The concept of marketing has evolved immensely over the decades. With its history going back to as early as 1500 BCE, marketing is a phenomenon that has been the life and blood of successful businesses. Marketing started with the production of Logos when Mesopotamian societies began mass-producing goods which required quality control. This slowly paved the way for the development of the printing press in 1400 BCE, which became the bedrock for the vast growth of magazines, billboards and advertisements in the 1900s. With the invention of computers and the advancement of technology, marketing took a new identity in the form of radio and television ads. This laid the foundation for the present day’s marketing superpower – digital marketing.
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, is the new and effective marketing strategy wherein businesses leverage the power of digital media to advertise their business and attract customers. They use various digital channels, including websites, mobile devices, social media, and much more. With the general public becoming increasingly acquainted with the digital realm, businesses are taking this customer behaviour to their advantage by using digital marketing strategies to increase their audience reach. Digital marketing is a very broad domain with many effective approaches within its belt. One such digital marketing strategy that has garnered effective results is Content Marketing. Let’s take a closer look at content marketing and then learn how it is changing the game in the digital realm.
What is Content Marketing?
For any business to effectively reach its audience, they need to be able to entice and attract customers with all the information pertaining to what the business can offer. This, essentially, is the work of content marketing. The purpose of content marketing is to effective reach out to potential customers by using content. Typically, the content is published on a website and then marketed using social media, email marketing, SEO or even pay-per-click campaigns. Content marketing is also practised in the form of blogs, e-books, online courses, infographics, podcasts and webinars. The content revolves around informational, educational or entertainment materials which is relevant and engaging for the readers. This gets distributed through various online networks. It pushes the reader to some decision and allows them to form new beliefs which are inclined towards the business.
Today, 64% of the most successful B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. In 2022, the content marketing revenue reached nearly 66 Billion USD. Businesses, especially small businesses and sole entrepreneurs such as direct sellers and network marketers, can leverage content marketing to grow and upscale their business reach.
Content marketing has provided an opportunity for many new businesses to come out of obscurity and bring themselves to the top, and we mean, literally to the top of the Google SERP. With immense benefits to offer, it is no surprise how content marketing is surely changing the game. But how exactly can content marketing benefit your business? Let’s find out!
What Makes Content Marketing a Game Changer?
Content marketing is the most effective way to attract new customers, build trust with existing ones, and position your business as an expert in your industry. It’s also great to learn more about what interests people and helps you connect with them. Content marketing can help you build relationships with customers — or even turn them into advocates for your brand!
1. It’s Cost-Effective
Something that entices most businesses towards content marketing is the fact that it is free or requires a nominal cost. You can use the same content for multiple platforms, so you don’t need to buy ads or spend money on another form of advertising when you publish your blog posts or create videos. Furthermore, content marketing helps you build a relationship with customers by promoting your products and services through social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
Once you have created some great content, there are many ways it can be used in order to promote your business, all of which don’t require any money! You can use it through email newsletters, tweets/links posted on LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pages/groups, and Instagram feeds.
2. It Can Lead to New Opportunities.
Content marketing can attract new customers and build relationships with existing ones. It helps you get more business from your existing customers. For example, if you’re a small business owner or a direct seller, it’s likely that many of your potential clients are already on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, if they don’t know about your business (or who you are), then how will they find out? You can create some sort of content that specifically targets towards them – and by doing so, you will be able to give them an incentive to take action on those platforms.
3. Readers Can Develop their Own Relationship with Your Brand
Content marketing is the best way to develop a relationship with your customers. This means you’re building trust with them, which can ultimately result in them returning for more of what you have to offer. By providing helpful information and advice, you can create a sense of familiarity between yourself and your audience – and this familiarity will enable you to build loyalty over time.
When readers begin developing their own relationship with a brand they trust most, they will become more likely to recommend that brand to others as well as buy from it again in the future, thereby leading to the growth of your business.
4. Increases the Audience Reach
As mentioned earlier, one of the most efficacious effects of content marketing is how it can exponentially increase your brand’s reach. As you publish more content, your site will garner more traffic, which means more people get to see your content, and the likelihood that they’ll share it with other people will increase.
With strategic and quality content marketing, you could have content discovery, which is when someone sees something on your website or social media page that resonates with them and makes them want to know more about what you have to offer. This can be a big deal because if someone shares something with their friends, it will also be shared by those friends’ friends. This can lead to exponential growth in brand awareness and engagement.
5. Increases Your Knowledge
Writing about the things you want to talk about helps not only increase the reader’s knowledge but yours too. And this can help your business grow. Writing about things you are interested in is a great way to develop your knowledge and expertise. You will become an expert in the field, which can help build trust with potential clients or customers who need help from experts for them to make an informed decision about the kind of product or service that will be best for them. You may even have collaboration opportunities with other professionals with similar interests as yours!
When writing about topics that can interest us, we will find ourselves becoming more engaged because we’re talking about something we’re passionate about – this makes us feel like part of something bigger than ourselves.
6. Builds Customer Retention
Content marketing is an effective way to keep your customers coming back for more. It does this by providing valuable information that’s not available anywhere else, which keeps them coming back for more.
When someone finds something valuable on your site and decides to return, they’re likely going to tell others about it too! This means that the next person who comes across those articles has learned something new from them as well and will likely share them with their friends or colleagues — creating a positive cycle of word-of-mouth marketing that can help you grow exponentially!
This only encapsulates a modicum of the comprehensive list of benefits that content marketing entails. With new AI developments and the ever-changing digital realm, content marketing will continue to offer a plethora of benefits to your small business. Content marketing is a great way to build your brand, gain new customers and generate leads. By writing about the things you want to talk about — things like what other people are saying about your company or how it’s helping them — your website gets more traffic than any other source could offer. And when people read those posts, they develop their own relationship with your brand.
