Benefits of Content Marketing | Why Content Is King
What Is Content Marketing?
With so many new tools, platforms, and tactics that claim to be the "next big thing" in the world of online marketing, it's easy to lose sight of what got us all here in the first place. Once the shady SEO practices of years past were dealt with and put to rest, it was content marketing that stood alone as the absolute best way to get found online and drive conversions.
The Seven Steps of Content Marketing
When developing a stellar content marketing strategy, you should follow seven key steps. This applies whether you are just starting out with content marketing or have been working on content approaches for a while.
1. Determine Your Audience
The first step is determining who your target audience is so you can create valuable content. Remember that you can accommodate more than one user by using different content types and channels to deliver the best and most tailored content to each persona.
2. Address Pain Points
A pain point is a specific problem a person has. Most customer pain points are diverse, but it helps to narrow them down when creating an effective content strategy. The content you share on your site is meant to reinforce the solutions you are offering customers. This helps you build credibility and authority with your target audience.
3. Set Yourself Apart
Since competitors have similar offerings, you must find a way to set yourself apart. Use high-quality content to show why you are an authority within your niche and relay that message in the content you create and share.
4. Determine the Right Content Formats
To determine which content formats to use, you must consider your target audience and how they take in information. You may want to try out a podcast because it has been growing in popularity over the years, but if your target audience would rather read a blog post, you have to consider this. You want the content format you choose to resonate with your audience.
5. Find the Right Channels
Now that you have the content and format, you need to find the right social media platforms to share it on. If you have a younger audience that prefers quick bits of information, then TikTok or Instagram may be the best avenues. However, if your target audience prefers long form content, you may want to post blogs on your website and then share them across all your social media platforms for engagement.
6. Content Management
You should have a clear-cut content strategy and publication schedule to prevent chaos. An editorial calendar, for example, is a good way to plan out your content and can be adapted as you grow. Content management strategies are useful for making sure blog articles and other digital content are shared regularly with existing customers while also reaching a new audience.
7. Brainstorm Ideas
Finally, your creators and digital marketing team should always be brainstorming new content ideas. Always stay a step or two ahead when it comes to outlining your next amazing content project.
To help with this, many online tools and resources are available for content providers.
Feedly tracks trendy topics in your industry and helps you find relevant and high quality content ideas.
BuzzSumo is another popular option. They offer many different marketing research tools, including one that uses social media shares to determine how popular and liked a piece of content will be.
Content Marketing Example
Newsletters, podcasts, social media posts, blog articles, and video content are a few examples of content marketing. Content marketing is valuable for several areas of your business and adds value in the form of different content strategies that include interactive content marketing, video content marketing, B2B content marketing, B2C content marketing, creative content marketing, and blogging content marketing.
MailChimp, for example, is a popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for medium and small businesses. It helps a company build subscriber lists and generate new leads. They launched a unique content series called All in a Day’s Work that discusses the pitfalls and highlights faced by smaller businesses.
Content Is King: The Importance of Content Marketing
With so many new tools, platforms, and tactics that claim to be the "next big thing" in the world of online marketing, it's easy to lose sight of what got us all here in the first place. Once the shady SEO practices of years past were dealt with and put to rest, content marketing stood alone as the absolute best way to get found online and drive conversions.
And even today, as things seem to be changing at lightning speed, content creation is still king and content marketing is as important as ever.
Benefits of Content Marketing
Now that you see why content is king and always will be, let’s explore some of the biggest benefits of having a high quality content marketing strategy in place.
Retain Your Audience
Amazing content will prove to be an important asset. It has the power to create a more positive experience for potential customers and will compel them to return for more in the future. Good content will attract your audience and reinforce and promote brand awareness.
Find Better Traction on Social Media Platforms
Trending content helps increase social media followers and gives your business more traction. High quality content can drive website traffic, increase conversions, and spread brand awareness. You can also share user generated content to interact with your target audience more consistently.
Generate More Leads
Content marketing also generates more leads. People who view your content are likelier to purchase from you later. Calls to action can also be used in your content to help generate these new leads.
Improve Conversions
Good content improves conversions and helps the audience connect with your brand. You are giving them the information they need to make a more educated purchasing decision. Avoid posting irrelevant content that does not provide your audience with any value.
