Did you know that content marketing was one of the most highly sought-after skills that companies were looking for in their next marketer? There’s a good reason why. And in this post, we’re going to dig into five of those reasons to help you better understand as an entrepreneur or a side hustler why you need to start using content marketing. So, let’s go and find out the importance of content marketing.
1. It builds trust with your prospects
The first reason why content marketing is so powerful is that it helps you build trust with your prospects. There is really no better way to build trust today than sharing information publicly. Let’s say, for example, you were looking for an accountant and you had the choice between a CPA that just has a website but no content on it and an accountant that has answered hundreds of questions around taxes and accounting. Nine times out of 10, you would choose the CPA that had those hundreds of answers over the one without. And the reason why is because the information is power these days. And we are in a time in which we like to learn more before we engage somebody in services. And so that’s what content marketing can fill the gap of.
Content marketing is a great way for you to demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your prospects. Really effective content marketing shows your prospects that you know what you’re talking about. Nowadays, people that build in public and share their knowledge with others publicly reap the benefits of that trust factor as opposed to the people that keep that information behind a walled garden and don’t necessarily openly share their industry secrets. It’s for this exact reason why if you were to jump onto Twitter, you would find a ton of people that have built massive audiences because they’ve openly shared expertise that they might have previously not shared online.
2. It makes the sales process collaborative
The second reason why content marketing is necessary is that it makes your sales process so much more collaborative. In the past, entrepreneurs found it super effective to create content marketing pieces that share some of the stories of some of their greatest customer wins. And the reason why is because if they can share these stories about different ways that organizations of different sizes have seen success with their product, then that will make the prospect that they are talking to even more compelled to learn more about their product.
It creates a situation in which by the time the buyer makes it further down in the buyer’s journey and continues to engage with a sales rep, they naturally have more and more questions about their product and want to learn more about different ways that they could or couldn’t use their product to solve their problems.
3. It helps meet prospects in a different medium
The third reason why content marketing is needed in today’s world is that it helps meet your prospects in a different medium. It means that in most sales conversations, you’re either having an in-person meeting or you’re jumping on some sort of a call. So this means that when you have content marketing pieces that are in the form of a PDF or a printable or something else, you can have the prospect engage with your company and your brand in a different media.
By meeting your prospect through a different medium, you’re giving another exposure point to your brand or a company that doesn’t require them to interface with somebody from your brand. As a result, they have more power to form their impression about your company or your brand, which allows them to feel more like an empowered consumer. This mere exposure effect really starts to compound over time because it really establishes yourself as the person or the company that your prospect will think of the next time they think about the thing that you solve.
4. It generates qualified leads
The fourth reason why content marketing is so powerful is that it helps you generate qualified leads. Each content marketing piece that you create becomes another asset that will compound into your content marketing machine. And as a result, give you another opportunity to get in front of the right sort of customer.
If we think back to that earlier example of the CPA site, if we were to add a simple call-to-action at the end of every single one of our answers to those hundreds of accounting or taxes questions, we could have another few hundred opportunities to get in front of the right sort of customer and have them reach out to us if they had additional questions about their tax situation or some sort of question that they couldn’t get answered from the content marketing piece. By providing this sort of channel, we would be able to better identify a more qualified lead than just somebody that would have contacted us through the contact page on our website.
5. It boosts businesses' SEO
The fifth reason why content marketing is so important is that it bolsters your business SEO. SEO is a long game. So over time, each of your content marketing pieces will snowball and build a bigger and bigger asset for your business. The reason why it’s so important to build up your trust and authority with Google is that it’s a major ranking factor in which if you are more trustworthy or more authoritative than your competitor, your website is more likely to be shown higher up in the search results on Google. As a result of that, the next time that somebody is looking for your product or service, they’re more likely to end up on your website than your competitors.
The takeaways
There are two big takeaways from this post. The first one is that content marketing helps you make your sales process way more efficient. If you can answer some of the questions that prospects are commonly asking you through your content marketing, you will make more sales because people are going to be more educated in their buyer’s journey. The second big takeaway is that when done right, content marketing can create some powerful flywheel effects.
Well, these are some of the few benefits of content marketing which clearly tell the importance of content marketing. If you want to boost your business, you surely have to spend your efforts on content marketing in this competitive world of business.
