Why Does Content Increase Sales? Three Reasons You Need to Know

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

It’s no secret that the ultimate aim of all marketing activity is to improve sales results – whether by reaching new customers or by motivating existing customers to buy again. Today the range of ways to reach customers is so wide that choosing the right combination of communication tools is often both alchemy and science.

We won’t lie – content isn’t exactly one of the fast-turnover forms of promotion. If you want a quick conversion, it’s sensible to combine this way of communicating with other formats. Even so, creating content is among the most effective when it comes to long-term brand building, the relationship with the client and sales themselves. It delivers results that are up to 54% better than other forms of promotion. How?

It Improves Website Traffic

The first step towards successful selling is to build up a sufficient base of visitors to your website – in other words – you have to work on constantly increasing traffic. Only then will the website bring you customers.

Let’s try picturing it with the example of a shelf in an ordinary supermarket. Say you’re choosing a bar of chocolate. There are 200 different kinds on the shelf. If you examine them more closely, you’ll find that 150 of them are from one manufacturer (A), 30 from a second and 10 each from two others. Leaving aside other factors such as price or placement in the eye-level zone, it’s easy to work out how likely it is that you’ll pick a chocolate from manufacturer A.

It’s just the same with website traffic. Here, content is key. The more content you create, the more pages of your website are indexed by search engines – the more keywords you can effectively cover, and the greater the likelihood that visitors will find you in search – even without paid advertising. What’s more, it’s an open secret that the robots doing the indexing are fonder of websites that update their content more often. Translated, that means the clever machines that slot individual final URLs into the search results will come back to you more often if you’re creating content, and you’ll earn points for activity that will nudge you a little higher in the organic search results.

On top of that, every single article, every single video, every single infographic also means a chance to share that content on the ever-popular social networks and so bring in more leads.

It Answers Clients’ Questions – in Advance

Content means a large dose of client education. Within your content you can explain not only the benefits of your product and services, but above all point out the connection between your products and services and clients’ real needs. Content is the presenter’s link that leads a potential customer from need to solution.

According to long-term surveys, as many as 80% of people prefer getting new information from content over information from advertising. We simply tend to verify information and hunt for the best possible solutions. Creating relevant content puts you in the position of an expert – you show that you’re not afraid to share what you know, and in doing so you build a close and trustworthy relationship with potential and existing customers alike.

It Helps Effective Conversion

Here the key question is the quality of the content and how well it overlaps with the client’s questions and needs. If your content manages to hit on exactly what the website visitor is looking for at that moment, the road to their conversion is open.

A blog about financial services can serve as an example. A broad topic with a multitude of areas. But an article comparing mortgage loans will interest precisely those visitors who are dealing with the question of housing and will be inclined to take advice from an expert in this area.

The questions in website visitors’ heads are countless – that’s a treasure you can use to your advantage. By creating content systematically, you’ll cover a multitude of specific questions and a multitude of specific needs, and so create a way for them to find out about possible solutions through your services in particular.