Regardless of the size of your business, you’re interested in learning how to increase sales. Even businesses that operate only on a local level need to reach their customers to stay relevant. And those marketing efforts are becoming increasingly digital. As the claim goes, you satisfy individuals where they are. That was inevitable with the mainstream nature of social media and web browsing.
As a result of this “digital first” change, material advertising and marketing have become crucial. Material is the currency of electronic advertising, and we can not exist digitally without it. Web content has become so critical to advertising and marketing that a new generation of material business owners constructed their companies only on web content. This sensation is similar to the media entrepreneurs of the past as well as consists of a selection of services ranging from affiliate marketing to registration services.
Content can be presented in many formats, including blog posts, infographics, podcasts, videos, and downloadable content such as webinars, e-books, white papers, and industry reports. While not all of these content formats are appropriate for B2C brands, they use many of them to some degree in different ways. For example, in addition to product videos and commercials, B2C brands also use product comparisons, ratings, reviews, etc.
Seven types of content marketing channels
To make content marketing help for your business, you need a strategy that gets your content to your audience. To make sure the content you create gets noticed, here are seven types of content marketing channels that should be part of your strategy:
1. Website
The website serves as the starting point for your content marketing initiatives. Can publish any content you create on your website or blog. For example, publish articles, infographics, and gated content on your blog. Also, if you use third-party services for videos, podcasts, and webinars, they will be embedded in your blog posts or other parts of the website to create a cohesive content experience.
Here, you can try out different content types and formats. In addition to articles, videos, and audio files, you can experiment with lists, checklists, curation, repurposed content, infographics, and interviews.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO)
The function of search engine optimization (SEO) in content marketing is enormous. It determines the success of your content marketing strategy, from ensuring proper technical and on-page SEO practices on the website to a comprehensive off-page SEO strategy (link building, guest blogging, etc.).
Combining these aspects will increase your rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). A successful SEO strategy considers a diverse content mix to leave no stone unturned.
3. Email marketing
According to the Data & Marketing Association’s (DMA) Marketer Email Tracker 2019 report, the ROI of email marketing is 420%, meaning for every dollar spent on email marketing, you generate $42 in revenue. And these results are possible because of email marketing’s powerful audience segmentation, targeting, and automation capabilities.
Email marketing can help you distribute your content to your target audience. You can section your audience based on the stage of the Buyer’s Journey and the appropriate type of content or offer.
4. Marketing for social media
Can use social media platforms to boost your content distribution efforts. If you post organically on social media platforms, you must focus on engaging formats to increase your reach. For example, since videos are preferred by social media platforms and achieve more reach than text posts, you should use more.
You can also run paid ads to get your content to the audience that is relevant to you using the platform’s targeting features. In addition, social media is a powerful channel to initiate a dialogue with your audience (via chats) and build a community (via groups).
5. Digital advertising
Digital advertising consists of many channels and formats to engage with your audience. One of the most common digital advertising formats is search engine marketing (SEM), where your ads appear on the top and bottom of SERPs for specific keywords. However, since SEM is not the most effective format for content marketing, let’s look at other options.
You can also get your content to your audience through display ads and native ads. Making sure your content fits the context of the web page where your ad appears will significantly increase the likelihood of visitors coming to your site. Programmatic advertising developments have allowed advertisers and publishers to automate much of the activity.
6. Mobile marketing
With over 3.5 billion smartphone users worldwide, it’s a given that marketers need to ensure that their content marketing strategy is also suitable for mobile devices. The basics of mobile marketing from a content marketing perspective include designing a mobile-friendly or responsive website (that adapts to any device size) and emails that are readable on all devices, as well as ensuring that the mobile experience is not compromised.
If your company has a mobile app, you can use it to distribute content via push notifications and the onboarding process. You can also tweak your app from time to time to ensure a better user experience based on customer feedback.
7. Content reuse
You can convert your content into different formats to diversify your content mix. You can convert a blog post into an infographic and a video. If you recently hosted a webinar, you can upload it to YouTube and distribute the slide deck on SlideShare. To increase the reach of your podcast, you can embed it on a website and include podcast/show notes to gain SEO benefits.
Read more : The Five Pillars Of Content Marketing
The 14 advantages of content marketing
While content marketing is crucial to digital success, the following benefits are significant and valuable to any business. These benefits apply across industries, although some may be outside your company’s digital strategy. Moreover, an appropriate digital strategy will emphasize some of these benefits over others.
