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Today, companies cannot afford such a luxury as not having their website and pages on social media – at the very least on Facebook and LinkedIn, and at most on all platforms where their target audience is.

This is where you can build bridges with people – long-term, positive, friendly, warm relationships that result in a potential client not moving across to your competitors but staying with and protecting your brand instead.

What can contribute to this valuable relationship? Content marketing. In this article, we will delve into what it is and what benefits it can bring to absolutely any marketing strategy.

A Brief Rundown

Content marketing can be defined as promotion with content. It sounds deceptively simple but implies much more.

First, there is the content component. These are materials like blog posts, articles, podcasts and videos. In general, this is information in written, audio or visual form. Together, these materials contribute to your marketing goals.

Image Source: E2M

The main question is HOW to communicate information about products and services so that people want to become your customers. 

Content Marketing Statistics

Why do so many people use content when trying to nurture an audience? The biggest reason is that content reaches people where they spend most of their time (almost seven hours a day): in online environments. 

According to Statista, there are approximately 4.66 billion people in the digital info space worldwide. This means that almost half of the world’s population is connected by gadgets, which is a massive market.

 

 

Image Source: Statista

The very best decision you could make is to provide content that appears directly on mobile devices and the social media platforms people use. 

What’s more, according to Content Marketing Institute, 72 percent of market participants agree that content marketing increases engagement. An impressive figure, isn’t it?

Why Is Excellent Content Beneficial for Any Business?

1. Building Trust

When you create value by talking to people without expecting anything in return, your audience unconsciously becomes loyal.

When content appears in the right place and at the right time to the right audience, it improves a company’s reputation. Perfect content triggers positive associations with your business.

2. High Returns on Small Investments

Even if you hire good freelancers to create your content, it will still be much cheaper than other forms of advertising. Content marketing consistently attracts 3x more leads.

All of these leads will become part of a much larger ecosystem that will eventually lead to social media reposts, new perspectives and great brand awareness.

3. Forming an Expert Image

Interesting, useful and meaningful content inevitably leads to a business being perceived as an industry leader. Users trust an expert opinion and are more likely to pay for a product or service from a brand that focuses on practical solutions to real-world problems.

4. Boosting Natural Links

The more articles and posts there are on your blog, the more likely people will share links to your publications. Moreover, you can also use external content marketing by publishing expert articles with a link to your website.

5. Building Brand Reputation

Content marketing, more than any other technique, positively affects a startup’s reputation. It’s crucial to set a high bar: Write quality materials and don’t fall into despair due to low redership during the first months. Your efforts will show results over time.

You can write a blog in any style – friendly and informal, witty, humorous or formal. The main thing is to stay true to one tone, as it becomes an integral part of your brand image.

6. Improving Other Marketing Channels

Without content, it’s not easy to leverage other modern marketing channels. For example, take a look at any brand’s social media profile. They consistently share blog posts and video content.

Paid advertising is another content-powered channel, especially on Facebook, where the most popular ad formats are videos and posts.

And let’s not forget word of mouth, perhaps the most powerful marketing channel of all. If people often see your content on other marketing channels, they are more likely to share it with friends and colleagues.

7. “Quenching the Thirst” of the Market

Users, including potential customers, spend nearly 20 percent of their time surfing content online. And almost 70 percent research blogs of the brands they are interested in. More than half of them read content marketing headlines at least once a month.

What we want to say is this: The business that satisfies the desires of the market rules it. If people want great, personalized content that answers questions about a product or service, just give it to them. 

Google’s algorithm evaluates content according to three criteria: expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. So be that reputable and trustworthy business.

Tips To Make Your Content Pure Brilliance

To make your content great, answer these questions from the user’s point of view: Is it relevant? Does it have an educational function? Does it have value? Here are some more tips:

• Don’t post bad content: A nightmare for any business owner would be having an indifferent audience. High-quality content allows you to urgently solve the problems of your target audience, bypassing indifference and promoting closer interaction.
• Avoid vanity: Content MUST make perfect sense. You can check key performance indicators (KPIs) that deliver real business value – they will reflect the quality of your content. But beware of vanity metrics like empty traffic, likes and shares, which are less useful.
• Be transparent. High-quality content is easy to understand and has no hidden agenda – your audience sees the content as it is intended to be seen.
• Consider your audience: Your audience cares about their problems and questions. Try to give people what THEY want, not what YOU want to say.
• Diversify formats: How does your audience want to consume content? Are your site visitors interested in reading long texts or watching a video? Test all the approaches. Try to create a combination of text with a lot of jokes and formal articles, shoot TikToks and add music to a video or try time-lapse reports. If you decide to stick to one format, approach each piece of content a little differently. For example, if you make YouTube reports, try to add stickers to a video. All this will keep your audience engaged.
• Include cultural context: Good content is always adapted to the target audience. Appreciate your audience’s culture, ideas, beliefs and principles. That respect triggers lasting and fruitful relationships.

Summary

Content marketing is one of the most promising tools for promoting a business on the internet, and it won’t lose its relevance over time.

For businesses, this is a long-distance game, and it requires a competent approach, regularity, plenty analytics and a good understanding of your target audience. But winning the game is worth the gamble.