Improve SEO Efforts
Trending content helps increase social media followers and gives your business more traction. High quality content can drive website traffic, increase conversions, and spread brand awareness. You can also share user generated content to interact with your target audience more consistently.
Become an Authority in Your Niche
Relevant content helps position your company as an authority within your niche. You are providing your audience with a credible place to visit for relevant and valuable content. Make sure your content answers your audience's questions, and you will quickly improve your ranking.
Build Brand Awareness
Content creators should develop content that the audience is interested in. They will then begin associating your brand and product with your great content. This puts your brand at the forefront.
Save Money
Finally, a good content marketing strategy can help you save money. Compared to paid advertisements and marketing efforts, as you would see with traditional marketing, digital marketing is a good investment.
Content Speaks Directly to Customers
One of the main benefits of content marketing is that it speaks directly to your customers at a time when they want to hear what you have to say. Whether it is an educational piece or something more persuasive, aligning with your customer's thoughts and needs makes them feel as if the message is just for them.
It Encourages Brand Loyalty and Trust
When you create a scenario where your customers feel like you are speaking directly to them, it increases their level of trust and encourages loyalty. Content marketing in social media is especially effective at creating trust with your prospects and customers.
It Establishes Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is a content marketing benefit that refers to you being perceived as an authority in your niche or industry, which is a massive benefit of content marketing. When you have established thought leadership, every piece of content you produce within your content marketing campaign will be considered valuable, and other businesses and websites will link to it.
Reputation Management
The reality of the online world is that anyone can say anything about your business, whether it is true or not. One valuable service as part of a quality content marketing service is reputation management. With a proven reputation management service in your corner, you won’t have to worry about negative reviews or false rumours affecting your business.
High-quality and useful content marketing creates the perception of value around your business, and at the end of the day, it is value that people look for when they decide to do business with anyone. From being found online to connecting with your customers to becoming an authority in your industry to building trust, the importance of content marketing has never been more evident than it is right now.
Ingredients That Make a Great Content Marketing Campaign
Great content can be created in a variety of different ways and on different platforms. A content creator can use current trends as well as video content to stand out. However, a handful of ingredients must be present if you want to get positive results and see more content marketing success overall.
Compelling Headlines
Your content must be relevant and useful to your target audience, be presented in a simple, straightforward manner, and speak to the title or headline you’ve created. This means you need a strong headline that provides specific information regarding what they are about to read, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
A good headline length is around 65 characters or about 11 words. If you are looking for social media engagement, your headline should include an instructional phrase like “you need to know.”
Interesting Intros
After the headline, the intro should continue to hook readers and compel them to click on your content. If the content doesn’t immediately grab their attention, research has shown that they will click away and go elsewhere. Get right into the information that was promised by the headline. Acknowledge the problem they are faced with and show them you have the solution.
Actionable Content
Since your content aims to teach readers something valuable and send them through the marketing funnel on their customer journey, use actionable content.
Provide specific and actionable steps they can follow and show why you are an expert in your industry when creating content. Visual content is another way you can catch your audience’s attention and makes it more likely they will share the information with others through a social media post. Visual content is especially helpful for how-to guides and step-by-step instructions.
Unique Brand Voice
Your brand voice is the opportunity to stand out as a content marketer and is the personality attached to your brand image. Your brand voice should clearly state your core values and mission statement. You don’t want to use conflicting tones.
Backlinks and Keywords
There is no question that content is king in SEO. Backlinks are still valuable, as are other elements, but without great content, no one will ever backlink to your website.
By following some basic tips for content marketing in SEO, you can get your content to the first page of search results for your desired keywords and get found when people are looking for what you have to offer.
Overall, a successful content marketing campaign is the creation of valuable and useful content that increases audience engagement, adds to your search engine optimization efforts, and can be used across social media to increase brand awareness and recognition.
To learn more about content marketing and to find out how Mawazo Marketing can help improve your online results, get in touch with us today!
Do you have any questions on the above, or would you like to share your experience? Just email ideas@mawazo.ca or call +1 (833) 503-0807.
At Mawazo Marketing we work with owners of B2B companies who want to accelerate their business. We help them with a concrete digital growth plan, a website that saves operational cost, and a digital marketing system that generates leads. For qualifying clients we offer a 5x ROI guarantee: if we don't reach the objective, then we pay back the difference. Book a Free Strategy Session to find out more.
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