It doesn’t matter if you’re a medium-sized family business that has existed for decades, are a small, locally owned company, or a brand new start-up; your business needs content marketing.
Even large Fortune 500 companies use the power of a well-structured content marketing plan.
In fact, one study found that 97% of Fortune 500 companies use content marketing and rely on one particular category, which is social media.
But social media is only a tiny piece of a well-structured content marketing plan. Effective content marketing also requires more than automated emails and a nice web page with a few blogs.
Content marketing has many layers, and you need to utilize each strategically to make the most of your content marketing efforts.
In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about content creation and why strategic content marketing strategies are essential for your business.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a long-term, multi-faceted strategy that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action.
You can’t just create a webpage and hope google shows it to the masses or create a social media page and blindly post random content. You need to get your website ranked higher and post value-based content on your social media pages that establish authority in your niche.
A well-structured, multi-layered content marketing is how to achieve that.
Content marketing plans are highly individual, but each involves providing the right information to your prospects on the right platform, at the right time, and in a tone that fits your brand and customer avatar.
What Type Of Business Benefits From Content Marketing
Content marketing is for every business, of every size, and every niche. If you aren’t utilizing content marketing, you are missing out on an affordable way to stand out in an overcrowded marketplace by engaging and providing value-driven content that creates authority and trust.
Suppose you want to reach your target audience, bring in new potential customers, sell more of your products or services, and ensure your company doesn’t get lost in the masses. In that case, you need a long-term, carefully structured content marketing plan.
Why Content Marketing Is Essential For Businesses
When done correctly, content marketing has the potential to help your business reach millions of new customers and create loyalty with your current customers.
Whether you have 10 customers or 100 thousand, if you want to generate leads, increase sales and brand awareness, and develop the trust needed to keep your customers loyal, a killer content marketing strategy is the best way to achieve that.
Typically, there are five key goals from content marketing efforts:
- Driving traffic to key landing pages
- Spreading brand awareness
- Building relationships
- Bringing in revenue
- Generating social shares and backlinks
A well-thought-out content marketing plan that uses several types of content marketing can help your company reach these goals.
Types Of Content Marketing That Can Improve Your Business
While it might benefit your niche to place emphasis on one type of content marketing over another, it is best to take advantage of various methods if you want to make the most of your content marketing efforts.
Here are a few examples of the types of content marketing that should be included in a successful content marketing campaign.
Web Page Optimization
This type of content marketing has numerous sub-categories. It goes beyond having a beautiful webpage with your contact, location, and information about your products and services.
For example, let’s say you are a divorce lawyer, and you want your webpage to be one of the first three firms that pop up on google when someone searches “best divorce lawyer” or “divorce lawyer near me.”
Your webpage must have carefully crafted landing pages that include various tools, like videos and testimonies, which we will expand on further down. But one of the most effective ways to optimize your website is with blogs.
Quality blog posts are the foundation of every good content marketing strategy. Still, they are under-utilized, and many businesses that place them on their website rarely know the tools and tactics available to make them profitable.
Sure, you know your business best, so it’s easy to think you could throw up a few articles and call it a day, but blogs are useless if you don’t know how to write them in a way that educates and evokes emotion. You must be able to speak to your audience and explain why they need your products and services without coming across as a salesperson.
Furthermore, blogs are even more useless if you don’t know how to optimize them. There is a posting style and rhythm that must be followed. Hiring a content marketing agency with in-house senior copywriters, content strategists, and SEO specialists is vital for all aspects of web page optimization.
Social Media
Nearly two-thirds of American adults are on social media, and studies show that 90% of people buy from brands they follow. And as mentioned earlier, 97% of Fortune 500 companies say they rely on social media. Not just use it; they claim to RELY on it.
When appropriately managed and other content marketing funnels are in place, you can use social media to drive people to amplify content from other channels by sharing it on your social media platform– and vice versa.
For example, suppose you are a cosmetic surgeon. You can use social media to show patients before and after photos and post videos of procedures and client testimonials. This will pique interest in a procedure. You can also post infographics that educate your audience. This establishes authority and credibility.
Interested customers will want to click the link in your bio and book a consultation or procedure with your team because you’ve made yourself an authority in your field.
One way to look at it is – content is FIRE, but social media is the GASOLINE!
If your business is not on social media and adequately utilizing what each unique channel offers, you are missing out big time.
E-Marketing
Emails are a popular form of content marketing that is not going anywhere anytime soon. However, most people don’t know how e-marketing can be part of a successful content marketing plan.
Emails go beyond newsletters and drip campaigns and, when done correctly, can generate a tremendous amount of revenue.
According to the Data and Marketing Association, segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue and, when done properly, have an ROI of 3800%.
Let’s say you have an online retail company; e-marketing is an excellent way to inform your customers about sales and new product launches. They are also a perfect way to “nudge” a customer that has left an item in their cart to complete their purchase.
Don’t underestimate the power of growing your email list. Pumping out quality emails is an easy and cost-effective way to increase sales.
Google Business Profile
This is a powerful content marketing platform most businesses either overlook or don’t know how to take advantage of.
A Google Business Profile is an easy way to fully optimize your business’s search engine optimization (SEO.)
When SEO is optimized via a well-crafted Google Business Profile, you are more likely to appear when customers make a related search using Google Maps, Google Search, or Google Shopping.
Other Types of Content Marketing
There are other categories and subcategories of content that can operate as stand-alone content or within each of the above.
Such as:
- Videos
- Lead Generation (ebooks, white pages, guides, contests, courses, etc.)
- Infographics
- Testimonials
- Webinars
- Podcasting
As you can see, there are many ways you can create content, but there is no point in doing so if your content isn’t going to be seen.
You need to strategically take advantage of multiple types of content marketing because when done correctly, they all feed off each other.
How Content Marketing Improves Revenue
Initially, content marketing can feel like a significant expense, but its return on investment is enormous and continues even when the initial work is done.
You are setting your business up for long-term success because every piece of content you publish has the potential to bring in hundreds of thousands of new customers each month.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing costs over 60% less than outbound marketing but generates more than three times as many leads.
Furthermore, when you publish different types of content, you have more opportunities to connect with your potential customers, which translates to more sales and revenue for your business.
Here are a few ways a well-structured content marketing campaign can improve your revenue over time:
- Improves search engine optimization (SEO) ranking
- Supports the conversion funnel
- Improve conversion rates
- Increases website traffic
- Establishes authority in your niche
- Creates brand awareness
- Connects you with your audience and builds trust
- It educates your customers
- Fuels social media and other channels of communication
Content marketing is not an overnight process. It takes time, commitment, and a knowledgeable team of experts to execute the strategy correctly.
How To Take The Headache Out Of Content Marketing
People are exposed to content everywhere they look these days. You must not only create quality content that speaks to your audience, but you also have to know how to optimize and monitor your content. Otherwise, you are wasting time and money.
If you are ready to create the type of content that reels in your target audience or want to level up your current content marketing strategy, Aroluxe Marketing is currently taking on a handful of new clients.
Reach out today to find out how the experienced writers and SEO experts here at Aroluxe can work with your team to develop a customized content strategy that includes content marketing tailored to your audience.