We’re often asked about how important content is for a business, and if you can get away with doing nothing, or the bare minimum. And our answer is always the same – no. In the digital age, consistent content marketing is an essential part of your marketing strategy. More than that, content is important because it literally forms the foundation of all your marketing efforts. Without content, you would have nothing to post on social media, no information to send out to prospects, and nothing to showcase your brand and your values. So for businesses the real question should be ‘how do I keep my content marketing consistent?’, rather than ‘should I be doing it at all?’
We’re not going to sugar-coat it here, getting a consistent flow of content marketing can be tough, especially as it requires constant maintenance and more ideas and content to be created on a weekly if not daily basis. But it’s worth the effort because the benefits your business will get from it outweigh the time spent considerably. Don’t believe us? Here are 10 benefits your business will see if you invest in regular content marketing.
Boost Organic Traffic
There are generally two ways you can drive traffic to your website – through paid search, and through organic SEO. Paid search can be effective if you really know what you’re doing and have a big budget, but many businesses prefer to go down the organic route. The good news is that while the rules of SEO are always changing, posting content consistently has always been part of the picture and one of the easiest ways to boost your traffic. It helps establish your brand as a credible place for information, gives Google lots of pages to recommend to users, and generate far more organic traffic than businesses posting sporadic content, or none at all.
Increase Brand Awareness
By consistently adding fresh content you’re not only appealing to search engines, but you’re also building momentum on your site and establishing trust with your audience. This puts you at the forefront of your target customer’s minds and increases their general awareness of your business and what you do. So when they are ready to buy, you’re the first port of call. But readers are savvier than you think, which means they’ll be put off by low-quality content, but they’ll remember the great pieces that inspire action and provide genuine help. By being the one to provide this you built up trust, and that’s something you just can’t buy.
Connect With Your Audience
Odds are you don’t feel connected with a new brand after the first thing you see from them. In fact, it takes an average of 7 touchpoints for a prospect to feel a connection with your brand, and many more before they want to buy from you. By putting a lot of content into the world on a regular basis, you’re increasing the likelihood of the touchpoint being made. This can be done in all sorts of ways, from asking and answering questions on social media, sending personalised newsletters, publishing blogs packed with actionable tips and more.
Fuel Your Marketing Funnel
Most people have heard of the sales funnel, but before a customer gets to that point they first need to go through the marketing funnel. This is the journey a customer takes from their first interaction and gaining awareness of your business, through to making a genuine enquiry. The marketing funnel covers building awareness, generating interest, consideration (when a prospect actively learns more about you) and finally intent, which moves them into the sales funnel. Tailored content is the perfect way to achieve all of these goals, and ensure you attract as many prospects as possible to move through the funnel. We’ve written more about marketing funnels here.
Improve Conversion Rates
The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is to convert prospects into buyers, and content marketing is no different. But modern buyers distrust sales-oriented marketing, which means getting a prospect to convert takes a lot more time and nurturing than it once did. By creating regular content that focuses on the customer pain points and questions, you can guide your prospects through every step of the buying process and eventually to the buying stage. The more content you create, the quicker this will happen and for more prospects, increasing your conversion rates substantially.
Increase Leads
With an increase in brand awareness, traffic and connection comes an increase in leads. More people are aware of what you do and how you do it, and you’ve honed your message to draw in the right kind of customers to find out more. This pulls them from your marketing funnel and into your sales funnel, giving your sales team more work. In fact, research has shown that consistent content marketing delivers three times as many leads as other marketing channels, costs 62% less, and provides you with 13 times higher ROI (more on that later).
Decrease Bounce Rates
‘Bounce rate’ is an SEO term, and it basically means how long each user sticks around on your page before they leave (or ‘bounce’ off). Generally, low bounce rates are good, and high is bad. You want to reduce your bounce rate for 2 reasons.
The first is that Google pays attention to it, and if your website has a high bounce rate it will decide your site isn’t useful or relevant to your audience, and your search rankings will suffer for it. The second reason is that people who stay on your website longer tend to end up buying, or at least making contact with you. And one of the best ways to keep people on your page is to have content they are interested in and invested in. This content needs to be readable, engaging and provide information and actionable tips so that readers will come back time and time again and keep staying on your site for longer.
Increase Domain Authority
Domain authority is a term for how relevant your website is for your specific subject area of industry. It’s something Google takes into account when working out where you appear in search results, and the higher your domain authority, the higher you appear. Domain authority is worked out in a lot of ways, but on and off-page SEO, relevant keywords, backlinks, content and bounce rate are all key factors. All of which can be improved by regularly updating your website with fresh content!
Get Eyes On Your Social Media
Marketing isn’t just about the materials you send out – it’s also about helping people find you online, reaching out to your audience and having a genuine conversation with them, which is where social media comes in. But social media needs content to fuel that interaction and to get your message across. A scattergun approach to social media just won’t cut it. That means you need to have a consistent and genuine voice on all of your platforms, post on a regular basis and use a consistent look and feel throughout.
You also need to be posting content that encourages interaction in a way a lot of your other marketing efforts don’t, which means you need to create content that can elicit some form of emotional response from your audience – which you can only do once you’ve built up that awareness and trust. Since 74% of consumers depend on social media in order to make a purchasing decision, it’s something you can’t afford to let fall by the wayside.
Increase Your ROI On Marketing
By this point, you’ve probably realised that consistent content marketing can do a lot for your business. But it all leads to one place, and that’s money in the bank. Content marketing has one of the highest rates of ROI of any marketing effort, thanks to its ability to deliver increased leads, higher brand visibility, better brand reputation and more inbound traffic for your website. So not only is it successful, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways you can improve your business.
What are the benefits of Content Marketing?
Content Marketing benefits both the customer and business. It benefits the customer by giving them access to information on products or services that are relevant to them. This can be done by offering access through their preferred channel; website, email, social media etc.
It benefits businesses by increasing brand awareness. When customers regularly visit your website they are regularly exposed to your marketing messages, logo and brand. This benefits the business by increasing brand awareness which leads to increased traffic.
Feedback from customers is another benefit of Content Marketing, as all businesses appreciate positive comments or feedback on their offerings. Content Marketing enables small companies to compete with larger companies because it allows them access to a wider marketplace without necessarily having a big marketing budget.
Content Marketing benefits both the customer and business as it provides a win-win situation for all involved.
Why is Content Marketing essential for SEO?
Content marketing is essential for SEO because it helps to improve website ranking and visibility on search engines. Content marketing also helps to increase website traffic and leads.
Conclusion
At Lion Spirit Media, we help you get your paws on great content marketing and communications, without having to lift a finger. Instead, we provide a full in-house content marketing service, from discovering your unique roar to designing a bespoke strategy to make sure the whole jungle hears it. If you would like to know more, just get in touch with the team today and book your free consultation.
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