Defined as the creation and distribution of online material, content marketing can be a savvy way to build your brand and promote your company. Whilst content marketing may not necessarily promote your brand directly, it can stimulate interest in related products and services.
Although many businesses still rely on more traditional marketing methods to reach their target market, content marketing can enhance any company’s marketing strategy and enable them to reach new audiences. Indeed, content marketing can have numerous benefits for business and can enable you to increase sales and turnover considerably.
Educating Consumers And Clients
A pushy sales pitch doesn’t always have the desired effect, and it can sometimes put potential clients and customers off making a purchase or ordering a service. By using content marketing, you can push your company’s deliverables with more subtlety and increased effectiveness.
When using content marketing, you have the opportunity to educate your audience. Whether you’re explaining what your business does, why it’s beneficial for them or the latest industry news, content marketing gives you the opportunity to educate your target market. Once they are familiar with the role your company plays within the industry, their knowledge acts as a form of encouragement. Highlighting how and why your products are services are needed plants the seed within the prospects mind, and can subsequently lead to increased sales.
Establish Company Credibility
When B2B clients or consumers are looking for a new supplier, they want to know they’re dealing with a reputable and reliable firm. This is even more important when you’re providing professional services. If an individual is searching for legal advice, for example, they’ll want to ensure their attorney is credible and successful.
Content marketing is an effective way of establishing credibility, both the company’s and your own. As well as promoting content on your own site, this material can be published and shared via other mediums, and this increases your credibility significantly.
For many people, seeing your content being shared by well-known names, industry peers and established companies imply endorsement or subconscious approval. As a result, the author and your company begin to establish even great credibility in the minds of your target audience.
Increase Engagement
For businesses, engaging with their target demographic is the first step to making a sale. In fact, engagement in itself can be extremely valuable and often signifies the beginning of an on-going professional relationship. Particularly important when you want to retain customers who will make repeat purchases or orders, facilitating engagement is vital to increasing turnover.
By creating and publishing insightful content, you can not only increase engagement, you can facilitate meaningful engagement. Original and informative content is thought-provoking and stimulating, which makes it ideal to be shared with others.
Furthermore, encouraging your target market to provide feedback on your content and to share their own ideas creates a two-way relationship, which can be more effective in the long-term. When customers feel valued and recognized, they are more loyal to a brand. As a result, they are more likely to return again and again in order to make repeat purchases.
Facilitate Inbound Recruiting
Since the rise of the internet, recruitment has changed dramatically. The vast majority of people now begin a job search via Google, so having relevant and unique content online is essential if you want to attract the top candidates.
Combining content marketing and company branding, inbound recruiting increases brand recognition amongst potential new hires and creates a positive image of your company as a good employer.
With the right content, you can educate potential employees about what it’s like to work for your company, give an insight into development opportunities within the company and deliver this information via the relevant channels. Whilst you should identify your target demographic when it comes to your products and services, it’s also important to determine who your targets are when you’re looking for new employees. This will help you to determine what type of content will be most relevant to them and which channels should be used to reach them.
Using content marketing to facilitate inbound recruiting is an effective way to find new employees in the short-term, but it also takes a long-term view. Candidates may browse the job market before they’re ready to start applying for roles, so getting your content out there on a consistent basis establishes your brand as an employer straight away. With regular content being published, inbound recruiting enables you to build a relationship with potential new employees from the outset.
Increase Your Reach
As content marketing material can be shared time and time again, it’s a great way to increase your reach. Furthermore, the wide variety of channels that can be used to share your content ensures you’re able to reach a wider market than ever before.
If you post new content on your company blog, for example, it will only be read by those who visit your website and take a look at your blog. When you optimize this content, however, your blog post will appear in the search results of relevant keywords, thus ensuring that users who are actively looking for related products and services head straight to your content.
Similarly, once your content has been published on your blog, you can use platforms, such as social media, to share the content more widely, instead of simply relying on people to find the content if and when they visit your blog, which they may never do without a little push.
Although content marketing allows you to increase your reach by sharing the content, it also enables the content to be shared easily by other people. People often pay great mind to companies and products which are endorsed by family, friends or peers, so enabling users to share your content furthers its reach and adds an extra reputational boost. As a result, you’re able to promote your brand amongst new audiences, reach your core market more effectively and give clients or consumers the chance to get to know your company and your brand identity.
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