Why Content Marketing Is the Most Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy
Content is everywhere online.
When you visit Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Medium, content is what you see.
Each content you publish is a permanent digital real estate. It lives online forever.
Pay per click (PPC) advertising will stop generating traffic and customers the moment you stop doing it.
Consistent content marketing will continue to produce compound traffic growths.
The leads you get from content marketing will continue to double or triple as you publish more content online.
That is why there’s no better long-term strategy than content marketing.
And here’s the good news:
Content marketing is a painstaking process.
Surprised?
Only a very few individuals and companies are willing to do what it takes to create superior content.
Orbit Media Studios conducted a survey of 1,000+ top bloggers from around the world. They found that the average hours it takes to write a blog post is increasing.
In 2017, most bloggers spend 3 hours and 20 minutes writing a blog post. Back in 2014, it was 2 hours and 24 minutes.
Bloggers who spend more hours writing blog posts got better results according to the survey.
Content marketing rewards people who work harder than others.
There are five reasons content marketing is the most powerful digital marketing strategy.
1. Search engines love content
Google process 100 billion searches per month.
We use search engines daily.
It’s 10:00 am here at the time of writing this article, and I’ve Googled over 30 times today already.
Some people use search engines more than 100 times per day.
We use search engines for business, leisure, learning, and shopping. We depend on search engines for almost everything.
So, people won’t stop using search engines anytime soon.
When someone types a query into the search box, Google analyzes the phrase and returns relevant results.
These results are content.
For example, when I entered the phrase “how to give a good holiday gift,” Google returned articles that answer my question.
You want to ensure that your site is ranking on Google and Bing for phrases related to your business.
Publish high-quality blog posts on a regular basis. It is is the only way to get high visibility on search engines.
When you feed search engines with a lot of content, they’ll reward you with traffic.
More traffic means more leads. And more leads means more customers for your business.
Andrew Dennis, a content marketing specialist, increased his B2B client’s search engine traffic by 192% in five months.
All he did is write in-depth, long-form articles that target keywords related to the client’s business.
Creating lots of content will help you grow your traffic from search engines.
2. Content marketing creates awareness
Generating brand awareness is an essential activity when running a business either online or offline.
Content marketing is one of the best ways to create brand awareness.
People have to be aware that your business exists before they can become customers.
If people are not familiar with your company, they are unlikely to do business with you.
Brand awareness isn’t people recognizing your logo when they see it.
It means prospects know your brand and what it represents.
It means people love your brand even before they need your product or service.
For example, a relationship coach like Karen Brody uses content marketing to promote her personal brand. She speaks at writes blog posts that are helpful to men. She speaks at events for men. That promotes her service.
Content marketing is the most effective way to convey your brand messages and uniqueness.
When people need your product or service, your company should be one of the first names on their list.
Companies like HubSpot, KissMetrics, Zendesk, and Moz were able to dominate their niches because they put out a lot of content.
HubSpot publishes more than 10+ posts per week on their blog.
Digiboost, a small business digital marketing agency based in San Antonio also blogs regularly. Recently, Digiboost published a blog post about how ClickCease saved their clients over $4,000 on Google ads in 60 days.
Content marketing is the number one strategy for building awareness for their products and services.
Through consistent content creation on its blog, KissMetrics has established itself as a leader in the marketing analytics space.
Top surrogacy agency, Circle Surrogacy has a blog where they publish content on a regular basis.
The more eyes that see your content, the more selling opportunities your business have.
3. Content marketing encourages people to engage with you
Engagement refers to customer interaction with you or your business. It is the holy grail of digital marketing.
If people are engaging with you, it’s a sign that they might be ready to buy from you.
There’s no way for people to engage with PPC ads because they are a passive form of communication.
All prospects can do is read or watch those ads. They have no way to respond to those ads.
Your customers have opinions they’ll want to share with you.
Content marketing encourages people to share those views.
For example, when you publish a blog post, people can respond by commenting.
They can go to your Facebook page and drop a comment on your updates.
