Why It’s Essential to Implement Content Marketing into Your Marketing Strategy
Content marketing works. You’ve been paying close attention, and you’re seeing what it does for other brands. To take your company’s marketing strategy in that direction certainly makes sense. So, why do you need to implement quality content? We’ve put together all of the information you need to make your case.
The Proven Performance of Content Marketing
Content marketing is no longer a new, unproven idea. Brands all over the world actively use content marketing. In fact, think of any of the top 100 brands in the world, and they’re almost assuredly using content marketing in some form or another.
Of course, this is not just a matter of ‘everybody’s doing it’. Content marketing is popular because it works. Content earns more leads than paid ads. As people do more research before making purchasing decisions, they seek out accurate and reliable information. Brands that are there with the right content to answer those questions and concerns are going to make the best impression.
Know The Risks And Get Ahead of Them
There are certainly ways to get content marketing wrong. For example, you could:
- Choose the wrong social media platforms
- Misjudge the interests and concerns of your target audience
- Fail to spend enough time editing and proofreading your content
- Drop the ball on content promotion
- Fail to leave enough resources for content engagement
Fortunately, most of these things can be avoided if you create a decent content creation strategy. Further, any mistakes or stumbling blocks can absolutely be mitigated. Remember that you can start very slowly with content. It’s as simple as publishing a few blog posts, perhaps an email newsletter, or just focusing on creating useful posts for a single social media platform.
We spoke with Terrance Arthur, a lead content writer at BestEssay.Education about getting started with content management. He says, “All of these are things that can be done without hiring new staff, or taking up a significant amount of resources. Get started with a small project, set metrics, and get some success under your belt. This way, you have something small, yet provable to share with management.”
Find Some Relevant Examples
There are absolutely some great examples of B2B companies and other companies in boring industries that are succeeding with content marketing. Here’s something else to bring up with management. If nobody else in your space is using content marketing, there are definite advantages to being the first team on the field. Remember that can be focused on providing helpful, relevant information. Not all successful content marketing strategies are built around colorful images on Instagram, or hilarious exchanges on Twitter. Brands that can get in front of their customers with the answers they need are most likely to succeed at this. No matter the industry, this is best done with compelling content with lots of great visuals. Remember that flip books, brochures, and infographics are great tools for content marketing in any industry, not just the exciting ones.
Of course, if you can find an industry-relevant example of great content, you should absolutely use that to make your case. In fact, gather up some example posts, and collect some competitive analytics data. Let your management team see the positive results that are being earned by companies in your space.
Measure Your Results
You’ll want a way to prove your success. If the folks holding the purse strings have any influence in this, you’ll want to quantify your results, too. You’ll need to be able to articulate what you will measure to determine success, and how you are going to collect those measurements. Here are some of the best KPIs to track in a content marketing initiative.
- The ratio of traffic and leads
- Before and after page views
- Location of traffic to measure localized content marketing efforts
- Traffic source to determine the influence of content on traffic
- Subscriptions
- Time on page and bounce rate
- Social media engagement rates
Fortunately, these are all metrics that can be tracked using Google Analytics, and the analytics offered on other social media platforms. Get before and after data so that you can present a clear picture to your management team.
Final Thoughts
Any brand can increase traffic, engagement, and conversions with content marketing. All of these are things that should be appealing to your management team. Use the tips above to sell the benefits of this proven, marketing technique.