Everything we could ever dream of and more is readily available at your fingertips.
From information on that new juggling hobby you took up to underwater basket weaving.
You can find the information you need with a simple search on your smartphone or computer.
What if you were to flip the script in this narrative?
What if you started looking at it from the perspective of producing instead of consuming this information?
Who knows your business better than you?
Why not take advantage of your specialized knowledge and educate those looking to learn about these subjects?
Your customers are out there waiting for content that only you can make. You may not understand why you need to do it yet, and that’s okay.
By the end of this chapter, you will clearly understand why content marketing is important for growing your business online and offline.
Let’s dig in.
Table Of Contents
1.Content Marketing Is A Scalable, Long Term Strategy
2. Content Marketing Builds Trust With Your Visitors
3. Content Marketing Attracts Ideal Buyers
4. Content Marketing Generates Leads For Your Business
5. Content Marketing Gives People A Reason To Come Back To Your Website
6. Content Marketing Builds Industry Authority
7. Content Marketing Helps You Set Yourself Apart From Competitors
8. Your Customers Want Great Content From You!
9. Content Marketing Helps Your Site Bring In More Organic Customers
10. Content Marketing Strengthens Your Relationship With Current And Future Customers
11. Content Marketing Allows You To Share Your Knowledge With The World
12. Content Marketing Is A Cost-Effective Way To Bring In New Leads
1. Content Marketing Is A Scalable, Long Term Strategy
Suppose you create consistent value-adding content that is usable for the foreseeable future. In that case, Google will rank your website higher on the search results page.
This means that over time if you keep the same goal in mind and continuously keep chugging away with your content production, you can expect to gradually see more and more website visitors over the long term.
The best way to think about it is like the snowball effect.
It will start slow and small when making a snowball and attempting to roll it down a hill.
After giving it a helping hand and pushing it along, the snowball gradually picks up size and speed.
At a certain point, the snowball will no longer need your help to roll and will pick up speed along with momentum all on its own.
By the time it reaches the bottom of the hill, the snowball will be so giant that you wouldn’t be able to stop it. This is due to the compounding effect of more snow sticking to the original snowball’s surface.
Like the snowball effect, your content marketing can achieve the same results based on how consistent you contribute to the efforts and how long you commit to obtaining the results you are looking to achieve.
Quality content * consistency of content made * overall time committed = long-term growth you are looking for.
2. Content Marketing Builds Trust With Your Visitors
Giving people value upfront before ever asking anything in return, trust in your brand is a natural byproduct.
Think about it, if some random stranger walked up to you and started to sell you their business consulting services 2 seconds into the conversation, how would you feel?
What would be running through your mind?
Probably something along the lines of “who the heck is this guy? I’m not buying anything from him! Just keep walking and act like you didn’t hear him. Maybe he will go away.”
It might not even end there. There are probably hundreds of other different thoughts and conversations taking place in your head after the interaction. None of which are usually beneficial.
Now that you are switching shoes with this person think about how you can avoid this reaction with people who visit your website.
It may not be a personal conversation like you would have with someone trying to sell you something on the street. However, the same type of thoughts will start flowing as soon as they click on your website.
The initial thoughts they might have will be along the lines of “Does this website look like a scam? Are their products high quality? Should I trust this website? What is their upsell going to be?”
If you focus solely on the value you add to those who visit your website or anywhere else you have an online presence before the purchase is made, the odds of the people having negative thoughts towards your business go down significantly.
Plus, they will know that you aren’t in it just for the money and want to help them.
3. Content Marketing Attracts Ideal Buyers
Great content begs to be seen by the right people.
It’s like tom and jerry, but friendlier, and instead of trying to kill each other, you are trying to help one another.
The beauty of content marketing is that it can attract customers from all different areas within the buying funnel.
The information can be great to someone in the awareness phase because now they learn about this new subject and get the information they are after. Best of all, it’s coming from you.
Throughout the comparison phase, All you have to do is focus on providing valuable information and show them you know what you are talking about. Once the right person connects with your content, the sale will happen naturally.
And of course, when it comes down to the buying phase, the content will have filtered out all the right candidates from the bad. The ones that like what they see will stay. No one likes working with clients from hell who love to play with your time.
Content marketing is important when attracting ideal buyers because you can walk the right customer through all buying stages. In doing so, your content helps automate the buying process and make it a more natural and easy transaction.
You will be happier working with those that are happy to be working with you.
4. Content Marketing Generates Leads For Your Business
Content marketing brings in more organic traffic from search engines like google directly to your website.
The more content you create around your business and knowledge in that business, the more pages from your website will have a chance to be shown in google search results.
It’s like entering the lottery. The more tickets you buy, the more opportunities you will have towards actually winning.