The benefits of visibility
The top of the sales funnel starts with brand awareness. With a well-thought-out content strategy, even the smallest business can help its brand get discovered. At the same time, increased visibility allows your brand to play a more prominent role in industry discussions. That also holds for organizations that mainly offer a regional populace, particularly since there is generally competition.
Read more: Seven Core Elements Of A Successful Content Marketing Strategy
1. Enhanced visibility and also brand understanding
Among the benefits of content marketing is that it makes your business a lot more visible by publishing material in channels where people search for and eat web content. Over time, you will undoubtedly become known by more people. For example, let’s say you’re a boutique retailer. Most people in your market know the big sellers. But when they see your content, for example, on Facebook, they will be more willing to check out what you offer.
2. You have control over what your prospect is looking for
It’s essential to control the narrative about your brand. Digital marketing helps ensure that your content is found instead of your competitors. In turn, they will recognize that you are an expert in your niche. When expertise doesn’t matter, you can tell people why you’re the essential voice they should listen to.
3. Helps you build more and deeper relationships
Your content provides more opportunities to connect digitally with Internet users and allows them to get to know you better. It also encourages them to consume more of your content. It can take numerous forms depending on the type of content you choose, the forum, and your industry. Typically, people who pursue a hobby will need advice on materials or techniques at some point. An example would be a craft store. If the store demonstrates its expertise, it can become a go-to resource.
4. Build deeper trust through your content and help build loyal fans
Another benefit of content marketing is building trust. The more content you have, the more people will find ways to trust you and become your fans. After all, who will trust a company with no content on its website? Upon visiting your website, customers can gauge how much you know about your topic. And if they have a choice, they’ll likely go elsewhere. Besides, wouldn’t you rather have “fans” of your content? Their influence is precious.
5. Develop more authority for your brand
The more regularly you post content on a particular business topic over time, the more you will be seen as an expert. That will help you build authority both in the public eye and in the eyes of search engines. From a human perspective, people are more likely to search your content to get answers to their questions. In turn, Google and other search engines will improve your ranking because they will visit you more often.
6. Generates referrals
When people share the content you create, consumers will likely make a purchase. If a customer, visitor, or fan likes a certain content, they can easily share the link and recommend it to others. The same goes for those who link to your content if they find it valuable. Having content has the potential to generate these types of referrals.
While this sharing is one of the essential benefits of content marketing for B2C brands, it is even more critical for B2B companies. One factor for this is the high level of research that the typical B2B decision-maker does before reaching out to sales reps. These buyers often want to be convinced that a specific product or service is suitable for their company.
The tactical marketing benefits
Overall, the benefits of content marketing go far beyond mere visibility. It’s one thing to get your name out there and another to establish your brand as noteworthy. That requires strategic marketing, as your content and other efforts need to be distributed correctly. Overall, though, the study proves that content marketing = good marketing.
7. Improves SEO
One of the most significant benefits of content marketing, especially for your website, is improving search engine optimization. Studies have shown that websites that publish blogs are indexed a whopping 434% more pages by search engines than corporate websites that don’t have blogs.
There are several reasons for this. For one, there are more opportunities for these websites to use keywords. Product or service descriptions don’t get you very far: even if you put keywords in them, there needs to be more room. That could lead to keyword overload, which backfires. On the other hand, Google and other search engines usually prefer long content.
8. More website traffic
Website traffic is another benefit of content marketing. While you should always produce high-quality content (it ruins your credibility), you also should pay attention to the importance of content. I’m talking here primarily about long-written content that attracts visitors to your website. Ads are important, but people need a reason to stay on your site or visit it spontaneously for information.
The effectiveness of this technique is apparent. If a company publishes 16 or more blog posts a month, it can attract almost 3.5 times more visitors than its competitors, who publish four or fewer articles. Why does this work? Your website becomes more than just a place to get basic information. It becomes a destination. That gives you the best opportunity to make an impression on your customers.
9. More leads
Here’s the deal. People love to learn about a company or product before they buy it. Samples and other methods work to some extent, but they could be better. On the other hand, content marketing gives people something valuable that they can access anytime, anywhere. Those impressions are essential, even if it’s just a good laugh.
And here’s another thing: Some content can even be used as lead magnets. For B2B brands, this often means providing a whitepaper or access to a seminar. You can get a free chapter from my latest book on my website. Either way, your customers can try something at the low cost of lead information. That’s why we’ve found that brands get three times more leads from content marketing than other marketing methods.
10. Helps educate your customers to increase conversion rates and make more sales
For most people, it’s imperative to research the available options and choose the one that best meets their needs. That is true for B2C marketing, especially in areas such as electronics, personal care, automotive, and others where the purchase price is high, or the choice is difficult. For example, finding the right skincare products can be complex for some people. Would you instead buy something you need to figure out will work or a (near) sure thing?
