Content Marketing in Austin
Contents
We’ve covered the basics of paid advertising; now it’s time to look at content marketing.
Content marketing is the most natural form of marketing – it’s the heart of what we do in the digital world today and how businesses talk to customers and clients. Around 90% of companies are using some form of content marketing.
Essentially, content marketing is the process of using content – either video, images, social media, or text, to help you reach your marketing goals. With content marketing, you can reach new customers, retain existing ones, or make people more aware of your brand and the products or services you sell. Unfortunately, 70% of marketers don’t have a consistent content strategy.
What are the Benefits of Content Marketing?
The great thing about content marketing is that it thrives on sharing mutual value.
You give your customers something entertaining or informative, and they reward you with conversions and loyalty. What’s more, people can promote your content marketing for you by sharing it on social media when they learn something important or see something special. Some of the most significant advantages of content marketing include:
- Higher visibility in the search engines: Every new piece of content you publish is a new page for Google to index. The more pages you have, the more likely you appear in the top pages of the search engines – provided that you’re targeting the right keywords and phrases to engage your audience.
- More word-of-mouth marketing: When you write or produce the correct content, you can transform your customers into advocates for your brand. Because people get value from your content, they’ll share it with their friends and family members, which leads to referral traffic and word-of-mouth marketing. Since people trust recommendations, it’s a great way to develop credibility for your company.
- Decreased marketing costs and higher compounding value: Another great thing about content marketing is that you only have to pay for it once, but it keeps returning on value. The first few months you spend on content marketing might not give you much in the way of results, but you should start to see significant growth after that.
- Better reputation: When people read content online, they use it to generate an opinion of a brand. If they find the content they read helpful or informative, they think more highly of the brand and what it offers.
- Stronger customer relationships: Content doesn’t just help you attract new audience members to your campaign; it can also help you retain your audience. The more content you share, the stronger your relationships become, and the more likely you will end up with repeat clients.
Boost Your Brand Awareness
Most consumers need to see your brand multiple times before buying. It’s rare for consumers to make a purchase the first time they come across your brand. With so much choice available today, they may even feel foolish for purchasing too soon.
The “rule of seven” developed by marketing expert Dr. Jeffery Lant is an excellent guideline. It states that prospects need to have contact with your brand seven times before becoming a customer.
While this number varies, the implied solution is the same: you must often get your brand in front of potential customers. Content marketing, coupled with marketing automation, makes brand awareness much more accessible. You don’t have to constantly sell and annoy customers with product ads. You can get them in the door with valuable content they need or enjoy.
Building Trust with your Brand
Providing consumers with valuable content shows that you understand their needs. You’ll build up trust over time by producing more relevant content that people appreciate. But by creating a library of helpful content, you’re also setting up a “trust system.”
Consumers don’t have to follow along with your content in real-time. Content can remain in an easily accessible library or archive where anyone, including first-time visitors, can view it at any time.
Your content becomes a system for developing trust without any extra effort. Instead of working to develop a relationship with each customer, as traditional sales and marketing departments did in the past, your content can do this work for you.
Visitors can browse through your content at their own pace and, as they find helpful information, begin to trust your brand without ever interacting with you.
As you implement a content marketing plan, you’ll develop trust among potential customers and with industry partners and competitors. As you continue to put out stellar content, other brands in your industry will take notice. Content marketing establishes your industry authority.
Many marketers talk about industry authority as an automatic benefit of content marketing. But it’s the process of content marketing that pushes you to think like an industry expert.
You’ll earn that authority by keeping up with consumer needs, preferences, and industry trends. So content marketing won’t makes you an instant expert, but it will push you to take the steps needed to become an authority figure.
What are Some Types of Content Marketing?
Around 60% of marketers create at least one piece of new content daily. Just like paid advertising, content comes in many different formats, each designed to engage a different kind of audience and drive specific goals. Here are just some of the most common types of content marketing.
Blogging
Blogging is probably the best-known and most popular form of content marketing. Around 53% of marketers say that blog content creation is their top priority when it comes to inbound marketing. Blog posts are a central part of most content marketing strategies because blogs are easy to find on Google, and people love reading and sharing them.
Additionally, blog posts are great for building relationships with your readers, which can help with conversions and lead to nurturing strategies. Maintaining a consistent blog strategy can also help drive more website traffic.
