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(Will be hidden in the published article)Classic advertising campaigns have lost their effectiveness a long time ago. Why is that? People have become resistant to all forms of obvious advertising. When surfing the web, they hardly pay any attention to ads anymore, while ad blockers take care of the rest.
Content marketing, on the other hand, is experiencing a boom. For those who wonder why: By relying on content marketing you can do non-obvious, hidden advertising for your own brand. Facts do speak for themselves here: A study from 2020 confirms that 84% of the companies surveyed said they were using a content marketing strategy, with 62% of them rating the content marketing performance as at least good to excellent.
What is content marketing?
In a nutshell: content marketing is providing free content that adds value to potential and existing customers. This includes all informative, inspirational and entertaining content which is useful and relevant to the target audience.
You are not doing any content marketing yet? Well, then it's about time to start! Within this article you will earn about 8 advantages of content marketing that are guaranteed to convince you.
1. High cost efficiency
2. Open space for creativity
What do you think of first when you hear the word "content"? Is it a blog article or a newsletter? While most companies produce exact these types of content, digital content can also come as e-books, helpful guides, easy-to-read infographics, customer magazines, podcasts, webinars, case studies, testimonials, short films, or even songs.
There are plenty of types and forms of content that offer you the opportunity to reach your target audience and generate virality.
When it comes to digital content, there is a lot of room for creative expression. Whether blog articles, newsletters, e-books, guides, infographics, customer magazines, podcasts, webinars, case studies, testimonials, short films or songs - any type and form of content is an option.
3. Search Engine Optimisation
SEO and content marketing go hand in hand. The more content you provide, the more opportunities you will have to place keywords. This makes digital content creation the most effective SEO technique.
But not only every SEO specialist knows that quality beats quantity here. The keyword is: added value, which is a central element of the definition of content marketing. Content, which is valuable to your readers or viewers automatically attracts new customers.
As long as you answer your target audience's questions and solve your customers problems, the search engines will keep rewarding you. Plus: you can achieve an improved SEO ranking by using long tail keywords and generating reliable backlinks .
4. Increased brand awareness
This point is particularly important for young brands, but also relevant to established companies. Through efficient content marketing, potential customers are getting in touch with your brand long before they are even interested in buying. Due to a high presence in social networks and within search engine results, you achieve higher visibility. Content marketing allows you to define your brand identity followed by a strengthened, improved image.
5. Passing on expertise
By creating and posting informative and well-researched content on your topic, you demonstrate your expertise. Positioning yourself as an expert is an enormous advantage of content marketing, in the eyes of many entrepreneurs. At best, your website stands out as an “authority website” that has earned both: the trust of readers and the appreciation of industry experts.
It comes down to respect, credibility and integrity. Prove your knowledge and show your passion by turning your website and social media channels into valuable internet resources, which your target audience can turn to at any time.
Communicating expertise in the form of digital content is important because customers prefer to choose their brands themselves. Before making a purchase decision, they intensively research and explore available options. People more likely buy from you if they are convinced that you deal regularly and intensively with various aspects of your topic.
6. More quality leads
In the end, acquiring new customers is the main goal of any marketing strategy. According to the 2020 Semrush study for many entrepreneurs, the main goal of content marketing is to generate more high-quality leads.
Convinced readers and viewers can be turned into leads, for example by using call to action buttons in your posts. Offer a „gift“ to your target audience in exchange for their contact information so you can add their names and email addresses to your mailing list. You can now use e-mail marketing to address those leads as a result.
Content marketing in a sense comes with a filtering function, as only those people who are actually interested in your topic and content will follow your call-to-action.
Generating quality leads is the main goal of any content marketing strategy.
7. Increasing customer loyalty
Free services are very popular. Those who provide helpful content for free will take hearts by storm. Your readers feel valued because you show them that you care about their problems. As a result, they develop a certain loyalty to your brand.
It’s all about trust when building customer loyalty. Content marketing comes with the opportunity to build personal relationships with your target audience by showing your human side, being authentic and giving your business a voice. Prove that you won't let your customers down; that they can count on you.
Eventually, you will experience that your customers will remain loyal to you - even if other companies offer cheaper or even better products. A well-known example of a brand with an exceptionally high level of customer loyalty is Apple.
8. Building a dialogue
Through content marketing, you will find yourself in a dialogue with your customers because you receive feedback in both direct and indirect ways. Encourage your audience to leave comments under your video and text posts. After a while, so-called key performance indicators will show you which types of content and topics are particularly popular among the audience.
By recognising and analysing the reactions to your created content, you will learn more about your buyer persona . This will allow you to better and better adapt the content provided to the needs of your customers and by this you will indirectly influence purchasing behaviour.
What about disadvantages…?
Of course, content marketing also has some disadvantages. This mainly comes down to time requirement. Tangible results aren’t visible with the first contribution, but only after many months. All together, content marketing requires a lot of patience, since the creation of the content is also very time-consuming. This is especially the case when you are taking care of the marketing yourself and don't outsource it to copywriters, social media managers, SEO specialists, or designers. Content marketing doesn’t lead directly to the sale of your products, but has a more supporting effect.
Conclusion: Content marketing is extremely long-lasting
Content marketing is a long-term and long-lasting marketing strategy, which is profitable for every type of company and organisation. It’s – along with SEO – the highest form of marketing creation. Anyone who delivers free content to the target group is rated according to the quality of the content and their own competence. This saves cost on expensive advertisements that are supposed to improve the brands image, but in the end aren’t very authentic.
By using effective content marketing, you can climb to the top on Google results without the need to buy the position for a lot of money. Digital content does not come with an expiration date like pay-per-click ads and can still generate a significant ROI years after publication.
In the end, content marketing creates a win-win situation. You get all of the above benefits, while your target audience enjoys helpful, educational, and entertaining content.
Webmag: The easy way to digital content marketing
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Within 15 minutes, we'll show you how to easily create your own digital publications with Webmag using drag & drop and preconfigured design templates – and multiply your reach.
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