B2B brands also rely heavily on content marketing. If the stakes are already high for certain consumer products, the stakes are even higher for businesses. For this reason, high-quality content marketing is the most effective technique. It’s why B2B companies spend an average of 29% of their budget on content marketing.
Still, trying to convince? Content marketing generates inbound leads. These have a conversion rate of nearly 15%, as opposed to the 1.7% generated by outbound leads. Especially considering the cost of generating outbound leads, the high conversion rate is one of the enormous benefits of content marketing.
11. Supports your social media presence
Content gives you something to talk about – and be talked about – on social media, increasing the number of people who engage with your content and followers. These activities provide much-needed online visibility, whether your content is commented on, shared, or critiqued. The more followers you have, the more likely your brand will attract the attention of influencers and other key contacts.
The financial benefits
Like any other investment, a business should consider content as such. However, when you think about it, content marketing offers substantial financial benefits that translate into a better bottom line. Ultimately, the financial benefits of content marketing include the ability to reduce lead costs and improve profitability.
12. Content marketing helps you build an increasingly valuable digital asset: Content
Once you create content, you can revise and repurpose it repeatedly, increasing your ROI exponentially. In the industry, this is called evergreen content. The advantage is twofold. First, evergreen content stays relevant over time, so its impact on revenue improves relative to the amount of money spent. Second, your employees need less time to work with evergreen content. Even if the content needs to be revised or changed, it’s faster than starting from scratch.
13. More efficient use of the marketing budget
Everyone can agree that marketing is expensive. That is especially true for print and broadcast media, where you must pay for the production costs. At the same time, these media sometimes lead to immediate results, although they indeed lead to inbound leads if done in the correct format. In contrast, content marketing is cost-effective: it’s 62% cheaper than other marketing methods. It also yields three times more leads per dollar than paid search campaigns. So, all in all, it’s better value for money.
What does this mean for strategy? Simply put, you need to do a lot of content marketing. That way, you’ll enjoy relatively low-cost leads while having an evident brand. If word gets out about your products and services, they will find their way to you rather than the other way around. You never know who might need your products and services.
14. Better performance marketing
Finally, among the benefits of content marketing is better overall performance. That is improved by more effective retargeting with each additional website visitor or email subscriber. Cookies, at least for now, are your friend because they help you track leads across the web. In many cases, this allows you to remain in the appropriate place at the correct time. Often, customers remember to look something up even though they need more time to do so. As a result, they don’t. With retargeting, you can send reminders at just the right time.
A final word on the benefits of content marketing
Content marketing offers benefits that add up over time. Ultimately, you’ll save resources, increase sales and ROI, and improve search engine rankings simultaneously. But it all takes a lot of effort and experimentation.
A good starting point for your content marketing initiative is to take stock of your current situation in terms of time, budget, resources, goals, and how you can create a framework for content marketing under current circumstances. Once you start seeing results, you can scale what works and keep adjusting your strategy.
Advantages of Content Marketing FAQs
Q: What is the purpose of content marketing?
Content marketing aims to attract new and retain existing customers by creating and preparing valuable and relevant content. With the right content, businesses can build a loyal customer base that will likely buy from them again and recommend their products or services to others. In today’s competitive marketplace, you can use content marketing to establish a brand as a thought leader, drive traffic to a website, and generate leads for sales teams. It can also help improve search engine rankings and visibility.
Q: What are the three benefits of marketing?
Marketing is essential for any business that wants to be successful. It helps businesses reach new customers, build brand awareness, and stand out from the competition. Marketing also helps businesses retain existing customers and increase the lifetime value of customers. In short, marketing is essential for business growth. There are many different marketing channels, and each has its benefits. It comes down to finding the right mix of channels for your business and using them effectively.
Q: What are the benefits of content creation?
The benefits of content creation are:
1. Building a brand and increasing awareness of your business.
2. Driving more traffic and engagement and better search engine rankings.
3. Strengthening your brand and positioning you as a thought leader in your field.
Get Started Today With SEO Bea
Seobea helps you increase the number of people who visit your site by finding, creating, and promoting content relevant to the niche you’re targeting. We provide monthly reports on the performance of all our content marketing clients. We collect information directly through our own analytics tool and through Google Search Console, and then we present it in an easily readable format. You can check out the Keywords tab on the Content marketing page to see which words you’re currently ranking for on Google. The report also shows how far you’ve come. Use this report to keep track of the progress of our content marketing services.
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