Is content marketing still a viable option to promote your business and build a brand? The resounding answer: YES! Let’s jump into the top 5 reasons why you should invest in quality content creation to help build your brand.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the development and use of written content to build authority, brand awareness, and increase success for a business. It comes in a variety of forms including blogs, social media posts, email marketing, newsletters, white papers, and video content. Successful marketers use content marketing to connect with their potential and current customers. This type of marketing builds their expertise and demonstrates their company values. Strong brands see the success of content marketing in digital marketing. Content marketing is a long-game strategy. It aims to build a relationship and trust between a brand and its audience. When a consumer feels a personal connection to a brand, they become more invested in the company’s success. They are then more likely to see them as a valuable source of information and guidance.

Types of Content Marketing

Content marketing brings in billions of dollars every year. One of the reasons why it’s so effective is because there are many different types of content marketing. Types of content marketing to consider when evaluating your marketing strategy:

1.    Email Marketing

Many “experts” in the marketing field have been predicting the death of email marketing for years. They could not be more wrong. Email marketing continues to prove to be one of the best ways to reach a brand’s target audience. According to Campaign Monitor, email marketing has an ROI of 3800%. That number is pretty far from dead.

2.    Blogging

Blogging is a great way to build authority in a field. One well-written blog can also produce content for use in a variety of ways. It can improve the SEO of a website, provid3 content for an email newsletter, and become a social media post. Guest blogging also expands a company’s networking circle. Companies invite individuals from outside of their normal circle to write a guest blog that will live on their site. This puts their content and information in front of an audience that may otherwise not have seen it. The same goes for when a company writes a guest blog on another company’s website. This cross-pollination allows both the contributing writer and the blog owner to gain access to a new audience.  

3.    Social Media

Social media can be overwhelming and time-consuming. With the right strategy, it can also be a gold mine for a business! Keeping an active social media presence not only helps a company to advertise its goods or services. It also serves as a direct link from producer to consumer. Social media allows companies to interact with their audience base like never before. Popular platforms to consider include Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  

4.    Video Content

Video content is a great way to put a face to the name of a business. It is a more personable way to grab the attention of an audience. According to Hubspot, embedding videos in landing pages improves their conversion rate by 80%.  

5.    Lead Generation and Lead Magnets

Everyone loves something free and a company’s audience is no different. Luckily, there are quite a few options for companies when it comes to preparing a lead magnet for their lead generation strategy. Examples of lead magnets that are heavily content-based include eBooks, checklists, how-to guides, free workshops, and reports.  

6.    Infographics

With the rise of social media, infographics have taken off. These beautifully-designed graphics are a great way to quickly catch the eye of a consumer. They can transfer important information, promote a product, explain a process, and more. In fact, according to Hubspot, an infographic is 30 times more likely to grab attention than a pure text blog post. Consumers have short attention spans, especially when it comes to marketing. Infographics are a great way to grab their attention.  

7.    Webinars and Free Workshops

Webinars and free workshops are excellent ways to prove your authority to an audience. Another benefit lies in enticing them to sign up for your next-level course or to buy your product.   These types of lead magnets are a win-win situation for everyone involved. On one hand, the consumer gets access to high-quality information. On the other hand, the workshop producer gets to passively sell their product or service.

8.    Interactive Content

People love to interact and answer questions. That’s why things like quizzes or surveys will work in your favor. They are a great way to capture leads that could benefit from your product or service. Interactive content has a much higher conversion rate than stagnant content. When consumers feel value in connecting with a brand’s interactive content, the conversion rate jumps from 36% (from passive selling) to 70%.

9.    Podcasting

Podcasting isn’t reserved for true crime stories anymore. Companies of all sizes across the world are using podcasts as a way to build authority and content with their audiences. Podcasts are also a great way to promote products and expand a company’s marketing reach.

Why Does Content Marketing Matter?

When a consumer is ready to make a purchase, they’ll turn to the companies they have built trust and relationships with. Here are some of the top reasons why content marketing is important.

Reason #1. Builds Brand Awareness and Reputation

Content marketing is an excellent way to build brand awareness and a strong brand reputation. When a brand generates quality content, its audience begins to see it as an authority in its respective field. When a consumer logs onto TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media platform, they gravitate towards updates from people or brands that are familiar to them. If they continue to see familiar content that is either enjoyable or helpful, they will start to seek out and look forward to the brand’s next post, blog, or video. A piece of content doesn’t even need to promote a product, service, or event. It can exist to relay information that helps a brand assert its expertise in a field or on a topic. This helps with building brand credibility and awareness. Not seeing immediate results with your content marketing? Don’t worry! Consumers aren’t interacting immediately, and that’s okay! They are more likely to interact or buy from a brand when they continually see content from that brand. According to MailChimp, 47% of buyers will view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a company or a company’s representative. Even if they aren’t buying yet, eyes are watching. Content marketing should be a cornerstone of any successful brand’s marketing strategy.  

