Why Content Marketing Matters - Small Businesses

With traditional digital ad formats, your message is challenged to stay relevant in a world of banner blindness and ad blockers. The solution is content marketing, which allows advertisers to develop deeper relationships with consumers through immersive, branded experiences.

Why Content Marketing Matters to Consumers?

Today’s prospects have a strong appetite for good information but more powerful resistance to the so-called “hard sell.” Most of us research products and services online before making a purchase. We study different cars, comparing prices and features, before ever setting foot in a dealership. Even grocery shoppers use mobile phones to compare prices and deals.

People want good content that helps them make good decisions, but they don’t like being sold. Consumers are less responsive to traditional advertising and old-school sales tactics, and this is true for both B2C and B2B customers. According to a study from two Senior Strategists, 70% of consumers prefer to learn about companies through articles instead of advertising.

A Roper Survey of business decision makers found that 80% prefer to get information about a prospective purchase from articles instead of advertising. The same survey found that 70% say content makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company and 60% say content helps them make better buying decisions.

Why Content Marketing Matters to Search Engines?

Consumers turn to search engines for solutions to their problems. Sometimes your best opportunity to win new customers is to be there when they Google it. In fact, you may have already established a search engine optimization (SEO) plan or strategy.

SEO is integral to marketing today and should work hand-in-hand with your content strategy. Creating content around frequently searched industry keywords and long-tail queries that your business can solve will increase your brand visibility and help pull interested leads into your funnel. Furthermore, providing a plethora of resources that address your prospect's questions and challenges at each stage of the buyer's journey is a great way to continue to nurture their trust and loyalty.

However, for search engines to have your website as part of the primary search results, you should have high-quality content that is deemed relevant by the majority of the internet users. They provide a favor to you by “voting” for your website and pages with a link back to you.

The companies that regularly produce valuable, insightful and relevant content become lead-generating machines that see greater ROI on their marketing efforts. In fact, native content leads to higher brand awareness than any other ad format alone.

Why Content Marketing Matters to Your Business?

As you can see, effective content can help you build customer relationships while avoiding less effective “hard sell” tactics. It showcases your subject-matter expertise, and gains trust by highlighting important topics that affect your prospects. Well-crafted content can draw traffic to your website and social media accounts, boost your performance on search results pages, and give audiences the opportunity to share your content with their friends.

Today's buyers want to be reminded of the humanity behind a business. They want to understand your company's unique goals and values and the reasons why you to do what you do. What's more, they want that effort to be reciprocated — for you to recognize and respond to their needs. The best way to ensure you're making valuable and authentic connections with prospects is by tailoring your content strategy to directly address their needs, desires and values.

Conclusion

The drastic rise in the development of technology and the internet has led to the development of new marketing and advertising strategies such as content marketing.

Today, many businesses utilize content marketing to improve customer awareness, increase sales, generate traffic, and build authoritative brands. But there is more to it. Content marketing allows businesses to gain knowledge of their customers at every stage of their journey, from stranger to customer to brand evangelist.

Don’t let your audience and your brand get left behind. It’s time to reach out, lend a helping hand, and build lasting relationships with your customers and targets through content marketing.