When creating your business marketing strategy, it’s important to choose tactics that have valuable long-term impact. You will heavily influence the tactics you employ based on your goals — maybe you’re looking to attract more traffic to your website or generate more qualified leads in a cost-effective way. These are common goals we see across many industries. Content marketing is a type of marketing that can help your business achieve these goals.
Content marketing revolves around creating and distributing tailored content pieces that hold relevance and value for your target audience. These pieces come in various forms, including blog posts, case studies, white papers, and infographics, among others. Such diverse formats ensure engaging and informative content for your audience.
The ultimate goal of content marketing is to provide free, valuable content to your audience in order to build trust and drive new leads. By delivering value to your audience, you encourage them to continue to seek you out because they appreciate your expertise, entertainment value, or relatability.
This is a great approach because it provides long-term ROI, is cost effective, helps to build brand credibility, and supports social media marketing and search marketing efforts. Including these types of marketing in your strategy can yield long-term ROI, cost-effectiveness, brand credibility, and support for your social media and search marketing efforts.
Benefits of Content Marketing
Content marketing can serve several important purposes such as improving your search engine optimization (SEO), building thought leadership in your industry, and generating leads.
Cost Effective
This cost-effective tactic works well because high-quality content continues to benefit your business long after you create it, making it a worthwhile investment. Unlike temporary advertising campaigns, content marketing continues to attract and engage your audience over time, long after you’ve pressed publish!
Support Your SEO
Effective, SEO-friendly content marketing can boost your business’ search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find you online. Content marketing gives you the benefit of increased visibility and the opportunity to outrank your competitors in search engines like Google. Every business can benefit from more organic traffic, and content marketing is a great way to achieve it!
Build Thought Leadership
Content marketing is a great way to build thought leadership in your industry by sharing insights and expertise through long-form content. The goal is to share engaging content that addresses your audience’s pain points, desires and needs, all while building trust and showcasing your expertise.
Generate Leads
By creating and publishing engaging content that drives traffic and builds trust, you can generate more leads. It’s important to include high quality call to actions (CTAs) that are most likely to convert your website users or social media followers into real-life, paying customers.
Common Content Types and Why to Use Them
There are many forms of content marketing, and each has their own benefits. Here are a few of our favourites. No matter your industry or goals, these content types can be tailored to meet your needs.
1. Blog Posts
Businesses across all industries widely publish blog posts, making them one of the most popular forms of content marketing. A blog post is a short-form piece of written content that covers a specific topic. They are usually written in a more conversational tone of voice and aim to both educate and engage the reader.
A great blog post will cover a topic that appeals to their target audience, while aiming to connect with the reader. Blog posts can be written about a variety of topics and are an easy way to provide value to your target audience. Blogs are one of the best forms of content for improving your business’ SEO as you can craft blogs that directly address specific topics your audience has been searching for. Blogs are a great way to increase your page views, in fact long-form content like blogs generate eight times more page views, three times more social media shares, and nine times more leads than short-form content!
2. Case Studies
You can use case studies to provide real-life examples of how your product or service helped solve a customer’s pain point. Case studies explain the process of resolving a problem and outline the end benefits experienced by the user.
A great case study will be relevant to your target audience and their pain points, and will give a step-by-step account of how your product or service solved a specific problem. Case studies are a great example of social proof and can help build credibility by showcasing your expertise. Case studies are especially useful for service-based businesses because they show potential customers how they can benefit from using your service.
3. White Papers
Businesses create white papers to delve into specific topics or issues in detail. These documents serve as educational pieces and provide an excellent opportunity to showcase your business’ expertise. Companies often conduct extensive research for white papers, presenting specific data or information to support their stance on the topic.
A well-crafted white paper offers a detailed analysis of the subject matter, presented in clear, concise language for easy understanding. Utilizing white papers as a form of content marketing helps businesses establish thought leadership within their industries.
4. Infographics
Infographics are a visual way of communicating information, statistics, or concepts. They are an effective way to break down complex information into an easily digestible format. A well-designed infographic will be both visually appealing and effective at presenting the data in an easy-to-understand manner.
This type of content is especially useful for companies in data-driven industries such as tech or finance because they allow you to easily communicate the more complex aspects of your product or service to appeal to your target audience. You can use infographics to communicate information in a fun and light way for industries like real estate, food and beverage, beauty, and healthcare. Infographics offer incredible diversity in content and can be easily tailored to your business’ specific goals.
Build Your Business Through Content Marketing
Don’t overlook content marketing as a powerful tool in your business’s overall marketing strategy, especially if you aim for customer trust, visibility in search engines, and increased lead generation. The main benefit of content marketing is that when compared to paid media, it is a much more cost-effective marketing method that can reap huge benefits for your business.
If you’re looking to incorporate content marketing into your marketing plans, Nioma can help! We’ve worked with businesses in many different industries to create tailored content that converts. Learn more about our content marketing services here.
