If you’re new to the exciting and fast-paced world of online marketing, chances are you’ve heard a little bit about content marketing and the benefits that effective content marketing tactics can bring. However, in spite of all of that, a startup or even a professional marketer might feel a bit overwhelmed and maybe even intimidated by all the types of content out there. Experienced marketers dream of finding a ready-made solution for long and boring tasks, outsourcing them, and instructing employees to: “make my presentation for me” in order to save more time and resources for more significant goals. After all, the whole process of creating a content marketing campaign can seem somewhere daunting, especially if you aren’t a natural content creator, to begin with.
However, the truth is that you don’t need to feel that way (easier said than done, we know). You see, content marketing is your secret weapon as a small business, and with the right marketing efforts and top-notch content — you can reap the benefits.
In this beginner’s guide, we’re going to take a look at how content marketing can be beneficial for digital advertising and brand awareness. It’s definitely something worth exploring, especially since content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and can offer 3X more when it boils down to lead generation with potential customers.
Content is a huge part of your everyday life. It’s difficult to avoid, but why would you want to? Good content, whether it’s podcasts, blogging, or influencers, keeps us informed, entertains us, answers our questions, guides our decisions, makes us smile, and more.
Content helps you attract, engage, and delight consumers, bring new users to your website, and ultimately, generate revenue for your budding brand. In other words — if you’re not creating content, then you’re behind the curve.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into everything you need to know about content creation for your digital marketing strategy.
When your webpage has content, people have reasons to visit it, learn from it, and hopefully, become new customers. Without content, you may as well not have a site at all because it won’t really do anything for you. There are a few major reasons why content is so important. By viewing them individually, we can get a much better grasp of content in general and why it helps brands grow.
First and foremost, content tells your audience about your brand, business, and industry. It answers all of those basic questions that many of your potential customers have. For instance, a local bank may have a page on their site called “How to Get a Mortgage” to assist first-time homebuyers with understanding everything that’s involved in the home purchasing process. Or, a loan broker might have a page called “Loans for Bad Credit” that helps people with poor credit ratings understand how to get better loan deals. That helps the ideal customer understand their future situation better, and it also saves time for loan officers who don’t want to answer that question every single time a new client comes along — and as any good business owner knows, time is money!
So when you create useful content that informs your target audience, you aren’t just telling them interesting facts — you’re taking it a step further by helping them make the right purchasing decision while saving time and money on your end.
If you ask us, that’s a win-win in our book! An informed potential prospect is that much closer to becoming a happy paying customer — and all because you took a little bit of time to make a page with great content and create an online presence.
2. Content ranks in Google
When it comes to search engine marketing, Google is king (sorry, Yahoo and Bing). As a result, it brings in more than a whopping 1 trillion (yes, trillion, with a T) queries every year from users all around the globe. With that number, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone in your area is doing a Google search to research your specific industry. Creating useful content and posting it to your site is the best way to reach those potential customers.
To start, digital marketers first have to do keyword research that’ll help them reach their target audience. Once you’ve compiled this list of keywords that’ll earn qualified traffic to your website, you can then create content around those specific keywords and optimize it for search engines.
Then, include a great Call-To-Action at the end of each page to encourage your viewers to convert into new prospects or customers. After that, you can submit your new pages to Google individually. That will help Google find them more quickly, which in turn, also helps them index your pages, showing them in search results. You can use tools like Google Analytics to help figure out how your content is doing.
Now you have to wait, which is arguably the most tedious part of the content creation process, but the bright side is that it also gives you time to tackle or pursue other important tasks — including more content production! With that in mind, an experienced marketing team like MuteSix can constantly work on new content to rank in Google every day. The more you post, the more you will attract viewers to your site — and every single one of them is a new potential customer.
3. Content is shareable on social media platforms.
No matter what type of business you run or brand you have, you should always be utilizing social media marketing. Twitter and Facebook are the two big dogs in social media and eCommerce, but you can also use Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. All of these social networks can help you immensely to promote the content from your site—it’s not just about the Facebook ads.
4. Content fuels SEO.
Search engines are the ‘go-to’ resource just about any time someone has a question, thought, or concern. This means that optimizing your content to appear in relevant searches can help you to attract new potential customers to your site. However, in order to fuel your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, you need to have strong, informative content.
You see, SEO revolves solely around keyword placement, website visitors, and backlinks, and your content enables you to create web pages that fuel each of these components. The truth is that without content, you would have nowhere to place your keywords, no page for your viewers to read, and no information for other webpages to link to. However, if you’re creating top-notch pieces of content that y our target audience is excited to engage with, you will find it’s not all that difficult to reach the top of the search engine results lists.
Content creating and SEO should always go hand-in-hand. When you consider your audience first and foremost, you’ll be able to come up with great content that provides clear value to your audience. And if your target audience is engaging with the content you create, your SEO strategy will be that much more successful — trust us on this one.
5. Content makes you an industry authority.
When you create useful content for your website and utilize copywriting, you are essentially telling the world that you know a lot about a certain topic. That topic is your industry. If you’re a veterinarian, you may choose to discuss different brands of dog food. If you’re a dentist, you could give advice on which toothpaste is best for sensitive teeth. If you’re a clothing designer, you could write about the hottest fashion trends.
All of these are viable options because they demonstrate a level of expertise in an industry. And that expertise goes a long way. And you can even create an option for subscribers so that they stay updated on the content that you or your bloggers are putting out.
With so many powerful benefits that come from content marketing, it’s easy to see why more and more brands are making moves to develop a great content marketing strategy for their brand. No matter how big or small your company is or what industry you’re in, you can start using content marketing today to reach and engage your target demographic and reach your metrics. Need help getting started? Check out MuteSix — an award-winning ad agency filled with marketing professionals. MuteSix helps marketers to think big, execute smart, and deliver growth. If you’re ready to take your own business to the next level, MuteSix has your back!
Sources:
https://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic
https://about.google/our-story/#:~:text=The%20Google%20story%20begins%20in,year%20they%20struck%20a%20partnership
https://www.upmoney.co.uk/loans/bad-credit-loans
https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics?=&hubs_post=blog.hubspot.com%2Fmarketing%2Fcontent-creation&hubs_post-cta=behind%20the%20curve&_ga=2.9050869.1351574967.1612109970-62942650.1607994535&_conv_v=vi%3A1*sc%3A19*cs%3A1612167822*fs%3A1607994534*pv%3A26*exp%3A%7B%7D*ps%3A1612163780&_conv_s=si%3A19*sh%3A1612167821983-0.7116924236507194*pv%3A1