Today I wanted to explore just what the point of content marketing is. You and I both know that content marketing is all about creating blogs and videos and what have you, but what’s the end goal here? What are we achieving? What is the point?
Well to explore the point of content marketing, we first need to explore the problem it solves.
The Problem Content Marketing Solves
Let’s be real here. On the whole, people are getting more and more jaded towards traditional, pushy advertisements, regardless of format. This is especially true online where it’s become a knee-jerk habit to block, skip, and tune out promotional messages.
And honestly, I’m not surprised. Have you been online without an adblocker lately? *shudder* And that’s coming from a marketer!
Now this isn’t a slight towards online paid advertising. In B2B spaces, paid ads do work when carefully crafted, executed, and targeted towards prospects who are directly getting ready to buy. But results vary when you use pushy, interruptive advertising methods to drum up brand awareness, especially as a smaller, less well-known organisation. It can rub people up the wrong way.
Customers, whether they are acting as businesses or consumers, will generally research products and services they feel they need before they buy. They seek out genuine voices in that space, looking for information they can trust.
And that’s where content marketing comes in.
What Content Marketing Achieves
Content Marketing Generates Brand Awareness
Creating content that speaks to audience queries builds brand awareness and trust while our audience is in this earlier research phase of their purchase. By answering relevant, in-demand queries about what you do, people who are looking for those answers are likely to stumble across your blog, your video channel, your podcast, or whatever.
Because after all, people are more likely to be searching for answers and solutions rather than for your specific brand name.
And to add a quick B2B aside, B2B purchasing cycles are generally longer, so sustained brand presence over time is generally useful.
Content Marketing Creates Brand Trust
There’s more to it than simply intercepting potential prospects through search. Creating well-thought-out, useful, and even entertaining content all presents you as a trustworthy, authoritative, and hopefully sought-after wellspring of relevant information.
Content Marketing Forms a Following
By being that valued source, you create prospects and customers that actually want to stick around. And once readers follow you or subscribe to your content and check out the content you share, you have a better chance of convincing them to take further action, like making a purchase.
Content Marketing Benefits Sales Calls
Content marketing also presents numerous sales benefits too. When you jump on a sales call with a prospect who has already engaged with your content, that conversation is likely to go more smoothly and successfully than a colder sales call because the prospect is already familiar with you and what you do.
Content Marketing Plays the Promotional Long Game
B2B content doesn’t have to be some one and done, flash in the pan, forgettable internet fluff that surrounds us online. One piece of well-matched, well-optimised, and occasionally updated content can bring in fresh prospects for years after it was initially published.
That’s one of the benefits of having a content strategy – when you know your audience and you know your market, you can create content that resonates clearly.
This is a bit of an older, well-worn statistic, but one that highlights content’s potential. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional, outbound marketing methods but generates three times more leads.
The Bottom Line
Content marketing is about sharing useful information, creating a genuine connection with interested parties, and reaping the rewards that come with that.
I’m gonna hit you with a corny line here – it’s not about selling, it’s about helping. Eww.
When you help people solve their problems or allay their fears, they’ll remember you when they need your solution. Because good marketing shouldn’t be about interruption, it should be about connection.
And content marketing works – that’s why it’s everywhere. Companies wouldn’t do it otherwise. Some of your competitors might be doing it well, but I’d wager that many more are doing it badly – or just not at all.
This means there’s a huge opportunity for you right now to start your content marketing journey, or to reinvigorate an older content marketing focus. Either way, I would love to help you. So check me out, innit, I’m around!
That’s it from me for today, like and subscribe and do all of the YouTube things to appease the mighty algorithm, leave your compliments down in the compliments section, and thank you for watching!
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