Building a web presence online is a requirement of any modern business, and an essential element involves creating engaging, fresh, user-friendly content that will draw users to your website. Ignoring your content will harm your web presence and make it harder to attract your desired customers, but why is it important?

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a broad area, but it is a marketing strategy designed to attract and engage your desired audience. This goal is achieved by effectively using relevant media that promote your brand and expertise in your field. When these are used right, you will have a growing number of prospective and return customers. If customers don’t know you exist, they’ll never find you. Fortunately, an effective content marketing strategy increases your business’s visibility online and your visitor interactions’ success. 

Why Is Content Important?

Content marketing is a proven tool to improve every online presence because it addresses three crucial elements of any customer interaction: awareness, consideration and closing. 

• The awareness stage is the first part of the sales process. This is where effective content will address the users’ top concerns, such as answering questions and solving problems. In addition, content in this stage will be educational advice to help your potential new customers.
• The consideration stage is where sales marketing is introduced to guide users to your products or services that will solve their problems. 
• In the closing stage, you take visitors who are considering purchases and present reasons why they should pick you over your competitors. This includes sharing expertise, product descriptions and buyer reviews. 

Taking a user through each stage will result in increased sales and potential return business. Additionally, there are additional benefits when using content marketing to draw these potential customers to you. 

Effective content marketing drives internet traffic to you and not your competitors. Great content in the awareness stage builds trust and increases their confidence when choosing you. Customer loyalty will dictate return business from your customers and the possibility of referrals to their friends. Authority in your field is also improved with great content. Businesses can be seen as leaders in their sector with the right content, which also increases trust; this is especially useful for companies that provide services over products. 

Different Elements of Content Marketing 

Maintaining a blog is an integral part of any content marketing, but it is not the only method of supporting your business through content marketing. You can include many additional methods in your marketing, such as testimonials, mailshots and multimedia content such as podcast discussions. 

Newsletters

Email marketing newsletters are an excellent addition to a content strategy as they help build positive relationships with your customer base. Creating connections in this way will generate leads with potential customers as well as build trust by sharing updated news about your business.

With these digital newsletters, you can encourage readers to visit your website with helpful embedded links and guide them to the specific areas you want them to go. In addition, newsletters provide additional response data, which can be analysed for performance and further inform your future marketing decisions. 

Case Studies

Displaying the success stories of your business is a great way to not only share it with prospective buyers but also to build their confidence in choosing you over your competitors. This content marketing method focuses on your readers’ decision-making process, encouraging engagement and providing an opportunity to repurpose the content in other ways, such as email marketing and social media. 

Infographics

Infographics are a visual element of content marketing that can efficiently explain information to your reader in a bitesize format. This imagery can turn a few sentences of text into an aesthetically attractive image that can be presented on your site in a way that includes your branding. In addition, these helpful graphics can be shared on various platforms to grab the viewer’s attention and create helpful backlinks to your website. 

Multimedia Content 

Other examples of helpful content include podcasts, video marketing and webinars (web seminars). These are different ways to engage users and present vital information in new, exciting ways. 

Podcasts are incredibly popular as this audio-only content can be consumed whilst on the go and hosted through various popular platforms such as iTunes and Soundcloud. 

Videos are growing in popularity on social media platforms, with Facebook Stories and Instagram Reels presenting miniature videos for quick viewing for audiences. These smaller videos are excellent at grabbing users’ attention and drawing them to your established page of more in-depth content. In addition, platforms like Vimeo and Youtube allow businesses to upload longer videos explaining various complex products or services. Even simple videos result in impressive engagement as the moving image easily draws the eye and holds the viewer’s attention. 

Content Marketing Grows Businesses 

Content marketing helps future-proof your digital marketing plans through various methods. Contact us to explore other ways to help your business with content marketing.