When you hear the word “marketing”, what immediately comes to mind?
For most people, the answer to that question is ads. Whether it’s billboards, TV commercials, or pop-ups, paid advertisements are far and away the most well-know medium for marketing a business.
But are they the only marketing medium you should be exploring? No!
While ads are still powerful marketing tools, it’s becoming easier and easier for people to avoid them.
To combat this, you need to be thinking about alternative marketing mediums to supplement your paid advertisements.
Enter content marketing. If you’re an SME owner looking for a reliable and highly-effective marketing strategy to grow your business in 2022 and beyond, content marketing might be the answer.
In this article, I will be doing a deep dive into the world of content marketing to outline the methods involved and the benefits to you. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of how content marketing can help your business.
Let’s get to it!
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—with the goal of driving profitable customer action.
The term “content marketing” was coined all the way back in 1996 by online marketer John O’Keefe, but the concept beneath the term has been around for centuries. After all, what’s an ad if not content designed to sell? The only major difference is that content marketing relies on earning attention rather than buying it.
In order to do this, content marketers focus on creating high-quality pieces that will provide real value to their target audience. This can take many forms, from blog posts and articles to podcasts and videos. Once these pieces are created, content marketers will use a variety of methods to get them in front of their target audience, such as:
- social media
- emails and newsletters
- search engine optimization (SEO)
Each of these methods deserves a breakdown of its own, but we’ll need to save that for another article. For now, let’s talk benefits!
What are the benefits of content marketing?
There are many reasons why you might want to consider using content marketing as part of your wider marketing strategy.
Here are just a few benefits to help you understand how can content marketing help a business:
Content marketing is an effective way to reach your target audience.
Because content marketing relies on creating pieces that are interesting or useful to your target audience, it’s an excellent way to reach them where they already are. After all, people aren’t going to come looking for your business if they don’t even know it exists!
The data is clear on this front: businesses that publish 16+ pieces of content a month see 3.5x more organic traffic than those that publish 0-4 pieces of content per month.
Plus, well-designed content can automatically screen out low-quality leads. Think of good content like a net with holes small enough to catch the fish you want, and big enough to let the small fry slip through. High-quality leads are engaged, low-quality leads move on.
Content marketing helps you build your brand.
When done effectively, content marketing can help your business build a strong brand presence online that resonates with your target audience. This is because it focuses on creating high-quality content that offers real-world value to readers in the form of knowledge or entertainment.
Business that provide value (through the service they provide or their content marketing strategy) are seen as good businesses. And as we all intuitively understand, good businesses attract loyal customers.
Content marketing drives sales for your business.
Content marketing is not a quick fix, but it is an excellent long-term strategy for driving sales and achieving sustainable growth for your business.
This is because content marketing can help you to nurture relationships with your target audience by providing them with high-quality content that meets their needs. Over time, these relationships will lead to trust—and when your target audience trusts you, they’re far more likely to do business with you.
A study by Content Marketing Institute found that 70% of marketers saw increased sales as a result of content marketing, and that 62% used it to close sales faster. Those are incredibly significant numbers!
Content marketing saves you money.
One of the biggest advantages of content marketing is that it’s an extremely cost-effective form of marketing. In fact, it’s the most cost-effective form of marketing. Don’t believe me? Here are two rather compelling statistics to drive the point home:
- Content marketing costs 62% less than other forms of marketing
- Content marketing converts 6X more often than other forms of marketing
So, to summarize, content marketing strategies cost your business less and make your business more.
Content marketing builds long-term relationships.
Content marketing isn’t just about driving leads or closing sales—it’s also about building relationships with your target audience. By creating valuable and consistent content, you can establish trust and credibility with potential customers, which will make them more likely to do business with you in the future.
Final Thoughts
Now it’s time to start creating some great content!
When creating content for your business, be sure to focus on creating high-quality and engaging content that is relevant to your target audience.
This might include blog posts, videos, infographics, social media posts, and other types of content that help you engage with your audience and build a relationship over time.
If you’re looking for guidance as you go about creating your content marketing strategy, Cakeshop Media is here to help.
We help SMEs grow their reach and scale their operations through digital marketing. Feel free to reach out for more information!