Content marketing has gained popularity and is widely accepted as a key component for driving sales and increasing conversions in the online market place. By increasing engagement with customers, or potential customers, content marketing has become integral to marketing strategies and brand development.
What is content Marketing?
Content marketing can best be defined as the use of high quality content to attract customers through online media. This form of marketing has increased in popularity over the last ten years, necessitating the need for a change in marketing strategies for companies both large and small.
Differing from traditional marketing, content marketing is dependent on the content being distributed, providing value to the reader in the form of relevant information for products or services, evoking emotion, and, most importantly, being delivered in a way that it is entertaining.
Blogging
Blogging is the foundation of content marketing and is the driving force behind many online businesses. Once viewed as a waste of time, it has become tremendously popular. There are hundreds of thousands of active blogs on the internet, everyone has one and almost all successful businesses operating online utilize blogs as a part in their marketing.
Blogs provide useful information to customers, free of charge. By giving customers information relevant to the product or service being offered, the business develops trust from the beginning. A blog article providing industry expertise has the potential to turn a person initially browsing the internet seeking information into a customer. Once trust is developed and the company is deemed a knowledgeable expert, the chance of conversion is drastically increased.
Constantly updating blogs with entertaining, high quality content will keep visitors returning as they seek engaging articles, providing information with practical usage.
eBooks
eBooks have revolutionized the literary industry over the past decade. Authors can easily publish their work with little to no upfront costs. Amazon and Kindle have been a game changer, no longer is there a need for a literary agent, expensive contracts, and huge investments to deliver a book to audiences.
eBooks have also proven very useful in content marketing as businesses can provide large amounts of useful information to customers focusing on a specific area of that business or industry. A book will further establish a person or business as an expert in the industry and provide a value by deepening trust between the individual and the company.
Businesses who offer a free eBook in exchange for contact information, usually an e-mail address, provide a relationship that allows for continued engagement in the form of newsletters and article distribution, ensuring the investment in content marketing reaches an audience of potential customers who have already shown in interest in the niche.
Videos
Videos are increasing in popularity as they have become easier to produce and upload. Most modern smart phones can turn even the technological novice into an amateur producer. Videos offer a nice change to content marketing and have proven to be highly effective in younger demographics.
Videos with graphics and animation will require an investment in either equipment or outsourcing to content creation companies or freelancers, but it is an investment work considering. 10 years ago, many did not appreciate the potential blogs had on marketing, videos could very well be the next underestimation.
Creating a contact (e-mail) list
Most of the content produced is done so with the goal of obtaining valuable information in the form of filling out a contact form. By obtaining an e-mail address and building the valuable list, you will ensure a relationship is started.
In offering content that is valuable in return for a relationship that will lead to conversions, both the potential customer and the business owner benefit from the exchange. In having more subscribers, larger e-mail lists, resulting in more leads, your brand will be shared by more individuals and to a wider audience.
Understanding the buying cycle and how content affects it
Content marketing is an important factor in the buying cycle and is becoming a vital component to marketing strategies in an era where the online marketplace is taking over. With the number of brick and mortar stores declining daily and consumers wanting information as fast as possible, useful content at the click of a button is a necessity.
The buying cycle:
- Awareness- For businesses operating websites, this is the realization of a need for a specific product or service and the ability to be found through search engines, relying heavily on search engine optimization (SEO).
- Consideration- Once a customer is aware of the product or service, he or she will evaluate the businesses ability to meet their need, often comparing to other sites.
- Preference/Intent- Relies on the customer’s emotional intent and the perceived logical solution, leading to a conversion (purchase).
- Purchase- The action of paying for the product or service.
- Repurchase- Once the customer is satisfied with the service, hopefully he/she will return to purchase again.
The first three steps in the cycle referenced above are heavily dependent on a business’ website and are positively influenced through content marketing. Repurchasing, can be influenced through continued contact via e-mail or direct mail promoting special offers or new products, which is heavily influenced by continued content creations and new information being provided.
Effects on SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a highly sought-after attribute when business request copywriters for their sites and is often a focal point in requests for written content in the content creation market place.
Even though there are many tasks that can be completed to increase SEO, content marketing can have the most significant impact on search results. Google’s algorithms aim to take users to the most relevant, highest quality information based on the search queries. Content is information and if you are not creating and sharing quality content, you will have zero chance of being found in searches.
When a website ranks in searches it is a result of keywords, the more content you have the more keywords there are present. Keyword research is important in content marketing and is a service a content writer can provide.
Getting backlinks to your site is another important factor in SEO. Backlinks are when other websites contain links to content on your site. The only way to get backlinks is to have high quality and useful content that is deemed valuable to others. If your content is deemed valuable in your niche or industry, there is a high probability it will be shared by other bloggers resulting in increased rankings in search results.
The last important contributor to increased SEO is constantly updated content. It is a fact that sites regularly publishing content rank higher on google search results. If your site stops producing content, Google will assume the information is out of date and will not send search results to the site to avoid providing users with irrelevant information.
Content marketing is not going away
With the world increasingly turning to the online market place, content marketing will continue to be a necessary piece to all successful marketing strategies. Everyone has some sort of on-line presence today and quality content is key to projecting a favorable image.
As technology continues to advance and the way we receive content constantly changing, it will be exciting to see the appetite for quality content evolve.
One thing is for certain, content marketing will continue to be a driving force to a successful business.