Using content to market your business isn’t anything new – even before the internet, companies distributed content in the form of brochures and articles. But today’s idea of content marketing is different. It’s targeted at providing customers with helpful information; it’s non-interruptive; and it’s anything but a sales pitch.
“A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Today’s content marketing is strategic and customized; it meets customers where they are, and leverages data to drive a specific customer action.
So why content marketing, and why now? Companies are spending more time, thought, money and planning than ever before on having a content strategy in place. Why? Because over 80% of customers research a product online before purchasing it. Gone are the days when just one marketing strategy (outbound) was enough to keep your business thriving. Now customers are constantly researching products, reading articles, and checking out reviews; nearly 60% of searches come from mobile. Meeting the needs and habits of your customers is the reason why you need a content strategy in place.
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As marketers ourselves, we love data. Here are some figures to show you why your business will struggle without a content strategy in place.
Statistics and figures collected from: Neil Patel, HubSpot, Dragonsearch
A well-planned content strategy drives traffic, captures leads’ contact information and converts those leads into paying customers. If that’s not enough reason to believe in content marketing, here’s the icing on the cake: it saves you money as compared to other marketing strategies and builds trust with your audience.
At this point, we might have helped you make up your mind about how much content marketing is essential for your business. Great! Before you dive into a plan for implementing a new strategy, however, it’s important to remember that creating content and watching it work its magic takes time and a lot of work.
Here are some tips to help you get started:
It’s in your company’s hands to drive traffic and earn trust and business from your leads. Why not start your content marketing strategy today and beat your competition to the punch?