9 Reasons Why You Need Content Marketing

This article comes from the blog archive – figures and examples reflect the year it was published.

Marketing strategies and tools vary; the story remains. Ultimately it is emotion that often decides whether, when a customer is making up their mind, the scales in their head tip in your favour or not. And we create emotions through stories. Every article, every picture, every message on Twitter or Facebook is part of the story through which you speak to your existing and potential customers.

In the vocabulary of marketing experts, content marketing is a comprehensive strategy whose aim is to create and distribute content for a particular target group, and whose aim is to increase the reach of the information being spread and, with it, the chances of making sales and growing the business.

Content marketing is a long-term affair. It’s a long-distance run. But it also has long-term results. So why devote yourself to content systematically?

It Builds a Relationship of Trust with the Customer

People naturally trust those who understand their business. The more content you create and the more you talk about the field you do business in, the stronger your position.

It Builds Your Brand

If we’re being brutally honest, we have to admit that most people don’t know about you. Or about your business. Through content – through good content – you can get them onto your site and, alongside the information they searched for or that caught their eye somewhere, offer them something more as well – your goods or services.

It Helps Your Organic Search Results

Imagine that you make and sell organic food under the brand BioKitchen. How many people are likely to search for that name. In view of the previous point, hardly any – your mum, your mother-in-law and a secondary school classmate you told about your business over a beer. Now try to think how many more people will be searching for topics such as healthy eating, healthy recipes, natural remedies, healing through diet and the like. None of them will make it to your site unless it contains information on these topics.

The search algorithm is constantly changing. Constantly optimising your site to meet its needs is extremely costly and time-consuming. The “simplest” thing you can do is start creating content that gets seen.

It Brings In New Potential Customers

That’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day you want to sell and to have a growing business. Without a supply of new potential customers, though, that will be very hard to pull off. Good content will secure that supply for you. What’s more, if some parts of your content are so-called premium content, there’s nothing to stop you asking visitors for a little extra info before they view or download it – an email address, for example, which you can work with effectively in the future.

It Brings In Customers Who Are Your Target Group

If you devote yourself to content and do it well, then you can be sure that the potential visitors arriving are the people your products and services are intended for.

Content Can Be Shared

Without content, your social marketing is in ruins too. Without good content, all you can do is post products and discount coupons ad infinitum. With content you open the way to much more playful social communication and draw the visitors to your site, or your fans, into it as well. Hand on heart – when did you last share a product on a social network – say, a miracle product against hair loss. You’d much rather share an article about new scientific findings on baldness and its causes.

Content Is Another Reason to Come Back to You

If visitors sense the quality of your content, they’ll keep coming back for it too. And with a loyal visitor the chance of a sale is considerably higher than with a random one-off visit.

Content Makes You an Expert

Through content you let people know that you understand what you do. You become an expert – an authority in the field. People naturally trust authorities more.

It Supports the Creation of Backlinks

If you create good content, it will more than once be quoted or picked up by other sites. It is ethical to mark such content with its original location. And so, as your content spreads to other sites, a set of backlinks comes into being, which is yet another parameter boosting your chances in organic search.