Importance of content marketing

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing process that realizes and acknowledges the fact that most consumers are now capable of completely disregarding the “noise” of the marketing efforts they are being exposed to on a daily basis.  It is a technique that involves creating and curating unique, relevant content that your customers will find useful and valuable.  It is the art of communicating with your potential customers without directly selling to them.  Instead of simply selling your services and products, you are giving information to your prospective customers that can teach them something.  If done correctly, you will be marketing without interrupting your customers’ lives and you could ultimately be rewarded with their business, support and loyalty.

Why is content marketing important?

• Content Educates Your Audience :
Education is the first step a potential customer takes when deciding whether a product or service is right for them. Before they can make a choice, they need to fully understand the options available to them. This means you need to have content that properly educates audience members on what you can provide.
Educational content typically takes the form of blog posts, product pages, your home page, and your company’s ‘about’ pages. However, it may also include tutorials, reviews, and other content that provides your customers with the resources they need to make educated purchasing decisions. Educational content should focus on teaching your target audience more about your business and offerings.
To educate your audience through the content you create, you want to focus on the questions or concerns they may have. When addressing your target audience, consider what problems they might be trying to solve and how your products or services relieve those issues. Your educational content should focus on the solutions you provide, and how you can make their lives easier.

• Content Fuels SEO:
Search engines are a go-to resource just about any time someone has a question or concern. This means that optimizing your content to appear in relevant searches can help you attract new leads to your website. However, in order to fuel your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, you need to have strong content.
SEO revolves around keyword placement, backlinks, and website visitors, and your content enables you to create web pages that fuel each of these components. Without content, you’d have nowhere to place your keywords, no page for your visitors to read, and no information for other websites to link to. However, if you’re creating awesome pieces of content that your target audience is excited to engage with, you’ll find it’s not hard to reach the top of the search engine results lists.

• Content Drives Social Media Strategies

Your social media platforms are one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. As a powerful tool for establishing genuine relationships with your customer base, social media gives you a direct pathway to have conversations, get feedback, and push new leads to your website. However, this is all fueled by strong content creation.

Your content enables you to take your social media conversations deeper. While there is only so much you can say in a Tweet or Facebook post, great content encourages your audience to follow through to learn more. This helps you establish a better connection with your target audience. Plus, you can also gain more visitors to your website, where you can collect their information and bring them into your sales funnel.

Your social media strategy should leverage content that provides a high amount of value to your target audience, such as this example from Buffer’s Twitter profile. While content is crucial for developing strong connections, you also need to remember that your audience wants information they can participate in. If you’re simply posting links to your content, you can’t expect to see high amounts of engagement.

·        Bonus: Content Builds Backlinks

Backlinks, or links from an external website back to your content, are an important part of bringing new traffic to your site. A backlink back to your site can encourage a visitor of another article or website to click through and learn more about you.

Of course, you’ll only see backlinks when your content contains ideas, opinions, or information that is worth sharing. If you’re creating mediocre content or simply relaying information that your audience can find elsewhere on the web, you’re going to struggle to get other websites to link to you. This means that you’ll have a more difficult time attracting new attention and establishing authority online.

Backlinks, like the example below, can also contribute to your SEO strategy. They show Google and other search engines that you create content worth recommending. The more backlinks you have, the more authority a search engine will assume your page holds.

Your content is the foundation of your digital marketing strategy. Without it, you’re going to struggle to attract the attention you need to collect leads and convert them into paying customers. When you create great pieces of content, however, you’ll be more successful in your other digital marketing efforts.