8 Ways Content Marketing Can Grow Your Business
“Content is king” – that’s a phrase you can’t go very long without hearing as a digital marketer, and rightly so, because, well, it’s right.
Good content is the driving force in any online marketing strategy and can be credited for the success of many businesses in industries of all kinds.
Contrary to popular belief, content marketing is so much more than throwing together some blog posts and an ebook.
Instead, content marketing can:
- Build brand trust and authority
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive conversation
- Drive website traffic
- Sustain demand generation
- Provide value
- Educate existing and potential clients
- Warm-up a cold audience
Thoughtful content tells a brand’s story, which, ultimately, helps improve a business from both an authority and financial perspective. It’s one of the most powerful growth businesses because it is cost-efficient, easy to produce, and builds trust with consumers.
If you’ve dabbled in content creation but haven’t taken it to the next level, it may be time to reassess your digital marketing strategy.
Here are eight ways you can use content marketing to grow your business:
1. Increase Brand Trust and Authority
First and foremost, content marketing helps boost consumers’ trust in a brand and its authority. When existing and potential consumers read your content, they’re simultaneously establishing an opinion about your company: your expertise, your trustworthiness, the quality of your product or services.
Content that educates, answers questions and demonstrates a commitment to creating a sustainable relationship as opposed to a transactional sale tells a reader that you care about more than just their business. Which, if you put yourself in the shoes of a buyer, matters.
The more a business nurtures its relationships with its target audience, the more that audience will perceive the business as an authoritative figure in the industry that they want to be connected with. Reputation means everything.
Recommended content types:
- Whitepaper
- Video tutorial
- Product review
- eBook
- Blog posts
2. Increase Brand Awareness
Struggling to get people to know about and identify with your business? Does your company stand apart from your competitors? Are you at the forefront of your industry?
If not, how can you expect consumers to think of you when they’re in the market for your products or services, let alone choose you over another?
The more people are exposed to your brand through creative content efforts, the more they will remember your brand. It’s simple, really, particularly if that content speaks to each of your audiences. Yes, that’s right… chances are your business caters to more than one demographic, which means your team needs to be mindful of what type of content each needs.
When using content marketing to drive awareness, placement is EVERYTHING. Take time to really understand your audience. Learn their habits, where they consume information, and how they absorb messages.
For example, do you have an older demographic? Don’t waste your time placing content on younger leaning networks like Instagram. Instead, focus on the content you’re promoting on Facebook.
Recommended content types:
- Blog posts
- Case studies
- Informational videos
- Infographics
3. Drive Conversation
Digital content can be incredibly accessible to a diverse group of people. The beauty of publishing brand-driven content online is that it is easily shareable, fostering engagement and conversation (and if we’re lucky, an influx of conversions) within the circles it is being shared.
Ever hear of that good old term, “going viral”?
That’s what we all strive for; our content to achieve such virality that audiences we never planned on reaching are reached organically. All we really need is for that one person to read, enjoy, talk about, and share that content with their peers for a post to take off. Next thing you know, brand awareness is through the roof, traffic has increased tenfold, and sales are coming in faster than we can keep up with.
Content marketing allows a business to connect with and educate its audience, driving trust, engagement, AND conversions through conversation. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box here, be disruptive, listen to the conversations that your audience is having and build your content around those topics.
Recommended content types:
- Short videos
- Case studies
- Blogs
- Infographics
4. Drive Website Traffic
With content, sharing comes traffic. The better your content, the more clicks you will receive to your website. The more traffic you have, the greater chance you have of getting conversions.
Content marketing can come in many forms: blog posts, infographics, videos, social media posts, etc., and more often than not, that content is linked to something or has a call to action attached to it.
So, if your content is of great value and leaves consumers wanting more, you can expect a certain percentage to head to your website. Hello, new visitors!
As you continue to produce useful and informative content, you’re also nurturing your existing community, a community that already trusts you. This will translate to returning traffic, which is just as (if not more) important as new traffic.
Recommended content types:
- Informational blogs
- Infographics
- Videos
- Social media posts
5. Sustain Demand Generation
The beauty of content marketing, and the many forms it comes in, is that it can send website traffic long after the piece of content has been published.
For example, blogs are considered compounding content pieces that drive ongoing traffic through organic search. While we do support the argument that content should be kept up to date and it’s content updated regularly, it is possible to “set it and forget it” and still get awesome traffic.
Seriously, a six-year-old article that you haven’t edited in ages could be responsible for the vast majority of your pageviews! Even better if your content is evergreen. And when that happens, take note of:
- What the topic was
- The type of content
- Publish date
- Social engagement
- Who created the content
You’ll want to duplicate what was done and try recreating that structure for new topics and content types.
Recommended content types:
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- How-to guides
- Instructional blog posts
6. Provide Value Without Strings Attached
Highly valuable content allows you to put your industry expertise on display.
Remember, content marketing shouldn’t be an overt sales pitch; you should be cultivating connections with your audience and providing them with such value that they want to continue learning from you and eventually, maybe just maybe, convert to a paying customer.
Here’s the thing: consumers feel the most connected to industry experts, particularly when they’re considering a purchase.
Most buyers don’t commit to a sale without doing research. The more information they can gather from you, the more confident they’ll feel when making a purchase or hire. Create a content experience for your audience with multiple touchpoints. Break-up larger or more complex subjects into several content pieces to keep your audience engaged with your brand. But the silver lining is that they don’t have to, and don’t feel pressured to, because your expertise comes with no strings attached.
Recommended content types:
- Informational blogs
- Videos
- Ebooks
- Infographics
- Webinars
7. Educate Existing and Potential Customers
Content marketing helps attract strangers to your business by educating them on subject matter related to your goods or services, and, hopefully, transforms them into potential customers.
Don’t just tell audiences what’s new with your company. Provide them with breaking updates and changes about your industry as whole, how your brand fits in, and how people can leverage your products/services as a solution to any issues they may encounter.
It also helps further develop the knowledge and commitment of your existing customer base. It serves as a friendly reminder that you’re alive and well, and still offering the good stuff.
Lead generation is essential for all businesses, but especially small businesses. To succeed in any industry, we need new leads… leads that will eventually pay up for whatever we are offering.
Usually, when businesses acquire new leads, they aren’t even ready to buy, let alone think about buying. They are in the courting stage if you will, and if we’re lucky, we’re the only ones they are thinking about at this point.
Recommended content types:
- Blog posts
- Ebooks
- Case studies
- Whitepapers
8. Warm Up A Cold Audience
Cold audiences have had no interaction with your company before. They don’t know a whole lot about your business, and they are highly unlikely to purchase anything from you any time soon.
In fact, if they do stumble upon you, it has nothing to do with brand association or who you are; it’s more likely that they were attracted to your content while searching for an answer to something (good job!).
While cold audiences are a difficult sell, you don’t want to neglect them.
On the contrary, you want to warm them up, nurture them, and encourage them along the journey toward conversion. This is a huge part relationship-building phase and is essential if you want to expand your customer base, and can easily be done through content marketing.
Recommended content types:
- Promotional videos
- Infographics
- Short blogs on trending topics
- Whitepapers
Content marketing is a crucial piece in any organization’s marketing pie, and while it provides a myriad of benefits from revenue growth to brand awareness, it doesn’t require over-the-top budgets. You just need some creative juices, planning, and experimentation. What are your favorite content marketing tactics?
