How can content marketing help a business?

In January 1996, Bill Gates published an essay titled “Content is King”. Ever since, the phrase has been used by marketers, business owners, and content creators to remind us of the importance of effective content marketing.

So how can content marketing help a business? Here we share some things you need to know.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and delivery of valuable and relevant content, written or visual, that attracts interest in a brand, product, or service.

Content marketing doesn’t promote a brand, product, or service directly. Instead, it gives an audience content that is helpful and interesting to them. Content marketing aims to build relationships with potential customers who may then make a purchase later. It also grows relationships with existing customers to encourage loyalty.

What are the types of content?

There are many types of content you can use to reach your audience:

• Blogs are the best way to drive traffic to your website. Blog posts shouldn’t be written for the sake of it but must offer high-quality content that your audience wants to read. Through blogs you can answer your audience’s questions, excite and educate them.
• Having search engine-optimized web copy and blog posts will increase your search engine rankings. Copy should be optimized with keywords (key phrases really) that your potential clients type into search engines. Where you position keywords in the copy is far more important than how many times you use them. SEO optimization is about more than keywords – see our SEO copywriting services page for more.
• Email newsletters are an important way to reach your customers and potential customers, providing they offer real value. They need to be genuinely interesting every time, or they will be deleted and never read again. 
• With 6 billion people using social media worldwide, social posting is huge. Posting on social media builds trust and credibility for your brand like nothing else. Not only that, it allows you to connect with an audience on a different level. Remember, it’s not just about posting, it’s about really engaging with your audience and taking an interest in what they are talking about.
• Podcasts have surged in the last few years and continue to grow. They provide an excellent story-based approach.
• Videos continue to be a popular and rewarding content tool. They allow you to bring personality and the human touch to your brand. Through videos you can easily share your content on different platforms. A whopping 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.
• Infographics are a way to explain information quickly in an easy-to-understand format. They are incredibly useful and quick for a user to digest.
• Whitepapers and ebooks are excellent for lead capture. You can ask your audience for their email addresses in return for providing them with useful, in-depth content. Whitepapers and ebooks are time consuming to produce, but we can write them for you – see our whitepaper and ebooks copywriting services.

Trying to cover every type of content is time consuming and counterproductive. It is important to focus on just one or two types and to become outstanding. Quality wins over quantity.

If you produce one long blog post (say 1,000 to 2,000 words), you can re-purpose that content for multiple uses. For example, you could create infographics for social media posts, or the script for a podcast just from one post.

How can content marketing help a business?

Here is how content marketing can really help your business:

Improves your search engine ranking

Search engine optimization – SEO – is the way you make sure your website is seen by search engines so it is visible to your audience. You want your content to appear high on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why are search rankings so important?

While customers may find you through social media or paid advertising, search engines are still the most popular and profitable method of driving website traffic. One report found that B2B businesses generate 2x more revenue from organic traffic than any other channel (BrightEdge). Plus, most of us never click on Google advertisements, but instead scroll pass them to the organic results.

SEO-friendly content:

• is valuable to readers. This is the most important point. Google only ranks content that their audience find interesting. Never just churn out content. Always give people what they need.
• strategically incorporates keywords. Keywords are the words (or, more accurately, ‘phrases’) people type into Google to find your content. Keywords must be strategically placed in content. Placement is more important than quantity. In fact, keyword stuffing damages search engine rankings.
• builds in links. High quality internal links (links to your own content) and external links (links to other websites) are vital to your search ranking. These links tell Google that you are a ‘giver’. That means you are dedicated to providing relevant information to people. Always link to websites with high domain authorities, otherwise your rankings will be damaged. Use Alexa to check the domain authority of a website before you include it. Broken links will also damage your website, so check links regularly with a link checker tool.
• uses images in the right places. Blog posts that include images receive 94% more views than those without and images make blog posts more pleasant to read. Images need to have Alt tags so search engine crawlers can read them. Keywords need to be included in Alt tags wherever possible.

Boosts brand identity

A strong brand identity can be a game-changer for many businesses. Brand identity affects revenue through customer engagement and loyalty and sets you apart from your competitors.

Content marketers know the importance of brand identity. A 2019 survey found that 53% of content marketers listed “growing brand awareness” as one of their top content marketing goals (Stackla).

How does content marketing improve brand identity? Effective content such as engaging blog posts or enticing emails tells customers who you are. With content marketing, you have an opportunity to tell you brand’s story and connect with customers on a level beyond the sales funnel.

More cost-effective than paid advertisements

Compared to paid advertising, content marketing is a cost-effective way to promote your business.

Content Marketing costs 62% less than other marketing tactics, but it can generate more than twice as much revenue (Demand Metric).

Attracts customers and generates leads

Content marketing attracts potential customers and clients who may not have known about your business. They may not even have known that they needed your products before they saw them! 

A survey by Hubspot found that websites with blogs generated 68% more leads than those without. Websites with 20+ blog posts saw the greatest impact.

So how does content marketing help a business generate leads?

People aren’t always searching for exact products – they might be searching for answers to questions or for interesting and engaging reads that relate to their interests. By providing this content you direct them to your business.

Showcases your expertise

Imagine a company that sells workplace communication software. Their website gives details about their products, along with customer reviews. However, there are many other companies doing exactly the same thing, so how do they stand out?

To shine in a crowded marketplace, businesses need to show potential customers they are the expert in their field by finding and publishing high value content. In A simple guide to creating high-ranking SEO content (which you can download from a form on our website homepage) we explain how to find topics customers really want to read. Providing valuable, information-rich content drives traffic to websites and converts some of those leads into sales.

Informative blog posts, how-to guides, and product tutorials are a handful of ways to give valuable, relevant content to your customers and potential customers.

Can we help your business with content marketing?

Creating a content marketing strategy and writing high-quality content consistently is not easy. Our industry specific writers are here to save you time so you can focus on what you do best – running your business.

Find out about our copywriting services today:

www.writespark.co.uk / hello@writespark.co.uk