Monday 28 January, 2019
Content marketing is massive, and it’s a game changer - Statistics show that 89% of B2B marketers use content marketing to increase leads and generate sales (Source: Content Marketing Institute). If your marketing team aren’t one of the 89% you’re missing out. If you are using content marketing and not reaping the rewards, then you need to revisit your strategy - people either can’t find your content or they just don’t find it interesting.
What will good content deliver?
Content marketing is a trusted form of engagement for businesses and a cornerstone of any effective and multifaceted digital marketing strategy.
A well structured, well written and engaging content marketing campaign will excite and entice your audience. And that means you’ll:
- Build brand awareness
- Grow your audience
- Increase trust and reassurance
- Increase search engine optimisation
- Expand your social media reach
- Grow your email list
- Build reputation
And, or course...
- Generate enquiries and sales
In this article I’m going to further examine some of the benefits of content marketing and how you can employ these tactics within your campaigns.
Using content marketing to generate sales and enquiries
Our clients often ask ‘Why should we use content marketing for our business?’. The majority of the time we’ll jump straight to the top key performance indicator listed on page one of their business plan: Generate £1 million new sales in Quarter 1 (or similar).
The next statement that often follows is ‘We can’t continually think of new and interesting things to say about our products and services - we don’t want to bore our audience, they’ll click off’.
Firstly, your website visitors are on your website because of your products or services. Therefore they’re already interested, so why not pique their curiosity further, get them excited about your business and why your company is so great.
Don’t ‘sell’
When using content marketing to grow your business you can’t ‘sell’ to the reader. You have to engage with your audience. If they want to read a service description, that’s why you have a service section on your website. If visitors want to read the specifications of a product, it’s the same principle.
Content is there to generate interest, to engage, to get people talking... and sharing.
Good content will do this, and done right you’ll generate those all important sales.
Building brand awareness with content marketing
So, good content sells - without selling. The better the content, the more brand awareness you’ll generate, and over time your brand will reach a much wider audience.
‘How can I create brand awareness using content marketing?’
Firstly, you need to define your brand itself, fully understand what makes your brand tick and why your audience will want to engage with it.
Your brand isn’t just your logo, it’s the way you do business, your company ethos and your vision, values and voice. But more than that, it’s what people think when they see your products and services.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
Your brand should engage the readers of your content, it should be memorable and clearly defined. Visitors will then notice your brand on other channels, building trust and reputation. And most importantly, once you’ve gained a visitors trust they’re more likely to share your content and brand with their friends and colleagues.
Increase search engine optimisation
How can content marketing increase SEO?
Search engine optimisation is the process undertaken to generate organic ‘free’ website traffic to your website. This organic traffic accounts for more than 80% of all outbound clicks from search engine results pages (specifically Google results pages). So why wouldn’t you want a piece of this pie?
Search engine optimisation is an essential part of content marketing. Thinking about SEO while developing your content marketing strategy will elevate your campaigns to the next level.
Once you have decided on the content that will make up your marketing campaign you will need to find out how your visitors are going to find your articles. Your audience will type specific keywords and phrases into search engines as well as search tools within social media channels. These keywords should form the backbone of your articles and should be used within headings, subheadings, captions and even image names.
In future articles I will provide insights into how to select the right search engine optimisation and keyword strategies for your content marketing campaigns.
The end goal - a sale or a share
So, you’ve written what you think is a great article. You know your business, products and your target audience inside and out, therefore you know how to interest them. But interest isn’t enough, they’ve read your article, now you need to convert their interest into a sale or a share, and that’s the tricky bit.
Summarise the key points within your article at the end. Reiterating these points will strengthen their desire to take action.
Give the reader a reason to return to read more or, even better, click through to another article, product or service.
And how about the hook to get your potential customer to share your article. This can be as simple as using a question that relates to their friends or colleagues, for example ‘we’ve found that other businesses using content marketing write up to four articles a month, how many articles do your competitors write?’.
In summary
Content marketing is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies you can employ. Writing the right content and delivering it on your own website and then sharing on your social media channels will not only generate engagement, it will generate sales.
I would be missing a trick if I didn’t follow my own advice - use the links below to share this article or, if you need advice on your next content marketing campaign, or if you’re new to content marketing, give me a call on 01727 810254 or complete the form below. I’d love to hear from you.
Author:
Alec Butler, Partner
Tonic Fusion, St Albans, Hertfordshire