Did you know that content marketing generates 54% more leads than traditional marketing?
If you’re not familiar with content marketing, you’re missing an excellent strategy for growing your online business. Content marketing is a valuable strategy for establishing yourself as an authority in your industry and building trust with your audience.
But what is content marketing?
What is content marketing?
First, let’s define content marketing. Content marketing is a marketing strategy where you create and compile valuable and informative information for your target audience. This industry-specific content helps you attract and keep leads on your site.
Why use content marketing?
Content marketing is an indispensable tool to help you grow your online business. Below are just a few stats to show the impact content marketing can have on your business.
- Content marketing doubles website conversion rates
- Content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing
- Content marketing generates six times more conversions for companies that use it than companies that don’t
This strategy can help you increase traffic and sales for your business. Here are some reasons why you will want to develop a content marketing strategy.
Content marketing helps you establish yourself as an authority in your field
Content marketing allows you to establish yourself as an authority in your industry. The content you create allows you to share your knowledge and skills with your audience.
By providing this useful information, your audience sees you as a reliable source of information. Your readers are confident that you are well informed in your industry because you have offered them useful information that has answered their questions and informed them about a specific topic.
Building this trust positions you as a trustworthy company that people can turn to for certain information.
Content marketing helps you drive traffic to your site
When you create content, you drive more traffic to your site.
This increase in traffic sends a positive signal to Google that your site is relevant in search results. When your site is more suitable, you can improve your rankings.
When creating content, you focus on integrating terms into your pages to help your site appear in front of relevant leads. By targeting the right keywords and creating high quality content, your content can rank highly thus driving traffic to your website .
This increase in traffic to your site sends a signal to Google that your content is relevant to your audience. Also, if your audience spends more time on your pages, it increases the dwell time, which is another positive sign for Google.
If you create relevant content that your audience engages with, Google will rank your site higher so more people can find your relevant content. It is an effective way to increase your rankings and gradually gain valuable traffic.
Content marketing helps you increase brand recognition
As mentioned above, excellent content leads to an increase in residence time.
As people spend more time on your pages, they also spend more time familiarizing themselves with your brand, products, and services.
But in addition to users becoming familiar with your brand simply by visiting your website, content marketing strategies make your site visible in more places.
For example, you can use email marketing to market your content, social media to share links to content, and more. In addition to content marketing in organic search with SEO, you are now marketing your content in three different ways and appealing to three different groups of people.
Brand recognition is valuable to your business because it can help you earn conversions across the board. People convert with companies they’re familiar with, so if someone is familiar with your business’s brand, style, and offerings, they’re more likely to choose your company.
Content Marketing Strategies: 3 Popular Types of Content
Now that we’ve answered, “what is content marketing?” and “why use content marketing?” let’s start seeing how you can get started creating content for your business. Here are three popular types of content you can create for your business.
1. Blog
If you ask someone to define a successful content marketing campaign, most will tell you about blogging as a valuable strategy. The blogs are written post content that the audience can read for information. Blog posts tend to be short, around 1200-1500 words, but in some cases they can also be longer.
Blogs are also available in numerous styles. Some companies may create blogs with lists, while other companies create blogs with passages. There is room for a lot of creativity and flexibility in creating blog posts.
Many businesses prefer to use blogs because blog posts rank well in search results. These posts provide useful information for users, and Google can easily crawl these pages to understand context and position them appropriately.
2. Video
Along with blogging, videos are another valuable content marketing tool.
With the popularity of platforms like Youtube, video content has skyrocketed in recent years. Not to mention, adults spend around five hours each day watching videos, and 90% of shoppers use videos to make purchasing decisions.
You can create multiple types of videos to engage your audience, including:
- Vlog
- Behind the Scenes Videos
- Explanatory videos
- Animated videos
- Interviews / Q&A videos
You have endless possibilities with video marketing! This content format is a great way to add an eye-catching element to your pages and quickly deliver an abundance of information to your audience.
3. Infographics
Infographics are a great way to create visually appealing content for your audience. These graphics allow you to show critical information, such as statistics or processes. It’s a great way to simplify information for your audience.
If you have complicated information and want to create an easier way to present it, infographics are a great way to present that information.
Plus, infographics are easily shareable so you can reach more people with your content.
How to create great content for your business
Time to develop your content marketing strategy! Here are four quick tips for creating impactful content.
1. Know your audience
If you want to create valuable content, you need to create content your audience is interested in reading.
To determine your target audience, study the users who typically visit your site or purchase your products or services. You will need to define features such as:
- Age
- Kind
- Position
- Hobbies
- Occupation
When you know this necessary information about your audience, you can create content tailored to their interests.
2. Keep your content focused on your industry
As stated in the content marketing definition, your content should remain industry specific.
If you try to create content that isn’t relevant to your industry, it might perform well and drive traffic, but it’s unlikely to attract relevant traffic. For example, if you own a cookware company and are posting about the latest celebrity scandal, you may be attracting traffic, but not necessarily traffic interested in your cookware.
While creating content about the kitchen would attract more qualified traffic for your business.
So, we recommend that you focus on content that is relevant to your industry so that you can gain more leads interested in your products or services.
3. Create content for each stage of the funnel
When people discover your business, they don’t always convert right away. Most people take time to familiarize themselves with your brand, product or service and do some research to decide if you are the best fit. These leads move through a funnel known as a sales funnel .
The sales funnel typically has four stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Rating
- Action
As leads near the end of the funnel, they are more likely to convert.
So, let’s say Person A just found out about your floor cleaning business. Would content about the benefits of your floor cleaning services help move them towards conversion?
In this case, probably not. This person doesn’t know much about your business yet, so they’re probably not ready to buy. Instead, content that shares tips and tricks for removing carpet stains might be more helpful.
On the other hand, if person B has often engaged on your page and checked your pricing page, a content about the benefits of your floor cleaning services is very relevant to that user. It could be content that convinces to choose your business and convert.
4. Focus on evergreen content
When defining your content marketing strategy, be sure to create evergreen content. Evergreen content is timeless content and typically focuses on answering common questions in your industry.
The news, for example, is not an evergreen content because it focuses on current events.
Evergreen content is valuable to your business due to its sustainability over time. If someone sees it the day after it’s posted or six months after it’s posted, it’s still relevant to your audience. It also means that you can continuously drive traffic to your content, which helps you rank better.
This type of content may need to be updated occasionally, but will retain its relevance as you update it. Overall, evergreen content will help you have a more sustainable content marketing strategy.
Launch your content marketing strategy today
Content marketing is one of the most valuable strategies for helping your business grow online. With a content marketing campaign, you can drive valuable traffic and leads for your business.
