Benefits and Advantages of Content Marketing

Great content is a cornerstone of any marketing strategy, whether you do it the traditional way or online. Today, it is challenging to have your content noticed, with people’s decreasing attention spans and the sheer amount of marketing messages people are exposed to every day. But with robust content marketing software, you can launch your own content marketing strategy and execute it smoothly.

In this article, learn about the benefits and advantages of content marketing that your company can enjoy should you decide to adopt one or improve the one you already have. With this information, you should be able to make a good business case for why your organization should have a content marketing strategy in place. Knowing its positive impact will also serve as motivation to go through with your efforts.

For three years in a row, short-form video is the primary form of media that is used for any content strategy. Data shows that as of 2022, the average person watches video online for 19 hours a day. In a survey, 89% of marketers have expressed that their investment in short-form video will be the same or will be increased for 2022. Marketers can make the most of this content type by making short videos that have proven to have high engagement rates.

In a world awash with content, content marketers now have to go the extra mile for people to notice their content. One way to do this is through personalization. Data on the state of content marketing shows that 55% of marketing professionals found that personalization increases conversion rates and promotes growth.

Benefits and Advantages of Content Marketing

1. Improved Brand Reputation

Creating high-quality content gives you an opportunity to engage your target audience and showcase your expertise. Churning out value-driven content even without expecting anything in return from your target audience.

The first step to improving brand reputation is to create a documented content marketing strategy. According to the Content Marketing Institute, only 39% of business-to-consumer marketers have a documented content strategy. This is a good starting point so that you have a direction for your strategy and an outline of your principles that reflect your business goals. Within your content strategy, you should develop your own brand messaging guidelines. You can define brand imaging through logos and brand colors, and the tone to use when communicating with customers on various channels.

2. Enhanced Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is important because it fosters trust, creates an association, and builds brand equity. Once you gain customer trust, it is possible for them to make repeat purchases. Secondly, brand awareness lets people associate everyday actions with your brand. For example, nowadays you say you “Google” information rather than saying you will be using a search engine. Lastly, it helps customers bring a positive experience with your brand.

There are a couple of brand strategies you can take to build awareness. First off, you must conduct research to figure out your target market and audience. This helps you avoid creating inappropriate content on the wrong platform for the wrong audience, which will cost you time and effort. It also pays to know what the unique selling point is for your product or service so you can frame the conversation with your customers on these key points.

3. More Social Media Traffic

One of the benefits of content marketing is that it can help you generate traffic through social media. The reach of social media is only continuing to grow. In 2020, there were 3.6 billion users of social networks and this figure is only set to grow to 4.41 billion by 2025. As a result, more and more people are discovering new sites straight from social media and not from search engines. Hence, having a social media presence gives you access to a completely new audience who would not be inclined to find out about your website through other means.

Once you have gained considerable traction on social media, it’s a matter of keeping your audience engaged. This can be done in many ways, one of which is to provide valuable content to your audience. You can also ask open-ended questions to boost engagement, host a poll, or create interactive quizzes with prizes for winners. It will also help your brand image to respond to comments on social media posts and respond to queries promptly.

4. Improved Conversion Rates

Getting customers to convert on your site entails them taking on a specific action, such as buying a product or signing up for your newsletter. Thus, it’s important to optimize your conversion rate because it offers certain benefits.

First, optimizing your conversion rate lets you learn more about your target audience. Through heat maps and other conversion rate optimization tools, you can record user sessions on your website to analyze their pain points in navigating the site. Next, you can also optimize content by inserting relevant keywords so users can find your content easier.

One way you can increase your conversion rate is to localize your content. This involves adding location pages to your website, maintaining online directory listings, and creating local content. You can create content about local news, gatherings, or industry events to establish your authority in your area.

5. Gain Audience Trust

Without gaining the trust of your audience, you cannot expect them to give their patronage to your product or service. Nowadays, people interact with brands that align with their beliefs, with 58% saying that they will buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs and values. Once you build trust, you can go beyond transactions and forge brand loyalty with your audience. Having content that is authoritative as it is engaging is also key to developing a strong online presence.

