Content marketing is a low-cost, long-term, and client-focused strategy for driving website traffic and leads. It is critical to successful small business inbound marketing in an era where communication is a cacophony rather than a conversation.
In the 1970s, it was said that the typical person viewed 500 to 1,600 advertisements every day. In 2021, there aren’t any official numbers available. However, the average person is expected to see between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements each day. So it's no wonder that adblocking software is used by 11% of the world's internet-connected population. Quick confession: your’s truly runs one and has for years!
People are hyperaware of advertisements and sales pitches with more means to interact than ever before, and they don't like it. So, before you can earn their money, you must first win their heart. This is why content marketing is essential.
When done correctly, content marketing delivers a variety of benefits that combine to create a sales-friendly atmosphere.
Why content marketing is essential to small businesses
- It fosters trust more effectively than interruption/disruption methods (e.g., ads)
- Content aids in the ranking of websites higher in search results
- It lowers the cost per lead
- It generates versatile collateral that can be utilized across all marketing and sales channels
Content marketing must connect to the core business purpose – to serve customers and to have an impact on the bottom line.
Someone is responsible for bringing your offering to their attention
When done correctly and for the right reasons, content marketing fosters trust. Suppose your small business is targeting fellow businesses (B2B clients). In that case, the individual doing the research must have faith that the offering they are receiving will function and will reflect favorably on them when they bring it into the organization. The daring individual who discovered a novel solution is responsible for some of the success in operational KPIs.
This is why many think B2B and B2C marketing are similar. You're not simply discussing business; you're talking about someone's personal wants and difficulties. Content marketing enables you to showcase case studies of your work, thought leadership in your sector, and insights that give a person, not a corporation, the confidence to invest in your product.
More than a product presentation or a catalog, appealing to and empathizing with your audience's problems is required. Content marketing enables you to take a step back from the nuts and bolts of your product and investigate the vision and drives that drive what you do. And that’s what people believe and buy into.
Other kinds of marketing lack the breathing room that content marketing provides to demonstrate rather than tell clients how good you are.
Content that builds trust
- Blogs
- Client testimonials
- Collaborations with other trusted names
- Case studies
- Webinars and podcasts
- Thought leadership whitepapers
Content marketing enables B2B firms to demonstrate that they care about the same issues as their clients. Building relationships is crucial in B2B since you seldom sell in volume like B2C often does. Most B2B firms are specialized rather than mass market, so while the number of clients is less, the value per client is considerably higher.
Types of content used to research B2B purchasing decisions - Demand Gen Report
According to an IBM Digital Experience Survey, 56% of marketers feel that customized content encourages better levels of engagement. The more you can do to connect and create relationships with your audience, the simpler it will be to achieve sales that lead to collaborations, upsell chances, and other benefits.
We play in the Google sandbox
In our experience, B2B firms with “traditional” client bases believe that inbound possibilities do not exist or are not worth pursuing. This may be true in some extremely rare and specific circumstances. However, for the vast majority of B2B firms, clients are looking for answers on the web rather than the good ‘ole boys' network. This is just going to become worse for future generations who rely on finding solutions online rather than asking other people.
Content marketing helps you to optimize your website content in order to attract new clients. One advantage of Google's dominance in the search arena is that it is now easier than ever to understand the rules in search engine optimization (SEO).
Again, content marketing allows you to target very particular or extensive search goals without diluting your message or having to completely rebuild your website for each campaign. Blogs, webinars, pillar pages, geographic landing pages, and downloadables may all be utilized to assist larger SEO goals and propel your product or service pages to the top page of search results pages (SERPs) for even the most competitive phrases.
And unlike pay-per-click ads (PPC), SEO gains via your content will continue to drive results long after the work is done.
Content marketing is inexpensive, cost-effective, and promotes long-term growth.
Quality content combined with an effective SEO strategy will create long-term effects that compound over time. Once developed, content has nearly limitless potential to deliver earned, organic traffic to your site without competing for top ad placements.
So, while the initial cost of content marketing may appear costly, compared to paid ads, video marketing, and traditional marketing, content marketing is regarded as one of the most cost-effective methods.
Every piece of material you generate may be recycled, updated, and repurposed for a fraction of the cost of creation. In contrast to other marketing strategies, the more you use your content, the less expensive it gets in the long term.
Content marketing, if done well, is an asset-focused investment that provides value over time.
When we consider ROI in content marketing, things become murky. All too often, marketers attempt to combine the financial and strategic worth of content into a single metric: campaign ROI — Content is generated or created to promote a campaign, and the value of that content is determined by the success of that effort.
A whitepaper that supports a campaign provides monetary value to that campaign. However, it provides strategic value when it is added to your resource collection as a downloadable item. So, while assessing your content marketing, make sure you understand the problem you're attempting to solve.
Once generated, your content assets may be used in various ways across a wide range of platforms. You can optimize a video for both Facebook and your website, convert the transcript into a blog post, and so on.
Content marketing works
Buyer-centric content marketing is multiplying, quantifiable, and scalable. It regularly outperforms nearly every other strategy, making it one of the finest foundations for marketing success. From blog posts to podcasts and everything in between, creating original, consistent, and valuable content is the most effective method to engage with your audience.
If you think that content marketing might be a good fit for your small business, reach out to us for a free consultation. We would be happy to see if we are a good fit.
