Content rules the world, and content marketing rules the internet. Today, you can access the Internet from almost anywhere in the world. We want to not only tell you what content marketing is, but also show you how it works with concrete examples. After all, where some marketing tools are effective, others will not give any results. And your task is not to make a mistake in choosing!
Content Marketing is a technology for creating and distributing content that is relevant to the target audience in order to attract and stimulate them to action. In other words, content marketing is information that your customers receive at the right time and in the right place. But there is a nuance here. This marketing tool works better than any direct advertising if the content marketing strategy is well designed and implemented.
Goals of content marketing
Before you develop a complete content strategy, you need to decide what goals you are pursuing in your marketing campaign. There are usually five categories:
- Increasing brand awareness.
- Attracting traffic to the site (both at the current stage and in the future).
- Lead generation (launching a chain of actions to the final sale).
- Growth in conversion rates.
- Customer retention and motivation to make repeat purchases.
Of course, your content marketing goals may partially differ and be supplemented by other tasks: upselling, cross-selling, increasing loyalty, expanding the target audience, etc. But still, most companies work in these five areas.
How does content marketing work?
Content marketing provides potential customers of the company with comprehensive and useful information about a product, service or brand. At the same time, it is important that the data is provided before the purchase, during it, and even after. In addition, the effectiveness of content marketing largely depends on which approach you use. Avoid direct imposition and aggressive advertising.
Why is content marketing important?
1. It has a high return on investment (ROI)
Content marketing is quite a time-consuming and financial process. But it has a high ROI. Creating quality content on a regular basis is expensive as it requires a lot of time and money, but it is the best investment you can make in your business.
2. Provides the basis for launching all marketing campaigns
Content marketing is a part of Internet marketing (the process of promoting your business using ALL available channels on the World Wide Web).
For all other online marketing channels to work and bring good results, you need high-quality content that is relevant to your target audiences.
3.A way to increase brand awareness, improve reputation and gain user trust
Content marketing is one of the best ways to raise awareness about your brand and how your products or services can help solve people’s problems.
This can be done through a variety of channels, the most important of which are search engine optimization, paid advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing.
4.Increases conversion. When you start an online business, the ultimate goal is to create a successful and profitable business that will bring in money. You need conversions to make money, and content marketing can help with that process.
5. A way to improve the visibility of the site in search engines
Content marketing and SEO go hand in hand. Once you’ve set up your site and made sure it’s optimized, the next step is to develop a keyword-specific content marketing plan to get your site visible on Google and other search engines.
6. How to interact with your potential customers
Everything mentioned so far works towards a common goal – to use content as a means of communication between your company and existing or potential customers.
In content marketing, this is called inbound marketing. This is how companies can create two-way communication channels with their customers.
The term “bidirectional” means that potential buyers can communicate with you in comments, social media posts, feedback forms, etc.
7. Can help differentiate your business from the competition
Content marketing, done right, can help you make your business stand out. Consumers using Google or Facebook can easily identify brands that care about customers by providing them with valuable content.
8. Gives constant growth for business
Evergreen content is one that is always relevant, that is, it is not associated with a specific period.
Content can be in any form. These are blog articles, videos, podcasts, images, infographics, combinations of all of the above.
9. Can help establish credibility in Google and in the eyes of users
Through content, you can establish your business as an authoritative resource in a niche.
Authoritative resources are sites that are considered experts in their fields, and this is extremely helpful in establishing trust between the site and users, search engines. When this is achieved, sales increase, rankings increase, brand reputation improves.