There’s really no other category of marketing that offers as many wide-ranging benefits as content marketing. Keep in mind, there are lots of types of content, from different forms of written content to video to audio to infographics and more. Incorporating a variety is often the most effective strategy, as each type has its own advantages (and shortcomings). So let’s take a look at some of the most useful benefits of content marketing.
But first, we should stress that, to be successful, your content has to be original and of high quality. And you need to publish it consistently and regularly. Every piece of content must offer value to the audience. It’s about them, not you; effective content marketing doesn’t run on overtly self-promotional content.
When you meet these criteria, here are just some of the main benefits of content marketing you can expect your brand to enjoy.
Benefits of Content Marketing
- Improve your SEO and discoverability as you regularly add more keyworded content to your brand’s website. High-quality content that directly answers common search queries helps your site be found organically by more people; it can also earn you backlinks that help you rise in search rankings and deliver direct traffic from other sites.
- Boost your local SEO too by publishing content that’s locally focused and keyworded. Find more local SEO tips here.
- Create more brand awareness as new people discover your content, whether it’s through search, on a social media network, others sharing your content (e.g., on social, on their own sites, forwarded emails), and so on.
- Build brand authority by showing your industry expertise. As you produce reliable original content, more people will see you as a credible source of information—and so will the search engines.
- Build trust among existing and potential customers or clients. When they see you as a good source of information—and also see your willingness to share it—they’ll invariably see you as a good source for your products or services, too.
- Keep people on your website longer by giving them reasons to stick around and explore additional pages. This further helps build relationships, makes your brand more memorable, improves the user experience on your site, and exposes visitors to more of your calls to action.
- Run more effective social media marketing and email marketing when you share your original content on these platforms. It’ll boost engagement, drive more traffic to your website, earn you shares from your followers and subscribers, and more. One of the greatest benefits of content marketing is certainly its ability to power other areas of your marketing.
- Have stronger relationships with consumers who come to rely on your brand more, interact with it more, and ultimately buy from it more.
- Increase leads and sales. That’s the purpose of marketing, after all, and it’s what happens thanks to all the above benefits of content marketing.
