At every successful company, there’s a sales team that does an incredible job of turning leads into customers. They say all the right words, make all the right promises, and help their prospects overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of doing business together.
Now, imagine if you had a team like that talking for you 24 hours a day on your website and in your marketing collateral. That’s the power of content marketing. When your company gets the words right, content marketing serves as the helpful voice that intrigues your target audience and nurtures them toward conversion.
Not fully convinced? Here are three reasons why every company should invest in content marketing if they want to grow their business.
1. Develop an Audience
Most people think that if they haven’t been creating content until now, they’re probably not going to be on the first page of Google anytime soon. And if your target audience doesn’t find you when they search for industry-related questions on Google, then what’s the point?
While it certainly takes time to start ranking on search engines with your content, remember that you likely already have a pile of contacts that know you, and, in that case, trust you more than a stranger would.
Why does this matter? Your contact list is your audience. By investing in copywriting, your company will become armed with content that you can send straight to your audience’s inbox. When you create truly helpful content that makes your audience feel understood, they will love hearing from you. And you’ll be the first person they think of when they’re ready to buy.
According to a 2020 HubSpot report on marketing, here some facts that show how much marketers are investing in content right now:
- 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority
- 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing
- 72% of marketers said that having a good content strategy was a major key to their success
By developing helpful content, you’ll build an audience of people who see your company as a trusted guide. Helpful content can be as easy as writing a blog, creating a how-to blog, or answering a frequently asked question.
That audience then becomes a massive sales pipeline for your business.
2. Stay In Front of Your Contacts
Before someone will be ready to buy from you, they have to trust you. According to Salesforce, it takes 6 to 8 touches to build that trust and generate a viable sales lead. In other words, it takes time for customers to observe that you know what you’re talking about before they’re going to be ready to buy.
But here’s the hack. You can accomplish 6 to 8 impressions in just one email campaign that showcases your content.
Secondly, if your target audience finds out about your product predominantly online, you will also need to “know what you’re talking about” online. This should look more like empathy than arrogance, and you can accomplish that by investing in writing content that your customer finds truly helpful.
Tip: Ask your favorite customers what kind of content they would like to see more of from you. Creating that kind of content will help you attract more of the same clients.
The more your customers hear from you, the more likely they’ll trust you and think of you when they’re ready to make a purchase.
3. Create Results with Content Marketing
If you know your customer is slow to buy your product or service, and you aren’t providing content, it’s time to rethink that. If your company is producing content, but it isn’t bringing you results, you need to rethink that too.
By simply sharing valuable content on your website, with your current contact list, and on social media channels such as LinkedIn, you will greatly increase your chance for more revenue. The companies that see revenue results from content marketing are the ones that continue creating and sharing helpful content.
In fact, take a glance at this 2018 content marketing study for B2B companies in the US. It gives a statistical look into what B2B companies did to successfully increase revenue with content marketing. While 91% of all B2B companies are already investing in content marketing, most of these companies don’t consider themselves to be very good at it. When your company starts creating helpful and educational content for your audience, you will immediately create separation between you and your competitors. This is the competitive advantage of content marketing.
The Takeaway
The words you use to talk about your company are either your biggest asset or biggest liability. Content marketing is how you can always tell your audience the right message at the right time. This will help build trust with your audience, and when they are ready to buy, they will buy from you.
