The benefits of content marketing for your business

In the modern world of business a strong, consistent and active online presence is becoming increasingly important and a well implemented content marketing strategy and the creation of useful content should be at the core of your marketing mix.

Content marketing is the process of creating high-quality content to engage your audience and promote your brand. Instead of trying to pitch to your audience, the aim is to provide information that makes your buyer more informed. Ultimately the objective is to convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers without the need for direct selling. This is achieved by presenting valuable, relevant and well produced content that your target audience trusts and wants to engage with.

A well planned and well executed content marketing strategy will drive traffic organically to your website, will improve your ranking in the SERP’s, will position your brand as an industry leader and will lead to better customer relations. But it’s not a quick fix; it is a long-term, ongoing process that needs to be integrated into your overall marketing strategy and activities including:

• Social media marketing: Your content marketing strategy should inform and direct your social media strategy.
• SEO: Search engines reward businesses that publish quality, consistent content.
• PR: Successful PR strategies address issues readers care about, not their business.
• PPC: For PPC to work, you need great content behind it.
• Inbound marketing: Content is key to driving inbound traffic and leads.

A lot of businesses believe that content is just for the top of the sales funnel. Although this is important you shouldn’t stop there - great content should be available at all stages of the sales process and through your entire relationship with customers. Great content will continue to excite and engage your customers and solidify your ongoing relationship. As such your content marketing strategy should address the following 8 stages of the sales process:

• Brand Awareness
• Lead Generation
• Engagement
• Sales
• Lead Nurturing
• Customer Retention & Loyalty
• Customer Evangelism
• Up-Selling & Cross-Selling

Done well, content marketing leads directly to more sales and more prospects. Done badly, it takes a whole load of your time and is frustrating and costly!

For more information or to talk to us about developing an effective content marketing strategy for your business please get in touch!