Reason #2. Improves Conversions

The proof of the importance of content marketing lies in conversion rates. Companies that use quality content marketing to engage their consumers see a 30% higher growth rate than those that do not. No matter the industry, there is a lot of competition. A brand needs to set itself apart from its competition and content marketing is a great way to do that. Besides having quality content, a good content marketer will know how to utilize SEO to drive traffic to their brand’s website or social media channels. This traffic consists of people who want or need the product or service they are selling. Regardless of the audience, great content always includes a call to action or CTA. Even if it’s not to sell a product or service, it still encourages consumers to engage with the brand. A consumer is more likely to purchase from a brand that they have previously engaged with.     It’s important to remember that content marketing isn’t a one-and-done plan. Sometimes a consumer won’t convert on the first attempt. Even if a consumer doesn’t buy the first time they visit a website or receive an email, a strong content marketing strategy continues to nurture that lead until it turns into a conversion. Without strong and compelling content to continue to nurture a lead and build a relationship, a brand could be losing leads before they even have the chance to turn into a conversion.

Reason #3. Boosts Quality of Leads

Another reason why content marketing is one of the best ways to build a brand is that it produces a better quality of leads than many other types of marketing. Studies have shown that businesses with blogs will get 67% more leads than companies without a blog. One of the reasons for this is that consumers who inquire about a brand’s products or services after consuming their blog content already know that the brand is trustworthy and reliable. When they reach out for more information, they are not coming into the conversation completely cold. They know that the brand can solve their problem. Properly optimized blog content also helps a website rank higher with search engines. Search engines like to index and boost original content. When a brand has more content, the search engine algorithms have more to index. The more content a brand has to index, the more likely it is to show up on various search results pages. The more search results a website shows up in, the more traffic that is driven to the site. The traffic that comes from search results is especially important. These are people who are actively searching for what that brand has to offer. Most of the time, these leads already want or need what a brand is selling. It’s up to the content marketing to convince them why they need it from this particular brand.

Reason #4. Builds Trust

The more a consumer sees original content from a particular brand, the more familiar with the brand’s name they become. When a consumer feels familiar with a brand, they are more likely to trust that brand. This trust comes into play when a consumer is looking for a product or service to solve a problem. Rather than turning to a brand they know nothing about, they will turn to one that they are familiar with. Studies have shown that most consumers do a decent amount of research before making big purchases. If they already know and trust a particular brand, their research is likely to be heavily influenced by the content they’ve already consumed from that brand.

Reason #5. Expands Audience Reach

They refer their friends and families to the brand. They organically promote the brand on their social media accounts. These brand loyalists become advocates without a company even asking them to. They share content solely because they enjoy it or find it informative or interesting. The more brand advocates a business has, the more people are online sharing a brand’s content. When content is wildly shared among various audiences, the more likely they are to reach audiences they never have before. Expanding audience reach is a good example of how content marketing supports digital marketing. We’ve all seen what happens when a really good — or bad — piece of content goes viral. Seemingly overnight, a brand can explode with one viral post. All it takes is for one person to share the piece of content for it to take off and reach new audiences.  

Bottom Line

The bottom line is this: content marketing is, and always will be, king. The above list is just a few reasons why content marketing is important. The biggest reason is that people want to feel a connection with brands and the people behind the brands before they make purchases. Content marketing is the best way to form that desired connection with existing and potential audiences. It builds brand awareness and visibility. It keeps a brand’s name front and center in the collective consciousness. Especially in our current cultural climate, consumers want to know what the brands they are supporting stand for and believe in. They want to know what the people behind the brands know. They want to know why they should trust a brand. If you need help figuring out how to incorporate excellent content marketing into your marketing strategy, reach out to one of the content experts at Ignite Visibility. We are always happy to help brands tell their stories and reach new audiences.   About the author: Tulie Finley-Moise is a Content Manager at Ignite Visibility where she transforms words into marketing magic. Tulie graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Creative Writing from Stonehill College. After dabbling in a number of freelance writing gigs, Tulie made the leap into digital marketing and hasn’t looked back since. Fascinated by words and their power to engage, entice and captivate readers, she is endlessly passionate about creating content that converts. Though born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Tulie calls sunny San Diego home. When she’s not stringing savvy sentences together, you can find Tulie watering her constantly growing collection of houseplants, listening to her favorite vinyl records, or bookmarking new places to travel to.