Content marketing is important to help meet your company’s ultimate goal – to earn more sales and generate revenue. When effectively implemented, content marketing gives you an opportunity to:
- build good relations with your audience;
- build your brand identity;
- create trust and positive brand image;
- gain competitive advantage; and
- promote your brand and your products with a wide reach.
All these would result in increased website traffic that will favorably increase website conversions.
Content marketing in a gist
Content marketing involves consistently making and sharing relevant online content that will attract your target audience, keep them engaged, and turn them into paying customers. These contents come in the form of blog posts, videos, images, podcasts, infographics, and social media posts. These contents may be shared in your blog, social media, and through email.
So why is content marketing important?
Content marketing is no doubt one of the best online marketing strategies that you can utilize in this time of digitization. It does not matter if your business is big or small. Here are the reasons why content marketing is important for the growth of your business:
Build good relations with your customers
If you find yourself irritated by ads and sales messages that you are not even interested in, then you will understand the importance of content marketing. Content marketing does not force uninterested people to read your content, share them, or comment on them. Your content is targeted to a specific audience who are interested in what you share. Because of this, it would be easier for you to engage with your audience and build good relations with them – simply because they are interested.
The challenge in keeping good relations with them is to keep them interested. That is why you have to consistently create and share with them relevant, interesting, and timely content.
Build your brand identity
When you consistently provide useful content to your audience, there is a good chance that they would return to your website and maybe even subscribe to your blog, like your facebook page, or follow you on Instagram or Twitter.
As you get them to frequently visit any of your online channels, you are gradually building your brand identity. They will remember your logo, your design, and even the color and the distinct style that you have, which distinguishes you with other brands.
The effect – whenever they need some useful information or they want to avail of something related to your product or service, your audience will most likely remember you.
Create trust and positive brand image
Brand image is the perception customers have of your brand, including your products or services. This impression is formed over time through their experience and interactions with you. Content marketing can help you create trust and thus, positive brand image.
Prospective and existing customers can have a wonderful experience with your website (and your brand) as you provide them with the timely and relevant information they need through the contents you make. They may not necessarily be exactly about the product you sell or service you offer, but something very related.
If you sell gardening tools, for instance, you may want to share some indoor gardening tips, tools people use in different gardening activities, and gardening how-tos. The topics may be endless, but they have to be relevant and useful for your audience. When your audience learns to trust you as their source of useful information, this creates a positive brand image. Your audience may show this trust by doing more than just visiting your website or liking your posts, but also by sharing them with their family and friends and ultimately availing products from you.
Gain competitive advantage
Content marketing gives you a clear advantage over your competitors who are not into content marketing. If you are running a small or medium local business, there may be a great chance that your competitors are not utilizing content marketing. If this is the case, then this is your chance to get some positive exposure and positive brand image through content marketing that your competitors cannot get.
What about those competitors who are also into content marketing?
Well, it may not be that simple. As long as you stick to the key elements of content marketing – that is consistently creating and sharing relevant, interesting, and timely content to your target audience – then you will be doing great.
The challenge is gaining competitive advantage. To do this, you have to be unique. You have to go where others are not going. You have to innovate and find ways that will help you reach more of your target audience and that will keep them engaged.
Promote your brand and your products with a wide reach
Apart from sharing content that interests your audience, content marketing also allows you to directly promote your products and services. Newsletters, for instance, allows you to share to your subscribers new product offerings, sales, promotions, company events, and more. A blog post can also be created for the same purpose and then shared to different social media channels.
As long as content marketing is done correctly with the creation of relevant online content and consistently sharing them in the right channels, you will effectively increase your website traffic and improve your sales.
The key is to put your target audience in priority – that you make content for them, something of value to them. When they know they are valued, they learn to trust you. When they trust you, that is when revenue comes in.
Click to go back to the main Content Marketing page.
