
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