Top 5 Benefits of Content Marketing

Content marketing offers huge potential for businesses of all sizes to engage and convert audiences in ways that benefit everyone. By providing useful, attractive information to an audience, a business can forge lasting relationships with them and draw a very virtuous circle between brand, client, product and leads.

But what is content marketing? Simply put, it is a marketing technique that emphasises publishing content online that is of particular relevance to a target demographic. For example, guitar shops might publish video reviews of new instruments, or car showrooms might publish lengthy blogs all about the latest luxury vehicles.

Critically, the content should be useful in and of itself: its primary goal shouldn’t be to sell a product but to create relationships. An audience will come to you for information or even entertainment – and the loyalty that regular contact creates will produce sales organically.

This method has significant benefits for a business that often go way beyond the ROI of a traditional advertising campaign. A pay-per-click Google ad might deliver £X of sales again £Y of expenditure, but a content marketing campaign can deliver engagement and brand recognition and regular custom in very powerful ways.

Consider, for example, the following benefits of a content marketing approach:

1. Search Engine Optimisation. Google and all other search engines love content marketers. They reward sites that have regular new content; that have many inbound and out-going links; that enjoy high hit-rates. Content marketing, done right, gets you all of those things – and will, in turn, improve your all-important search engine ranking, too.
2. The virtues of the soft sell. Content marketing does not rely on the tricks of the ad-men. It doesn’t need logos or special offers, straplines or elevator pitches. It builds relationships with customers and potential customers over time and does so by offering information that those individuals will genuinely find useful. In an age of increasingly savvy audiences, this gentle approach pays dividends.
3. Brand benefits. For example, your brand will accrue more authority, credibility and recognition through content marketing. The more content you publish – and the better it is – the more you will demonstrate your brand’s expertise, experience and know-how – and the more your target audience will, therefore, trust that brand. Your social media following should experience an uptick, too.
4. Traffic boost. All this means that your site should start seeing a lot more activity – and if that happens, then it follows that your product pages will attract more eye-balls, as well. If you’re publishing blogs, make sure that relevant products appear on the page; if your videos feature a particular offer, place it prominently as a call-to-action button: channel all that new traffic appropriately!
5. Better sales! The result is – hey presto! – great sales figures. Content marketing scaffolds your sales: it helps cold leads become hot consumers. All that information you are providing helps your audience make purchasing decisions, and feel more confident about making them with you. Leads from content marketing have a 13.6% conversion rate on average; cold-calling – which is a lot more labour-intensive – offers just 1.7% by comparison. Do the math, as they say.

Consider these five pillars of content marketing – and then ask yourself: can you afford not to avail yourself of the benefits of content marketing?

Contact Us for Content Marketing Services

If you’re looking to develop your digital marketing strategy then please get in touch with us. We can discuss your business requirements and develop the right strategy for you. Call us on 024 7683 4780 or send us an email at info@image-plus.co.uk.