Most of today’s businesses have a website and are present on social media, but these channels need content for them to be effective.
You can build out web pages that provide details on all your products and services, but if you don’t have an active blog, you may be missing potential web traffic. You can create pages on every social media platform, but if you aren’t posting original content, you’ll have a hard time generating leads.
If you’re still skeptical of content marketing, you aren’t alone. It’s an inexpensive but time-consuming strategy, and you may need to keep at it for a while before you start seeing palatable results. But the benefits of content marketing are many, and the work you do now will pay off long into the future. Old content can be reused to capture new leads. Content offers live permanently on your website.
With the right digital marketing software, you can track the effectiveness of this strategy over time. You’ll have a clear view of which content is performing and which isn’t. You can use this information to steer your content marketing strategy moving forward.
Businesses usually partner with a content marketing agency because they need help with the day-to-day tasks associated with creating and disseminating content: writing blog posts, creating content offers, curating articles, posting to social media, etc. As long as you have a strategy in place and you stick to it, you’re likely to see results.
Expand Your Website’s Reach
Building out content on your website is a great way to drive organic traffic. “Organic” traffic describes the web traffic you generate by showing up in internet search results. It stands in contrast to direct traffic (when someone types your website’s URL), traffic from your social media accounts, traffic received through your paid advertising, traffic received through email sends, etc.
Organic traffic delivers leads on a relatively consistent basis at little or no cost to you. Once you’ve published content, it stays live. Search engines will be able to keep finding it month after month if you follow basic SEO practices. Blogging is the most popular way to expand a website’s reach, though you can also create additional web pages and acquire backlinks on other websites.
Improve Brand Awareness
No one will know what your brand stands for if they can’t find information about it. Posting digital content improves brand awareness in two ways. First, it educates your readers about your business. Second, it reaches wider audiences than your website would on its own. This is only thanks to the internet and the prevalence of both search engines and social media.
It’s tempting to only write content pertaining to your products and services. While you should certainly do this, don’t hesitate to write some content that speaks to a broader audience. Write about topics that show what your brand stands for. For example, we’ve written articles about company culture and team building.
Build Loyalty, Trust, and Authority
You can only tell so much about a company by browsing the few web pages they’ve posted on their website. Give your visitors a chance to go deeper. According to Forrester, 74% of B2B buyers conduct more than half of their research online. If you maintain an active blog and have long-form content available for download, you’ll create more opportunities to engage with your buyers.
B2B buying cycles are generally pretty long. New research suggests that they may even be getting longer. Your high-quality content won’t just make it easier for your customers to find you. It will give them a resource they can keep coming back to while they make a purchasing decision.
Convert More Leads for Less Money
Content, especially written content, is a relatively inexpensive way to generate leads. It costs far less than digital advertising and traditional outbound marketing practices. Ad campaigns eventually end, but your content stays live unless you decide to take it down.
Businesses that engage in content marketing have conversion rates that are six times higher than those that don’t. If it’s still relevant, your content keeps working for you. If you need to generate leads fast but you don’t want to spend money on ads, pick a content offer that you wrote a year ago and share it again on social media. A single piece of your best content may even generate a clear majority of your organic leads.
Delight More Customers
Content isn’t just important for generating new prospects. You can also use it to keep in touch with your existing customers. For example, you can create a customer-oriented newsletter with your latest blog posts. If you provide a service to your customers, you can create and update a web space for FAQs and service issues.
Sometimes, your current customers may be your best source of new revenue. If you offer a service that’s upgradable or expandable, you can use content to drive interest among your existing customers. Using a contact database with segmentation tools to ensure the right messages reach the right people.