To create content that captures the trust of your audience, find out their pain points and explain how your product or services addresses those. Such kind of content helps them to think about your brand and seek your content for guidance. The content that you have should also offer value, which can be done by surveying your audience. Find out the challenges they deal with and how you can meet them where they are.

6. Quality Lead Generation

Effective content marketing helps you land quality leads, which increases your chances of converting a lead into an actual sale. In this way, you can get back what you spent on your content marketing efforts when you have paying customers. Through good quality leads that you nurture and build relationships over time, you also get to increase a customer’s lifetime value, which again impacts your return on investment. Lastly, having good quality leads allows you to target selected leads only so you have a highly defined and targeted content marketing strategy.

There are many ways to generate quality leads depending on what stage the customer funnel is in. For example, if the customer is at the awareness stage, you can create free tip sheets and free white papers to fulfill their needs for educational information at this stage. On the other hand, you can offer free webinars during the consideration stage, a free trial during the decision stage, and a quote/estimate during the retention stage.

7. SEO Visibility

At a time when information is just a click away, one of the advantages of content marketing is that it enables you to have your content front and center in search engine results. This can be achieved through effective SEO strategies. With a good strategy in place, you will be able to give the information to search engine sites to index or “crawl” your site so it shows up in search engine results. Achieving a high ranking gives you a prime spot to market your product or service. SEO visibility is also a good gauge of the relevance of your content to users and their search queries.

It takes a lot of time and effort to optimize your website content for SEO but there are many good reasons to invest money in SEO. Once you embark on it, the benefits you enjoy will be manifold. You can start by figuring out user intent, which answers why they are using a search engine and what kind of information they are looking for. If they are looking for information, then they are doing an informational search. If they want to buy something, then they are doing a transactional search. If they are looking for a certain brand, then they are conducting a navigational search.

8. Boost Brand Credibility

Credibility has been defined as the quality of being believed or accepted as true, real, or honest. The measure of credibility is found not only in facts and evidence but also in intangibles like feelings and opinions. Establishing brand credibility means that you can strategically position your product or service so it becomes one of the most valuable brands in the market. With this, you can generate positive word of mouth and create buzz through online recommendations. Having authoritative content also positions your brand as a thought leader in your industry as well as sparks interest from bloggers and media entities.

There are a couple of ways you can establish brand credibility. One way is to create useful content such as case studies that focus on solving customer problems, which help establish your brand expertise. Another way is to post content on your blog or other platforms consistently to gain the trust of your audience.

Examples of Content Marketing Software

HubSpot MarketingVISIT WEBSITE

Hubspot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive solution that helps you find the right audience, increase conversion rates, and implement a full-blown inbound marketing campaign. This easy-to-use platform allows you to create marketing content, generate leads, and analyze your data. It has numerous features, including blog publication, SEO, ad tracking and management, social media management, live chat, and more.

monday.comVISIT WEBSITE

monday.com is a work operating system that helps businesses create their own workflows and streamline processes. The solution allows teams to collaborate seamlessly with one another to hit their business goals. monday.com offers different ways for users to view and manage their work, from visual boards to Gantt charts to calendars and timelines.

Semrush

Semrush is a software-as-a-service platform that helps you get actionable results from your online marketing efforts. This tool combines SEO, content marketing, market research, advertising, social media, and agency solutions all in one platform. It features over 50 tools and reports to address your digital marketing needs, including content marketing tools for conducting topic research, marketing calendar, SEO content template, and more.

WrikeVISIT WEBSITE

Wrike is a robust work management software that fosters real-time collaboration and allows for end-to-end project visibility. With its custom dashboards and team-specific automation, the software is highly customizable to fit the needs of your business. Wrike can be used to manage marketing campaigns with features like dynamic reporting, asset review, automated approvals, and asset publication.

ContentlyVISIT WEBSITE

Contently is a content marketing platform that promises content success by delivering expert content strategy through an enterprise-grade solution that spans a global talent network. Through Contently, you can grow your audience, track how much your content is worth, and get a return on investment on your content marketing efforts. The solution features a proprietary technology called StoryBook, which forecasts what specific type of content will have the greatest impact.

