The dynamic field of marketing has evolved through time – from door-to-door sales in the early 1900s to print media in the roaring seventies to TV commercials in the wild nineties to Internet ads in the socially savvy 2010s. Needless to say, marketing has grown beyond catchy slogans and conventional push-pull strategies. Consumers, today, want more value for their money. They want more information, more knowledge, more data.
And content marketing capitalizes on this very fact.
In layman’s terms, content marketing is the process of creating and sharing relevant content with your audience in a bid to convert them into buying customers. Leading brands have realized that the impact of the right content creation strategies can be monumental. According to the State of Inbound report, content is the primary concern for more than half of all marketers. Companies have also increased their budget allocation towards content management to over 29% of their total B2B marketing budgets.
Creating a vigorous social media page, a solid blog library, and engaging video tutorials is the easiest way for a brand to carve out their space in a saturated market.
So, if you’re still on the edge about how creative content marketing can change the fortunes of your company, then here are the top reasons why you need to refocus your energies on creating a content plan.
WHY IMPLEMENTING A CONTENT MARKETING PLAN IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS?
1. MAKE YOUR BRAND A HOUSEHOLD NAME
One of the main goals of content marketing is to create a vibrant online presence for your brand. By hitting multiple touchpoints with your audience, your brand becomes more memorable. Additionally, creating personalized content that speaks to your readers in their own language can increase brand engagement rates. This fact was corroborated by an IBM Digital Experience Survey in 2015 which found that 56% of marketers believe personalized content is a key driver for better brand engagement.
Having an online presence can lead you to hitherto untapped audiences in remote corners of the world. Great content positions your brand as an industry expert, increasing the likelihood of buyers trusting your product.
2. BECOME AN ORGANIC LEAD GENERATION MACHINE
Lead generation is one of the most critical components of marketing. But putting up ads to attract eyeballs has become a tad inefficient. According to the latest statistics, over 200 million people deploy ad blockers on their devices, stripping your advertisement of any value whatsoever. This new gap, in turn, has been filled with quality content.
Content Marketing Institute, revealed in a survey that 61% of online American consumers made a purchase after reading recommendations on a blog. They also found out that content marketing has a conversion rate that is 3 times higher than any other digital marketing method.
Content marketing is a cost-effective method to bring in more leads organically. As a technology brand, writing blogs, tutorials, whitepapers, and guidebooks can singlehandedly draw in the right audience for your products.
Ads tend to be invasive, prominent, and unnatural in their approach. A badly placed ad can ruin your entire brand-building exercise in no time. But content, on the other hand, fits in perfectly with your audience’s intentions. For instance, If they’re reading a blog on how to improve their WiFi connectivity, they’ll be more open to a product that can help them achieve this goal.
3. RANK YOUR WEBSITE ON THE FIRST PAGE OF GOOGLE CONSISTENTLY
You’ve created your website, the first step in cementing your position online. But without great content to drive viewers, your website will neither rank on Google nor provide any monetary value.
Posting content regularly to your website compels Google’s crawler to index more pages from your site. And this gives you the opportunity to rank for more keywords. According to Tech Client, business sites that regularly post content have 434% more indexed pages than sites that don’t post at all. Simply put, you can’t afford to miss out on the chance to get your website to Google’s first page!
Content helps your website in three ways –
- It improves your website SEO. Google ranks sites with better SEO on the top.
- It drives backlinks. The more backlinks you have, the better Google thinks you are.
- It increases the dwell time on your website by 37 seconds, according to News Cred.
Google takes your content very seriously. And it’s time you do the same. Content marketing isn’t just a fad. It’s a revolutionary way to increase sales organically and affordably. Isn’t that the goal of every marketing strategy?