20 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Important To Your Business
What exactly is content marketing? Why is it important? Can businesses survive without it? These are all good questions, so let’s dive in and dig out their answers.
Trendy content, informative value, and a satisfied customer – these are the three major goals of any business today.
However, achieving such results is easier said than done. Mainly because only 43% of all the businesses in the online world rely on a content marketing strategy—a documented one.
This lack of using content marketing isn’t only harmful; it’s leaving them behind in the race to the top. They don’t appear in search engines or make themselves prominent on social media channels. But, all these can be fixed with a simple content marketing strategy.
What Is Content Marketing?
It is a process in which a marketer and creator create engaging content for certain audiences. These content creation tactics are comprised of varying key elements. It all begins with understanding the audience.
Then, content creation, sharing, and optimization. However, an integral part of content marketing is the content calendar.
Since scheduling and frequent content posting are two of the essentials of content marketing, it’s imperative to plan them accordingly.
But, first, one must understand the necessary ingredients that go into making a content marketing strategy. This brand-centric strategy helps with content creation, research, etc. So, which content marketing elements make up a strategy?
Here are a few essentials:
1. Audience Research
It all begins with a bit of audience research. In order to stand out against your competition, you need to find out who they are and how they coerce the same audience you’re trying to compel.
This research helps one understand the essentials, such as demographics, online behaviours, etc.
2. SEO Elements
Content needs to stand out in search engine results, and that’s why SEO is an essential element of any content marketing strategy.
These elements include keyword research, frequent content creation & optimization for higher ranks in SERP (search engine results page).
3. Content Creation
Content creation begins with a few simple basics, such as picking a topic, researching its subject, etc. Then, you will have to create a headline/title—depending on the content type.
Finally, content creation and ensuring readability or watchability are followed by thorough optimization. If you already have a tight schedule and cannot create content yourself, there are professional content creators you can hire.
4. Content Marketing Calendar
Frequent content creation is a pillar of good content marketing strategies.
Since content marketing is about relevancy and ensuring credibility by using the plagiarism checker, a brand needs to put out original content regularly.
So, you need to make a content marketing calendar with weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals.
5. Optimization
As mentioned above, regardless of the content type, it needs optimization. Therefore, it will have to feature optimization elements such as meta title & description, slug URLs, keyword density, informative value, and proper citations—including avoiding plagiarism.
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6. KPIs
Lastly, brands and businesses thoroughly analyze a business’ prowess through content marketing by checking the KPIs or key performance indicators. These KPIs are the types of content that perform better than the others. So, one needs to ensure using them more.
20 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Important
All these content marketing elements might sound like a bit of work, and they are, but they’re all worth it. So, let’s not delay anymore and dive into the 20 reasons to help you understand just how important they are:
1. Helps Build A Brand
Content marketing is essential because it helps build brands. From the awareness stages to the final email asking the reader to review your product or service, branding is one of the top benefits of using content marketing.
Since it primarily relies on content tones and audience research, it can help ensure the best possible branding scenarios for a brand.
2. Garners Local Audience
The local audience is one of the most necessary essentials for any business, even if it’s eCommerce—and if the business itself is global. So, local SEO elements in content marketing can help brands stand out in SERPs. All one has to do is research local keywords and improve local SEO.
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3. Employs Social Media
Content marketing depends heavily on social media networks and all the other essential elements that it presents. This includes paid adverts, content creation, visual content, and a few SEO elements.
So, using social media alone is vital in content marketing as it can help build a following. Furthermore, various social networks make it easy for different types of businesses.
4. Search Engine Optimization
SEO or search engine optimization is one of the necessary pillars of the content marketing hierarchy. So, ensuring content integrity and checking originality by using a free plagiarism checker can help you find out if your content is unique or not.
In turn, it will draw a comprehensive set of audiences towards your business- ensuring its prowess in specific keywords & queries.
5. Generate Leads
Lead generation is one of the necessary essentials that content marketing helps with. For instance, the TOFU or top-of-the-funnel content type helps build awareness through websites and blogs.
Then, this model ensures that through key awareness elements. Since leads are essential in finding customers, content marketing helps make it easier.
6. Better Customer Retention
Customer satisfaction or loyalty are two of the things businesses struggle with today. Mainly because there are too many options for customers. However, using content marketing sustains your customers’ loyalty.
How is that? By creating content that portrays your expertise and prowess, you give your customers a reason to stick with your brand—ensuring their elongated loyalty and retention.
Marketing to your customers is essential and when it comes to marketing, you also get the luxury of data and analytics. As discussed by Thomas Ligor New York, there are many great benefits of marketing analytics when it comes to connecting with your audience.
7. Uses Emails
Email marketing has a whopping ROI of 4400%. To put things into perspective, that’s $4400 for every $1 you spend on it. That kind of ROI isn’t possible in traditional marketing elements.
Since content marketing partly relies on email, it can help build better awareness and draw traffic towards your blog or website—helping you produce better results.
8. Promotes Growth Through Various Channels
One of the critical things about content marketing is that it doesn’t rely on one channel. Granted, blogs and social media are necessary. You can choose to start your own blog, however, the varying options make it ideal.
Even if you rely on blogs, you don’t have to use your own to generate traffic. Because you can simply guest blog on other, more established blogs.
9. Advances Brand’s Reach
SEO depends on varying elements, such as content creation, optimization, and keyword density. However, ensuring top-notch content can help you draw organic traffic. Why is this important? Because it can ensure your brand has a broader reach in SERPs.