A quick look at your campaign key metrics in HubSpot Marketing dashboard.

Reap the Benefits of a Good Content Marketing Strategy

Mapping out your content strategy or enhancing your existing one is no easy feat. It takes a whole team—from your content writer and editor to publisher to regularly churn out content in support of your goals. But improving your content marketing is a worthwhile effort.

If done right, you can reap the benefits of content marketing for your brand. It can enhance brand awareness, boost your brand credibility, and help you source quality leads. It also helps you drive traffic to your platform, whether you gain SEO visibility to your website or steer them to your social media sites to generate more traffic.

Key Insights

• Enhanced Brand Awareness: Content marketing significantly boosts brand awareness by engaging target audiences with value-driven content, fostering trust, and creating positive associations.
• Increased Social Media Traffic: Leveraging content marketing on social media platforms can drive substantial traffic, tapping into the vast and growing user base of social networks.
• Improved Conversion Rates: Effective content marketing optimizes conversion rates by providing relevant, localized content and enhancing user experience on websites.
• Audience Trust and Credibility: Consistently delivering high-quality content builds audience trust and establishes brand credibility, which is crucial for long-term customer relationships.
• Quality Lead Generation: Targeted content marketing strategies generate high-quality leads, improving the chances of converting leads into paying customers and increasing customer lifetime value.
• SEO Visibility: Implementing robust SEO strategies in content marketing improves search engine visibility, driving organic traffic and enhancing the brand’s online presence.
• Boosted Brand Reputation: A well-executed content marketing strategy enhances brand reputation by showcasing expertise and providing valuable information to the audience.

FAQ

1. What is content marketing?
   Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, ultimately driving profitable customer action.
2. How does content marketing improve brand reputation?
   By consistently producing high-quality, value-driven content, businesses can engage their target audience, showcase expertise, and build trust, leading to an enhanced brand reputation.
3. What role does content marketing play in enhancing brand awareness?
   Content marketing boosts brand awareness by creating content that resonates with the target audience, fostering trust, creating positive associations, and establishing the brand as a credible source of information.
4. How can content marketing drive social media traffic?
   Content marketing can drive social media traffic by leveraging the reach of social platforms, engaging audiences with interactive content, and encouraging shares and interactions, thereby increasing visibility and traffic.
5. What are the benefits of improving conversion rates through content marketing?
   Improved conversion rates through content marketing lead to better user experience, higher engagement, and ultimately, more customers taking desired actions such as making purchases or signing up for newsletters.
6. Why is gaining audience trust important in content marketing?
   Gaining audience trust is crucial because it leads to stronger customer relationships, increased brand loyalty, and higher chances of repeat purchases, which are essential for long-term business success.
7. How does content marketing generate quality leads?
   Content marketing generates quality leads by providing valuable and relevant information tailored to the needs and interests of the target audience, nurturing leads through the sales funnel, and establishing the brand as a trusted advisor.
8. What is the importance of SEO visibility in content marketing?
   SEO visibility is important in content marketing because it ensures that content appears prominently in search engine results, driving organic traffic, increasing brand exposure, and enhancing the overall online presence.
9. How can businesses boost brand credibility through content marketing?
   Businesses can boost brand credibility by consistently delivering authoritative and valuable content, engaging with their audience, providing solutions to their problems, and positioning themselves as thought leaders in their industry.
10. What tools are recommended for effective content marketing?
    Recommended tools for effective content marketing include HubSpot Marketing for comprehensive campaign management, Semrush for SEO and content optimization, Wrike for project management, and Contently for expert content strategy and execution.

By Jenny Chang

Jenny Chang is a senior writer specializing in SaaS and B2B software solutions. Her decision to focus on these two industries was spurred by their explosive growth in the last decade, much of it she attributes to the emergence of disruptive technologies and the quick adoption by businesses that were quick to recognize their values to their organizations. She has covered all the major developments in SaaS and B2B software solutions, from the introduction of massive ERPs to small business platforms to help startups on their way to success.