The use of content marketing has grown exponentially in recent years. While the vast amount of content on the internet can be a positive, it’s also left the market extremely saturated. This means that the use of content is much less effective than it was in the past, which is not a positive. This doesn’t mean it should be abandoned, there are still many benefits to content marketing. It just means the content used needs to be valuable, relevant, and correctly leveraged. 

What is Content Marketing 

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing valuable or relevant information on a consistent basis for the ideal buyer persona. The goal is to build relationships with customers, drive organic traffic, increase conversion rates, and ultimately capture more sales. It’s important to know that content marketing is not promotional content. The modern consumer is hyper aware of sales pitches or anything in-genuine. Consumers prefer being educated and informed about products and companies, and are much more likely to believe other consumers over a company. 

Content Marketing Benefits:

Higher rankings

One of the number one things you can do to increase your search engine rankings is add more content to your site. Search engines, Google especially, likes to provide users with results that deliver exactly what they’re searching for. Consistently adding relevant, keyword rich content in the form of blogs or landing pages is the best way to provide that experience. Having more pages doesn’t always correlate to more traffic, but having more quality pages indexed can grant you more opportunities to rank for more search queries. 

Brand credibility

Having high quality content on your site immediately increases your perceived expertise, authority, and trust of your company. Users thinking highly of brands that they feel are answering their questions and providing useful and relevant information. Higher domain authority strongly correlates with higher search rankings. So yet again, producing consistent quality content will help increase organic traffic for all pages of your site.

Drive sales 

The first goal of your content should be to deliver some kind of value to the reader. After that has been done, you can use any remaining space to tactfully promote your product, service, or brand. Content can inspire requests for more information, trials, downloads, consultations, and sales. Highly targeted content can be one of the best ways to speed up the sales funnel, as long as it’s done right. Your content should never seem like a promotional advertisement. 

Content Marketing Tips:

Your content should be the answer 

Content should be based on questions potential customers might have. The more direct and detailed the answer is, the better it will rank on Google or other search engines. Most companies are well aware of their customers’ problems and pain points. This can be transformed into tutorials, how-to-guides, etc. For a piece of content to be effective it needs to be actionable. Inform your audience about specific steps to take or resources they need to carry out the advice you’re giving. Your answers can vary according to audience demographics. If you know your audience is split, segment your content strategy to target each group directly, instead of writing generically.

Use images and videos whenever possible 

HubSpot’s 2016 video marketing statistics report that adding videos to landing pages can boost conversions up to 80% and that users are 64% more likely to buy something online after they’ve watched a video about it. You can integrate videos into blogs or create them separately as their own entity, like a “vlog.” When people only spend 8 seconds deciding whether or not they’re interested in a piece of content, it helps to be visually stimulating. So even if you can’t include a video, images can be just as effective. 

Create and stick to a content calendar 

For content to be effective it needs to be consistent. The best way to ensure you’re posting regularly is by laying everything out in a weekly or monthly content calendar. It should be more detailed than just reminders to post. Include things like what your blog topics will be, what tags you’re using for each post, where everything needs to be shared, etc. This way when the time comes you’re not scrambling to think of content ideas. There are a number of tools that can assist with content calendars. CoSchedule, WordPress, and Asana are a few editorial calendar and project management tools, but it can be done a basic spreadsheet as well. 

Make sharing your content easy

This is one of the easiest tips to implement to a site. Social sharing buttons should fit in with the site’s theme and be prominently placed throughout blog posts and web pages. If the sharing process is complicated and time-consuming, no one will do it. It should be a simple, one-step to share process. There should be options to share to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other platforms that seem fitting. 

Always include a CTA

Strong call-to-actions are necessary in any marketing strategy. It’s unlikely users will go to your homepage, browse to other pages, or end up where you want them to be. They need to be told what to do with a quick link to it. Whether that be liking/following a social media page, sharing a post, subscribing, requesting more information, etc. It’s beneficial to A/B test your call-to-actions as well. Try different locations, colors, copy, etc. It’s important to make sure the CTA doesn’t interrupt the flow of content, though. It should seem like the natural consequence of the content. It should also be clear and easily clickable. 

No matter your ultimate marketing goal, content is always a valuable addition. It works, and that’s why it’s so widely used today. The key is to ensure it continues to work in a saturated market is by leveraging new and innovative tactics, like setting clearer content marketing goals and A/B testing various content. 

More from Onimod Global 

Sometimes, outsourcing your content marketing is the right choice. At Onimod Global we’re experts in SEO, social media, and content marketing. We create visibility for companies in the places their customers are searching, interacting, and engaging. Take a look at how we’ve helped other companies, and learn more about what we can do for you!