They can respond on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
They can comment on Medium and Quora.
When you respond to prospects’ comments, you deepen your relationship with them.
For example, Josiah Humphrey is the co-CEO of Appster, an app development company.
He uses LinkedIn to share content online. People respond by commenting on his updates.
Tobias van Schneider is a designer and publishes on Twitter on a regular basis. People respond to his Twitter updates.
People engaging with your content is a good thing. It’s a sign that you are building an audience who cares about you and what you do.
4. Content marketing make you become an authority
Consumers trust authorities online. They look to them when making purchasing decisions.
Content marketing is the smartest way to become an authority in any niche or industry.
Knowledge doesn’t make you an authority.
Because you know how to write codes in JavaScript doesn’t make people see you as a JavaScript authority.
No one will respect you because you have an in-depth knowledge of SEO.
Yes, knowledge plays a big part in becoming an authority because people expect you to know what you’re writing or talking about.
Publishing content is what makes you an authority.
Not just any content. Content that is ten times better than what your competitors have.
It takes hard work to become an authority.
Publish a lot of content on a regular basis.
Some experts publish over five articles per week on their blogs and other authority sites.
For example, Neil Patel writes on his personal blog NeilPatel.com, Quick Sprout (another blog where he writes about digital marketing), Entrepreneur.com, Social Media Examiner, Forbes, Fortune.com and other blogs.
Below is a screenshot of his latest posts on Entrepreneur.com at the time of writing.
You should do the same.
Write on as many sites that are willing to have you contribute to them.
Don’t blog once a month. Blog, at least once a week for each site you’re writing for.
To become an authority online, you need to publish consistently on a specific topic.
For example, don’t write about “digital marketing” today, and write about “web security” tomorrow.
Don’t write about “swimming pools” this week and write about “electronic gadgets” next week.
Focus on a single niche.
You can also target a small niche.
A small niche is a part of another niche.
Facebook Marketing is part of Social Media marketing. So, Facebook Marketing is a smaller niche.
For example, Jon Loomer is a Facebook Marketing expert.
When you talk about Facebook marketing, Jon Loomer is one of the very few authorities in that niche.
He only publishes articles about Facebook Marketing on his blog.
Brian Dean is an influential person in the SEO niche. He concentrates on teaching and writing about topics related to SEO.
Through content marketing, these amazing experts become authorities in their respective niches.
You can become an authority by creating content related to a specific topic.
A multinational company like The Armored Group, which designs, manufactures, and delivers armored cars can easily dominates its industry and become an authority by publishing content on a regular basis.
5. Content marketing improves the lives of your prospects
The fastest way to get what you want is to help many people get what they want.
Your prospects want answers to their questions.
They want solutions to their problems.
They want to achieve their goals.
If you can provide them with answers, solutions, and resources through content marketing, prospects will remember you for a long time.
Empower prospects with knowledge through content marketing.
With the help of content marketing, you treat prospects as if they are the best customers.
You give them all the answers to their problems without asking them to buy your product.
All you do is help, help and help with your high-quality content.
Prospects will notice your great work because you’re improving their lives.
Each great piece you publish improves their lives.
They’ll reward you by sharing your content with their network on social media. They’ll become customers.
What are the problems and challenges your prospects are facing right now?
I visit a site like Quora to discover questions people are asking in my niche.
Below is a screenshot of some questions I can turn into high-quality blog posts.
These are questions real prospects are asking.
When you help many prospects solve their problems for free through content marketing, you’ll have more clients who want to work with you.
Are you a social media manager? We are sponsored by Falcon.io.
Falcon is the platform for every kind of social media marketer.
Falcon helps you manage all social channels and teams on one collaborative platform, create quality content with an easy-to-use editorial content calendar and social media calendar, and so much more.
Join Our Writing Contest: What is Social Media Marketing?
Write about social media marketing, earn points, and you could win an Apple Watch, Samsung Smart TV, and so much more.
Need help with your marketing plan? We have experts for that. Let’s Talk.