In this case, google is equal to the lottery, and your content is equivalent to buying the ticket for your chance to win. The more content you are willing to put out there, the higher chances you have to gain new customers from it.
Think about it.
You are giving your brand more opportunities to reach more people who want to do business with you.
Over time, your website will rank higher and higher on the search results page. Google loves companies that are willing to put out consistent and relevant content for their customers to enjoy, which means the longer you keep at it, the more you will be rewarded.
5. Content marketing gives people a reason to come back to your website
Once someone stumbles upon your website through an online search and likes what you have to offer, they will store you and your business in their memory bank the next time they are looking for similar information.
An example of this, let’s say you run an online store where people can order baked goods and have them shipped directly to their doorstep.
Now being someone with knowledge and expertise in baking, you write on your blog about the common questions you get or the stuff you wish you knew earlier on in your career.
Someone finds your website through google after searching “why won’t my cake rise properly?”
The article answered precisely why they are having this problem and an implementable solution the next time they make a cake.
This person goes and gives your advice a try, and wouldn’t you know, it worked!
The chances of this person clicking on your website in future related searches have gone up significantly due to the excellent experience last time. They now consider your website a trustworthy source of information.
Maybe the next time they come to your site, they decide to use one of the recipes you posted.
They love it!
Now they are thinking about how good that recipe was, so now they subscribe to your email newsletter so they can stay up to date with all the new content you release and possible deals you have on products.
The next time you send out an email announcing that you are selling everything in the store for 50% off for the next 24 hours.
They think that’s a great deal, and based on the last recipe you gave them, it would be an excellent time to try out what you have to offer.
This person receives their dozen cupcakes in the mail a few days later and loves it.
They then tell their friends and family about it or even give one to try, and then all of a sudden, more and more people are trickling to your website, ready to place their orders!
Yes, this happens.
Think about your own past experiences and how they can relate to this example.
Maybe you weren’t buying baked goods online. Still, at one time or another, you have gone through this exact buying process to some degree, and you did it without even realizing it.
6. Content Marketing Builds Industry Authority
The moment people start looking at you as their information source for your industry, you have achieved authority status with your business.
It’s that simple.
People want to do business with those that they trust can provide the results they are looking for.
Why?
Great question!
Would you be okay with someone who just started med school performing open-heart surgery on you?
Or would it be okay if someone who never touched an engine before to work on your Porsche?
Probably not!
Well, when it comes to information, products, and services you offer online, it’s the same thing.
Help those who come to your level up in their lives.
Create valuable content that will help people level up in their lives. You will have people coming back to you for more, and you will, in turn, become an authority figure in your industry as time passes.
7. Content Marketing Helps You Set Yourself Apart From Competitors
To stand out from your competitors, you need to do what they aren’t.
Simple right?
Find an area where you can stand apart from your competition within your content marketing strategy.
Maybe there aren’t enough how-to guides out there, and you see there is a need or a want from your customers for it.
Maybe there is no one making youtube videos in your industry yet.
Maybe there isn’t enough information out there.
This is where you can shine through and fill in the gap.
Create valuable content that your customers are looking for.
The more content you create, the more chances you are giving yourself to be found online and to help people through the buying funnel.
It’s a win-win, and your competitors are the only ones missing out.
8. Your Customers Want Great Content From You!
Everyone loves great attention-grabbing articles or videos.
Your customers are no different.
People buy for multiple reasons, but a big reason someone buys from you is to support you and what you do.
Over time, your brands’ fan base will grow, and you will eventually have a group of people that want to be apart of what you do.
They want to learn from you. They want to hang out with you and feel like they are apart of the movement.
Creating content is an excellent way to gain loyal customers and continuously give them value even after purchasing.
And depending on how well you do at this, you will have a raving fan base that keeps coming back and will most likely become a repeat customer over time.
A great example of this is Apple.
They have a giant loyal customer base (like me) that will keep coming back to be part of the experience they offer.
Apple has done a remarkable job creating their loyal fan base that buys anything and everything they have to offer.
They provide an experience that their competitors don’t match. Because of that, they will never have to pay the price game; people will come.
Just the other day, I caught myself raving about how great they are to a friend.
I told him about how easy and seamless they make everything between devices.
I was voluntarily referring him to go pick up a MacBook and that he wouldn’t regret it.
The next day he ordered one online.
Due to the efforts Apple has made upfront by providing an unmatched experience for all its users, people will continue to support and refer them when the chance arises.
All of this is to say that if you focus on providing your customers with a great content experience and add value to them continuously, you will have loyal customers forever.
9. Content Marketing Helps Your Site Bring In More Organic Customers
The more often your website pages show up when your industry’s topics are searched on google, the more people will click on your site. This means you earn higher organic traffic from google.