Case Studies and Research
One of the best forms of content for people who want to make sure that they’re showing their authority and credibility online, case studies are another great content marketing strategy. Case studies or research published about accomplishments should cover everything from statistics to graphs and visuals. These in-depth solutions are valuable for many reasons. For instance, research is highly shareable because it’s unique data and a great way to show your thought leadership.
The key to making the most out of data-driven content is to ensure that you’re covering a topic you know your audience is interested in. At the same time, devote as much time as possible to making your studies look and feel professional, double-check statistics and ensure you’re not making any mistakes.
Infographics
Visual content is growing more popular every year. 37% of marketers believe that image-based marketing is the essential content marketing strategy, exceeded only by blogging.
Infographics are great because they allow you to pack plenty of helpful information into a single image in a way that’s highly digestible and interesting. If you’ve got a lot of different stats that you want to share in a case study, for example, it’s much easier to share that information in an infographic than to ask someone to read through a long-form piece of content.
Infographics can be a great way to earn shares, and they can even go viral, particularly if you share them on social media.
Video Marketing
Another powerful form of visual marketing is the recent rise of video. According to communications experts – Cisco, video content will make up around 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. In a world where people want to get their information or entertainment as quickly as possible, video offers an easily-digestible form of content, great for capturing attention.
There are plenty of different ways that you can engage with video content. For instance, you could host a live video session on Facebook, create a tutorial or guide with step-by-step instructions, or even publish interviews with industry experts.
Finally, social media is one of the world’s most important forms of content marketing today. Although some people don’t regard social media as content marketing, it’s about sharing pictures, text, and other forms of “content” that drive your marketing goals. Social media success is ensuring you interact with the proper channels and platforms.
Different customers will be drawn to specific social media strategies, so analyze your customer personas carefully before you start strategizing. Remember, you can be active on multiple channels at once, but you may need a social media marketing tool to help you keep track.
5 Reasons Why Content Marketing is Successful
Here are five reasons why it is so successful with an understanding of what content marketing is and how it applies to your business.
The significant advantage of content marketing is that it sets you apart as a leader and authority in your industry. To get people to do business with you, you must build the know, like, and trust factor with likely customers.
Content that offers solutions or addresses common questions asked by your audience is central to creating an authoritative presence online.
Content such as infographics, live videos, and high-quality blog posts perform exceptionally well on social media. People aren’t logging onto social media to buy products and services. They’re looking to connect, engage, and add to conversations.
Your content marketing provides you with an arsenal of value to deliver to your social media followers to keep them returning to your pages.
3. Improves Traffic and Lead Generation
63% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. That’s the majority! Yet, content marketing is a viable strategy for driving quality traffic to your web pages and capturing qualified leads for your sales funnel.
Optimizing your blog posts for SEO, for example, helps you rank in search, thus, boosting visibility and organic traffic to your website. Through content promotion, you strategically distribute your content in a way that gets it in front of more people in your market.
Finally, the more visitors you have to your pages, the more opportunities for lead conversion. The key is ensuring that your pages offer something valuable (i.e., video series, checklist, template, quiz) in exchange for their contact information.
4. Consumers are Looking for Content before They Contact You
Also, according to Hubspot, consumers view 3-5 pieces of content before reaching out to a sales representative. They want to engage with your blog article, social media posts, videos, and webinar presentations before they contact your business. Therefore, having content that resonates with their interests is key to attracting ideal prospects.
5. Content is the Fuel that Moves Leads Into Buying Customers
Successfully moving your leads through the buyer’s journey requires content. Certain types of content work better than others, depending on your prospect’s stage in the journey.
Blog and social media posts are great for building awareness and trust (the Awareness Stage of the buyer’s journey). However, case studies are better for the Decision Stage.
Leveraging these different content types is essential to strategically get your customer closer to purchasing.
Conclusion
Content marketing is here to stay. Your existing and prospective customers desire to engage with your content and learn more from you. Give them what they want! Develop a documented content marketing strategy that positions you as a reliable source, offers solutions, and builds your sales funnel.
We’re equipped to help you get in front of your audience, drive traffic to your website and generate leads. Reach out to us, and let’s chat.
