The Power of Content—What is Content Marketing and Why Should You Invest In a Content Marketing Strategy?

So you’ve started your business, and maybe you’ve even got your website up and running, but nobody is pounding down your door to work with you or take advantage of your fantastic offer.

What do you do now?

I get you. We often think that when we start our business, we get into this mindset of “build it, and they will come.” But that is rarely the case. If nobody knows about your business, they don’t know that they need what you have to offer.

So in this post, we will talk about content marketing: what it is and why it can be a fantastic investment for your business.

So what is content marketing?

Content marketing is a form of inbound marketing that focuses on building and nurturing relationships with current and potential customers.

This means that you are providing your customers with plenty of valuable content (in the form of blogs, podcast episodes, videos, workbooks, etc.) for each stage of the buyer’s journey. Your content not only provides value to your potential customers, but it also ties back to your products or services in some way.

Typically, a content marketing strategy consists of at least one long-form platform (blog, YouTube channel, podcast, etc.) and one short-form platform (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter Tik Tok).

Your long-form strategy focuses on answering questions and speaking to your target audience’s goals and pain points. This content is typically evergreen or something that will continue to provide value and stay relevant for months or years.

Your short-form content is geared towards distributing your long-form content. It is also a great time to entertain your current audience and attract new eyes to your content.

When you establish an effective content marketing strategy, you will constantly bring potential leads into your sales funnel and guide them through the buying journey in a way that feels authentic, valuable, and (nearly) effortless.

Why should I invest in content marketing for my business?

There are many reasons you should invest in a content marketing strategy, but here are just a few:

• Content marketing helps you stand out as an expert in your niche.

• You can build and nurture relationships with current and future clients.

• When done correctly, a good content marketing strategy will attract higher-quality leads.

• You will establish brand awareness.

• You are providing plenty of free value to your audience, which establishes trust.

• Content marketing is more cost-effective with a better ROI than traditional marketing.

• Content can improve your SEO and help you rank higher in search results.

Let’s dive into these reasons a bit more, shall we?

Content marketing enables you to stand out as an expert in your niche.

When you consistently provide high-quality, helpful information to your target audience, you start to stand out as someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Remember, though, you don’t have to know everything to get started. You only need to know a bit more than your audience to provide value to them! As long as your goal is consistently creating helpful content, you’re doing it right.

You will be able to build and nurture relationships with current and future clients.

A solid content marketing strategy is about relationship building.

You want to attract, educate, entertain and delight your audience—turning them into long-term customers and your biggest supporters.

By really getting to know your customers and their habits, goals, and pain points, you can speak to their experience authentically. This builds trust and credibility and results in your content being shared, rated, and discussed amongst your target audience. And that kind of social proof is GOLD these days!

When done correctly, a content marketing strategy will attract higher-quality leads.

One of the fantastic things about content marketing is attracting high-quality leads!

Think about it—the people who are consistently reading your blog posts, email newsletters, and social media posts are looking for the information that your business provides. They are already telling you that your business is solving a problem for them, and they are coming to you for solutions.

This is the audience most likely to purchase from you when the time is right. They are primed and ready, and they trust you and when it comes down to the decision between you and another business, the one who holds the customer’s trust is the one who gets business at the end of the day.

Consistent content creation helps you establish brand awareness.

When you consistently answer your audience’s questions throughout their buying journey, they begin to associate you with the solution to their problem.

They read your blog posts, see your posts on social media, and see your videos rank at the top of the search results on YouTube when looking for how-to or comparison videos.

So when they think about making a purchase, your brand is already top of mind.

This choice between you and a business they’re unfamiliar with is a no-brainer.

You are providing plenty of valuable content to your audience for free, establishing trust.

I know you may be thinking, “Wait, so I’m just creating a bunch of information and giving it away for free? Won’t they just take the information and do it themselves?”

They could, and some people might. But many people would much rather invest in an expert (which you, of course, are and your content helps illustrate that) and save themselves the time and energy it would take for them to do something themselves.

Those are your customers!

Content marketing is more cost-effective, with a better ROI than traditional marketing.

Although it is a long-term investment, an effective content marketing strategy typically costs far less and provides a better return on investment (ROI) than traditional outbound marketing.

Not only are you setting up a sales funnel geared towards bringing in high quality leads, you’re doing it in a way that’s adding to your audience’s experience online rather than interrupting it with sales pitches.

The goal is to aim for about 80% providing value and 20% “selling” your product. This makes the process feel more natural for your consumers, and keeps them coming back time after time.

Content can improve your SEO and help you rank higher in search results.

Everyone wants to “rank on Google,” but very few people actually know how to do that.

Yes, general SEO best practices are very important for your online presence, but long form content increases your SEO even more!

When Google sees that people are not only finding your website when they search for an answer to their problem, but staying on your website and consuming blog post after blog post, it will reward that by ranking your website higher in search results because it deems your website to be more useful than other websites.

This is another reason you should strongly consider investing in a website for your business if you don’t already have one.

At the end of the day, your goal is to stand out amongst the sea of businesses competing for your ideal customers, and content marketing is a fantastic way to do that!

If you’re looking for help getting started with your content journey, let’s connect!