The magic of organic traffic is that it doesn’t cost you any money.
However, it does cost you upfront time and effort.
The more you invest upfront for time and effort, the more organic potential you have to gain.
Again this brings us back to the magical equation of:
Quality content * consistency of content made * overall time committed = long-term growth you are looking for.
This equation will follow you every step of your content marketing journey and serve you well to keep it in the back of your mind.
When you don’t have a huge marketing budget, but you have time to spare, consider this the direction you should head.
10. Content Marketing Strengthens Your Relationship With Current And Future Customers
When you continue to serve your customers with valuable information that helps them improve their lives and business, you will significantly strengthen your relationship.
The mentality behind content marketing is give, give, give, not take take take take.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a fantastic example of this.
Gary Vaynerchuk is the king of value-added content upfront.
He consistently puts giving to his audience as number one. You can see it with your own eyes on almost all major social media platforms, his website, blog, and podcast.
I highly recommend you check him out and see with your own eyes what I’m talking about.
Create great content to help strengthen your relationship with your current and future clients.
It’s a nice way to get them introduced to you and what you do, as well as keeping people coming back for more as time goes on.
11. Content Marketing Allows You To Share Your Knowledge With The World
Content marketing is an outlet for you to transfer all your knowledge to.
This can be good for multiple reasons.
First, your significant other may be tired of hearing about the same conversation topics every day (speaking from experience).
Second, this gives you a chance to clear out your mental storage room and tidy up.
Third, the things you know can be wildly beneficial to others.
You may not think of your memory bank as crazy valuable, but that’s only because you are always surrounded by it and the industry you specialize in.
To an outsider trying to look in and learn more about what you do, all the lessons you learned can help prevent the pitfalls you went through in your experiences.
This point ties nicely into #6.
By you sharing all the information you have built up about your industry, not only are you providing an insane amount of value, but you are building up your online authority.
People will begin to turn to you more often when looking for information within your industry.
Don’t be shy. Let people see your genius!
12. Content Marketing Is A Cost-Effective Way To Bring In New Leads
Content marketing costs you in time upfront.
You have to invest in creating content, learning how to make your content better, learning how to get more people to see your content, how to best use social media, find where your brand could stand out the best compared to your competitors, etc., etc., etc.
Time and commitment are the prices of entry in this game, not money.
Once you pay your admission fee of time and commitment, you can potentially reap the fruits of your labor for years to come.
The trick is creating evergreen content (information that can be used and implemented for the foreseeable future).
The more time you spend upfront, the more rewards you will potentially see later on as the quantity of content begins to stack up.
Think of it as a magic compounding investment account.
Every dollar you put in compounds over time (increases in amount).
The more dollar bills you put into the compounding investment account, the faster and larger the amount gets.
Eventually, every dollar you put in magically gives you 100 dollars back.
If you had the opportunity to have a bank account like this, what would you do?
Taking a wild guess, I would assume you would put in as much money as possible to get the best return down the road.
This vending machine rejects fake bills and counterfeits of all types to accept only quality bills.
It means that you have to create great valuable content that someone can absorb and learn from.
13. Content Marketing Increases Your Conversions
Far more people will buy from you and convert as actual customers after experiencing the value you have to offer before they have even made a purchase.
Creating helpful guides, how-to videos, or anything that involves giving your consumer exactly what they want without any expectation that they will buy from you, will naturally increase the number of people who buy from you.
I know this may sound backward and counterintuitive but think about it.
If you have ever been to Costco, you’ve probably witnessed their employees handing out free samples of specific products for people to try on the spot.
Not everyone buys that product after the free sample, but some will because they liked how the food tasted and want to bring some home to cook for their families to enjoy.
They provide value upfront by allowing you to try out the product first before committing to buying it, making it easier for people to purchase that product while knowing what to expect.
You’re taking the same tactic and applying it to your business, whether you sell physical products or not, which can significantly improve the number of people who convert into paying customers.
Don’t worry. I will show you exactly how to do this and all the different types of content marketing for you to pick from in the upcoming chapters.
Conclusion
The number one takeaway from this chapter is … Content marketing is important!
There are so many benefits from it that it almost doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t want to implement it into your current marketing strategy.
Yes, you have to dedicate the time to do it, but for the sake of your business’s longevity, this is a no-brainer.
Some of the top brands that actively implement content marketing are TED, Hubspot, Jay Shetty, Canva, GoPro, Buffer, Vaynermedia, Orbelo, Spotify, Grammarly, Headspace. The list of top companies implementing this can go on and on without end, but I think you get the point here.
Up next, we will be going over all the different types of content marketing that you have to choose from when designing your strategy.
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