- Jamie
What is Content Marketing and Why is it Important for Your Business?
Content marketing has become a cornerstone of digital marketing. What is content marketing? It uses valuable, relevant content to reach your ideal customer. How is this different from other digital marketing methods? Although it is undoubtedly helpful in the sales cycle, it is not there to sell directly. Content marketing is there to answer questions, solve problems, dive deeper into a subject, process, or product application, and offer new ideas and resources your audience finds valuable.
What can content marketing do for you?
Connect with your audience and help build a relationship
Build Awareness of your brand with your ideal customers
Build Loyalty with existing customers or audiences as you continue to address a need
Increase website traffic and brand reach
Help generate quality leads and boost sales as many questions someone might have already answered.
Build trust with the audience by sharing expertise and positioning your brand as a thought leader in your industry
How does content marketing fit into your buyer's journey?
Content marketing is ideal because it can reach every touchpoint in the buyer's journey, and that is what makes it work so well. Content can be created to address someone in Awareness to introduce your brand or someone ready to purchase, and can preemptively address pain points and help smooth the buyer's journey.
Content marketing is extremely cost-effective.
One BIG advantage of content marketing is that it is highly cost-effective. It is one of the most cost-effective means of digital marketing and is considered money well spent by both small and large companies, with over 90% of companies using content marketing (DemandMetric).
How cost-effective is it? Also according to Demand Metric, "Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing" and "per dollar spent, generates approximately three times as many leads as traditional marketing."
Three Great Content Marketing Examples
Are you still trying to figure out where to start? Check out these examples of content marketing that demonstrate how to use it to connect with an audience and offer actual value.
On their blog, Nike Journal, Nike offers stories that connect with their audience and are perfectly aligned with their mission "to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world."
Sephora's Beauty Quizzes and Buying Guides
I'm a beauty product enthusiast, so this one speaks to me. Not sure what you need for a particular issue? Try a quiz. Want to learn more before making a purchase? Explore the buying guide. This content tool expertly addresses the bumps any customer might experience along the marketing funnel and helps usher them past in a fun and interactive way.
Nucor's "Minds of Steel" Series
This is an excellent example of content marketing that genuinely understands its audience and the content they want to see. Nucor's content is B2B, so it connects with a somewhat different buyer's journey that is longer and involves more steps and decision-makers.
Considering the above examples, how can you use content marketing to show your ideal customers how you fit in their world?
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