10. Uses Conversational Marketing Tactics
Conversations are one of the essential and oldest tactics in any marketing tactic—traditional or modern. Since content marketing employs it heavily, it makes it easier for the customers.
Why is that important? Because no customer wants to talk to a problematic or jargon-enthused vocabulary of a customer representative. So, using these customer-centric tactics ensures better results.
11. Portrays Your Expertise
Speaking of portrayal, content marketing ensures that you do convey your skills and understanding of your industry. Mainly because it’s a huge part of content creation.
So, suppose you address topics that are seldom found on the internet, and target unique issues. In that case, your audience will grasp why your brand is essential for their business.
12. Adds Value To Your Brand
Not many marketing tactics can claim to add value to the brands as much as content marketing. As mentioned above, you’re guaranteed an ROI for every dollar you spend.
Granted, it all depends on how well you use it, but the potential is there. On top of that, content creation ensures brand consistency and portrays its expertise and position—adding high value to your brand.
13. Converts Leads Into Sales
Content generates leads, and proper content helps you with organic traffic, which is essential for higher SEO ranks. So, these awareness tactics of content marketing can lead a customer right into your basket.
Since conversion is essential for businesses today, and content marketing can help with just that. As mentioned above, using content marketing can improve the chances of generating better leads. In turn, in turn, it assists in converting those leads into sales quickly.
14. Gives Your Customers A Reason
You need to give your customers a reason to consider your business. You tell your customers why you’re the best through content marketing and its various funnels. This ends up ensuring that your customers feel special and have a reason to consider you over your competition.
You don’t want to create a fallacy around your business that you’re the best without any reason. Content helps you legitimize your status as an expert in your industry, and that’s one of the biggest reasons any buyer will go for your product or service.
15. Highest ROIs Possible
Emailing isn’t the only factor with high ROI, as various other content marketing elements also ensure high ROI. It all comes down to how well you use its principal features like blogs and websites. However, they do offer the highest ROIs possible, and that’s reason enough for you to use content marketing.
16. Improves Customer Experience
Through emailing, social media, and blogging, you can vastly improve your customer’s experience. Since a lot of buyers depend on these three content elements, using a content strategy to ensure them can help you improve your customers’ experience.
17. Opportunity To Expound On KPIs
Traditional marketing tactics don’t have KPIs, so there’s no chance for you to improve them. In marketing, however, transparency is the key. By auditing your content and finding the top-performing elements, you can expound on them and generate even better results.
18. Cost-Effectiveness
One of the common problems small businesses have today is the fear of breaking the bank in hopes of finding viable marketing solutions. That’s when content marketing proves why it’s the best marketing solution anyone has today.
Since cost-effectiveness and cost-saving are two of the top priorities of your business, content marketing doesn’t require you to break the bank for all its benefits. In fact, if you understand some fundamental essentials, you won’t have to spend a penny on them.
19. Brand Credibility
Ensuring brand credibility is one of the major concerns of businesses today. They need to stand out against their competition while ensuring that their product and online content are up to standards. That’s when good content leads the way for you.
By generating good quality content, avoiding plagiarism, ensuring originality, and portraying your expertise, content marketing can help you establish your brand’s credibility.
20. Swift Nature
One of the things that businesses today cannot afford is losing time. Time-efficient solutions aren’t scarce, but they aren’t readily available either. That’s why a business in 2022 needs a documented content marketing strategy.
Because content marketing is the quickest possible marketing solution available today, quick content creation by a professional team is necessary for optimization. This swift nature of content marketing is one of the biggest reasons it’s essential for businesses today.
Importance of Content Funnels
One more thing that you need to understand is the content funnels. But, what exactly is a content funnel?
There are usually three or four funnels in any content marketing strategy. The three include Top Of The Funnel (TOFU), Middle Of The Funnel(MOFU), and Bottom Of The Funnel(BOFU). These three can usually become four as well, in the shape of AIDA.
AIDA is a copywriting term, but it also makes its way into content marketing. It stands for awareness, interest, desire, and action. So, let’s take the three content funnel model, and see what exactly it does:
1. TOFU
TOFU or top-of-the-funnel content deals with creating content that is desirable to an audience of a certain kind. In this section, the content creators & marketers build awareness around a brand, or sometimes a single product/service/commodity.
TOFU is targeted towards the broadest set of audiences possible since it’s not yet for a particular audience. This is also the phase where content creation separates serious buyers from casual or non-interested leads.
The type of content that falls into the TOFU category includes website copies, social media ads or posts, and blog posts with On-Page SEO elements.
2. MOFU
MOFU or middle-of-the-funnel content is educational. The purpose is to trigger a response from the audience. This is the phase where the targeted audience begins to comprehend the benefits or advantages of emotional branding and commitment.
In this phase, the content types are blog posts, guest posts, educational content, social media posts, videos, etc. Sometimes, it also includes case studies, reviews, and success stories.
3. BOFU
BOFU or the bottom of the funnel is the section where you urge the target audience to take action. Usually, a prime example of BOFU is the blog posts that end with something like this:
“So, get in touch with us today to help you get started.”
It indicates how the content creator can help the reader/watcher achieve their desired results, which was covered in MOFU. So, leading from awareness to consideration, this final stage accumulates with a decision from the reader.
Conclusion
These 20 reasons should give you a glimpse into the importance of content marketing. Not only has it become a necessity, but it’s also one of the pillars of success in the online market.