Why Should You Be Using Content Marketing?
The landscape of marketing and online marketing strategies is constantly shifting.
It can be almost dizzying to keep up with what the experts say is the new best practice in digital marketing.
But among all the changing tides, experts all across the board have begun to notice that one method has remained effective above the others; consistently bringing in results even while the other marketing strategies jump in and out of popularity.
And that method is content marketing.
You likely already use it in your marketing efforts, but we wanted to tell you a little bit about why we have found content marketing to be the most effective plan of attack when trying to gain visibility and credibility in the business landscape.
Even in an era of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns dominating the landscape, we have found time and time again that content marketing reigns supreme.
Let us tell you why!
Sustainability Of Lead Generation
Some might tell you about the instant results you can gain through PPC campaigns. They are not wrong. But how consistently are they receiving those results? And do they find them to be sustainable? Even beyond the conclusion of their PPC campaign?
Certain situations, like marketing a sale with a limited timeline, may require the instant results that PPC provides. But the majority of digital marketing efforts are planned with sustainability in mind. And do PPC campaigns truly provide that stability? The answer is no.
Through the efforts content marketing and consistently putting out meaningful content that your customer base will find to be valuable, you can maintain constant traffic to your page, rank consistently in search engines, and stay on top of people’s minds when they go searching for the products and services that your company provides.
Customer Magnetism ran a 2 year study of their traffic comparing the traffic gained through PPC and the traffic gained through content marketing and the results are quite surprising.
While the results received during the life of the PPC campaign were favorable, as soon as the campaign concluded the paid traffic diminished rapidly, while the content traffic not only maintained its levels of success, they actually consistently climbed over time.
Consistency of ROI
Final results, like traffic and leads, are always the number one goal. But a close second would be the amount of funds it took to gain those results.
In other words, how much money was spent and how effectively was your money working for you? What was your ROI? And not surprisingly, this metric of success very much mirrors the timeline of the traffic study.
When planning and implementing a PPC campaign, you must allocate a large amount of funds to be spent over the lifetime of the campaign. This is not to say these funds are not well spent, as the results are tangible. But what if you could allocate those same funds over a much longer period of time to superior results?
Content marketing does require time and money. There is no getting around that. But by putting in the time and money to generate the content, you can then schedule that content over a longer period of time and no longer need to worry about allocating anymore time and money to it.
Many industry studies have compared the two methods, using the exact same amount of funds, and the difference is quite staggering.
By applying $10,000, for example, to each method, it has been found that the content marketing strategy tended to bring in 1000% the amount of traffic, 300%-400% the leads and users tended to spend almost 200% the amount of time on your desired page in comparison to users directed there through PPC campaigns.
Those are huge differences and something you should be taking full advantage of!
Social Media Visibility And Credibility
In this age of consumerism, businesses are expected to be more than just a place to purchase goods and services.
Consumers want the companies they buy from to have morals, values and an identity. They want to know who they are buying from and where the company they buy from stand on the relevant issues in the industry.
By providing content centered on industry issues and innovation in the field, you can begin to form that identity that you will be viewed by prospective customers.
Along with an identity, you will want to establish a level of trust and authority within the industry. And this too can be achieved through content production.
By keeping consumers informed on the newest trends and methods, you will be seen as a trusted source and the first business that comes to mind when someone is looking to inform themselves on the issues they need to know about.
Another way to gain this level of trust and credibility is through maintaining a constant presence on social media through social media marketing. Staying engaged with your audience and having your audience stay engaged with you can be the difference between being the #1 provider in your industry and being lost in the landscape.
And a happy by-product of consistent content production is that it provides you with the material needed to stay front and center on social media; giving your customers meaningful content to stay engaged with.
Learn More About Your Customers
One of the biggest advantages of content marketing over PPC is that you can much better guarantee that the visitors gained through content are relevant to your business than those that had paid ads pushed into their faces and may not actually be involved or interested in your field of focus.
Those taking the time to find your content organically are much more likely to truly gain value from the content you provide, and thus, much more likely to come back for more.
An added advantage of this certainty is that you can now gain a clearer picture of the type of consumer you will want to aim for in the future. By leveraging the use of audience insight tools, you can discover so much more about your demographic than you ever could before!
This gives you a huge opportunity for re-marketing!
Coming Up Soon
While we have spoken a lot about how content marketing is superior to PPC, if you can afford it, you should try to use both! And this is where this re-marketing opportunity comes into play!
Next week we will be discussing how to use the information gained through content marketing to create the most effective PPC campaign possible. So, stay tuned!
Allocating the time and resources to maintain a constant flow of content can be really tough. Our Content Properties services may be exactly what you are looking for. You can call us at (647)-479-8809 or email us at info@iopw.com to book a free consultation to see if Content Properties is right for you.