We’ve all heard time and time again that content is king and this holds true now more than ever. In an age where information is in high demand, where consumers are more empowered than ever before and always connected, businesses need to adapt and change their marketing strategies. In this article, we discuss why content marketing is important for your business and what you can do about it.
With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, content is the beating heart of the marketing world. Engaging with your customers, building trust and adding value to the lives of your clients is critical to the success of your business. Enter customer-centric content marketing.
Through the content you provide, whether that is blog posts, videos, infographics, eBooks or other forms of engaging material, you can reach your customers through a range of powerful avenues. With engaging, inspiring and informative content, you can build trust with a targeted audience and set yourself as an authority within your industry or niche.
Here are five reasons why content marketing is more important than ever for your business to succeed.
Ad Bombardment & Blocking – Instead, Attract with Value-add Content Marketing
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If you were bombarded constantly throughout the day with a stream of seemingly never-ending advertisements, how would you deal with it? Studies show that in 1984, an average person saw an average of 2,000 ads a day, they now see more than 5,000 in a single day. This has led to more people looking for ways to avoid being exposed to these ads, resulting in 615 million new devices featuring ad-blocking or ad-filtering software.
This is where content marketing best practices really come into play. With so many advertisements in the face of consumers, you can gain their attention with informative, targeted and helpful resources. Focusing this genuine, helpful content on the individual customer provides relief from the constant in-your-face ad bombardment and ads value to your brand or organization in the eyes of the consumer. Remember, customers always gravitate to where they receive value on their own terms; their clicks, inquiries, and payments speak for themselves.
Millennial’s Use the Internet to Get Their Daily News Fix – Be There and Add Value
Where are people turning to for their daily news fix? 50 percent of people aged between 18-45 check the internet for their daily news rather than switching on the television. Content Marketing allows you to take advantage of behavior like this and be where the people are; online!
Being in the right place, however, is only half the battle. It’s crucial to provide current, relevant information and add value to the user’s experience. Putting yourself in a position where you can provide people with the information they want when they are looking for it, puts you in an authoritative position in your market and will lead to trust in your brand, and ultimately more conversions.
Align Your Content to the Customer’s Moments of Need and Grow your Customer Base
Customers, more than ever, know what information they are looking for, they are more empowered and really are in control at all times. It’s vital that you create content which not only appeals to your customers but keeps them as up-to-date as possible and adds value to their lives.
When the buyer is in control, marketers must aim to meet their expectations as precisely as possible at each and every moment through the customer buying experience. Otherwise, you run the risk of them searching elsewhere for the information and product/service they are seeking out in the first place.
In this age of the connected customer, marketing must step up and deliver the right content for the right customer at the right time as they navigate their need fulfillment journey. Effective content marketing builds trust overtime where your customers and prospects pay attention and listen to your brand. According to the Content Marketing Institute, visitors interact with your brand 6 to 8 times on average before they become a customer. So, be there early and timely with helpful personalized content to keep them coming back time and time again.
Get Higher Conversions and Lead Growth at Lower Cost
In this new age of marketing, 25% of marketers still don’t set marketing goals and 87 percent of marketers use web traffic and time on page in order to sum up marketing ROI. Although these are good basic metrics regarding customer interest, they are not a true reflection of growth and return on investment (ROI). More powerful ROI metrics for marketing include conversion rates, marketing cost, and lead growth. When it comes to the more revealing ROI metrics, content marketing consistently proves its worth. Content marketing generates more than three times as many leads as outbound marketing and produces six times higher conversion rates than other methods at just 62% of the cost.
Here are a few more compelling stats that are sure to prove the importance of content marketing.
Blog to Get Substantially More Growth
When people trust your brand’s voice, they will listen to that voice, trust in what you have to say and in your brand. With 77% of people online reading blogs, there is no denying their importance and potential influence on consumers and their mindset. It’s important for all businesses, big and small, to capitalize on this opportunity to connect with potential clients.
Blogging for small business generates 126% more lead growth than a small business without a blog and 61% percent of US consumers made a purchase as a result of reading a blog, now those are stats worth taking note of! Figures like these prove the importance of blogging in today’s competitive marketplace and highlight the impact that a well-targeted blog post or collection of blog posts can have.
Content Remains King & Content Marketing is Vital for any Business
Yes, we all agree that content is king. However, it’s important to provide optimized, targeted content that will provide value to existing or potential customers. When you are delivering a message to your customers through your content, keep the customer in mind, analyze their needs and deliver what it is they are looking for in an easy-to-digest format.
So, why content marketing is important?
The “soft” benefits of content marketing such as public trust, more engaged prospects, and happier clients are obvious to seasoned marketers and remain as vital to your success as ever. This added to the “hard” benefits and stats discussed in this article are unquestionable. Take your content marketing efforts to new heights with consistent, original, and addictive content designed to be consumed on a variety of devices. In modern marketing, this has become the cornerstone of every effective and successful marketing program.
Don’t be left behind. Let your content shine, inform and provide value and watch as the needle rises and your marketing goals become reality.
Download our free Content Marketing Guide for inspiration on tips to evolve your content marketing initiatives.
