Content marketing is essential for any successful digital marketing strategy. Here are the most remarkable content marketing benefits you should know.

Whether you’re a website owner, entrepreneur, or digital marketer, you’ve likely already tried your hand at content marketing. The benefits of content marketing lie in its powerful and cost-effective ways of building your brand and driving sales.

Nevertheless, the upfront cost of developing and implementing a content marketing strategy can be quite high. Unless you have an in-house team of content creators and marketers, you’ll likely have to hire a content marketing agency.

From implementing a content marketing calendar to developing a content marketing playbook—this can be a time-consuming and laborious process. And it can also take a while for the results of your content marketing plan to show any return on investment.

In such a scenario, it’s only natural to wonder whether content marketing is worth the hype. Is it just another buzzword in the world of digital marketing? Or does it offer any real value and tangible benefits? If you’re new to the world of content marketing, these questions will frequently come to mind.

The good news is despite the shortcomings, content marketing is worth a shot in the digital marketing long game. When judiciously executed, a content marketing strategy can be instrumental in bolstering your brand authority and affinity.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at some of the most prominent content marketing benefits of a digital marketing strategy. But let’s first take a look at a few important statistics to understand how content marketing is perceived in the real world.

Content Marketing: Looking at the Numbers

Did you know 90% of all marketing professionals use some form of content marketing in their organizations?

And 86% of B2C marketers consider content marketing to be integral to all their marketing campaigns. The latest studies also indicate content marketing spending is on the rise with 62% of marketers planning to increase their content marketing budget in the near future.

This isn’t surprising considering content marketing is 62% less expensive than traditional marketing channels. It even generates 3x more leads compared to traditional marketing. According to HubSpot, content marketers focused on blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI.

These statistics clearly indicate content marketing is becoming increasingly popular in the modern marketing landscape. Businesses of all sizes and niches are working hard to grab the attention of their potential customers with eye-catching content.

Ready to hop on the content marketing bandwagon? Is it a good fit for your business?

In the following sections, we’ll highlight the most important content marketing benefits to help you make an informed decision. Let’s get started.

Key Content Marketing Benefits

If you’re familiar with the world of content marketing, you are likely already aware of the following:

• Content marketing increases brand awareness.
• Content marketing helps build a consistent and easily recognizable brand identity.
• A robust and well-rounded content plan and strategy gives you an edge over your competitors.

However, you could reap these content marketing benefits from other digital marketing techniques, such as:

• Social media marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Influencer marketing

So, why should you specifically invest your effort and resources in building a rock-solid content marketing strategy? It’s now time for us to answer this question with the top ten remarkable content marketing benefits. Let’s dive in.

1. Content Marketing is Versatile

Who should use content marketing and how? If you’re a marketing novice, this is the most common question that’ll come to your mind. It’s only natural to think there are only certain businesses that benefit the most from content marketing. However, this is far from true.

Whether you’re running a bootstrapped startup or a large corporation, you can leverage content marketing to build your brand and generate revenue. Irrespective of your budget, niche, or marketing goals—there is always a way to leverage the content marketing benefits for your business.

Even if you own a niche business such as a pet accessories brand, you can use content marketing to accomplish your goals. You just need to understand your target audience’s pain points and struggles and address those through your content. This is likely one of the biggest content marketing benefits.

2. Content Marketing Powers Inbound Marketing

Gone are the days when you could lure consumers to buy your products using radio ads and television commercials.

In today’s competitive and consumer-driven market, these outbound techniques are often perceived as intrusive and desperate.

Instead, you must use inbound marketing tactics to organically attract your target audience towards your brand to attempt to convert them into paying customers. Typically, inbound marketing can help you accomplish a wide array of business objectives, such as:

1. Improved brand reputation and credibility
2. Enhanced customer retention and loyalty
3. Increased sales and revenue

However, it’s essential to understand top-notch content is at the heart of every successful inbound marketing campaign. Even the most well-designed inbound marketing strategy may fail to yield the desired results in the absence of high-quality content.

Whether you want to drive traffic to your website or turn existing customers into brand loyalists, you need great content.

Content marketing helps you analyze and identify your target audience’s needs, preferences, pain points, and queries at every stage of inbound marketing. This, in turn, goes a long way to help you publish result-oriented content for various customer buying stages.

3. Content Marketing is Essential for SEO

The more meaningful and keyword-rich content you publish, the more likely you will improve your website SEO so you can grab a top spot in relevant search engine results pages (SERPs). Which is particularly crucial in driving increased organic traffic to your website. You can even direct website visitors to key sections and pages on your website using the right keywords.

If a blog post grabs your audience’s attention and addresses their pain points, they’ll likely check out more content on your website. The more time they spend on your website, the more it’ll improve metrics such as the bounce rate and the time-on-page rate. Which tells search engines your website provides engaging and valuable content for readers.

This is exactly the strategy that Drift, a conversational marketing platform, used to 138x their website traffic. Effective use of blogging and keyword research helped grow their blog from 198 visitors to 27,369 visitors per month in less than a year.

When you consistently deliver original and groundbreaking content, other content creators will perceive your website as an authoritative source of information. They’ll even use references from your content and link to your relevant blog posts which will strengthen your website’s inbound link profile and ultimately have a positive impact on your search engine ranking.

4. Content Helps with Lead Generation

Amplifying website traffic is of no use unless you can convert your visitors into paying customers. Depending on your product or service, it may not be possible to turn first-time visitors into customers. Instead, you need to convert visitors into leads by compelling them to share their contact information, such as an email address.

But why would a consumer provide their personal information to a brand that they’ve just come across on the internet? The key is to provide them with an irresistible incentive in exchange for their contact details. This is where content marketing comes into the picture.

A robust content marketing strategy is instrumental in developing relevant and valuable lead magnets, such as:

• E-books
• Whitepapers
• Case studies
• Checklists
• Ultimate guides
• Gated content
• Newsletters

Content marketing helps you understand your audience’s needs and create content they will connect with. It helps to effectively showcase promotional content using the right calls-to-action (CTAs).

Content marketing particularly helps with qualifying new customer leads. The more first-time website visitors actively searching for information related to your offerings, the more opportunities you have to convert visitors to buyers. Such people already have a problem they’re trying to solve. Thus, they’re more likely to convert into paying customers in the future, even if not right away.

5. Content Marketing Drives Conversions

In an ideal world, a consumer would land on your website from a search engine and immediately make a purchase. However, that’s not how conversions happen very often in the real world.

Today’s consumers are surrounded by an abundance of choices. No matter if they want to buy a vegan meat substitute or project management software, they’ll find plenty of options.

That’s why your potential customers will analyze various options before making a purchase decision. Typically, a consumer goes through the following stages before deciding to spend their money on a product/service:

Here’s an example to help you better understand the buyer’s journey:

Your goal is to convert prospects into qualified leads, nurture these leads, and then convince them to choose your brand over others. In other words, you need to drive specific conversions at various stages.

A conversion-focused content marketing strategy can help you handhold your target consumers at every stage of the buyer’s journey. For instance, you can use informational blog posts, infographics, etc. to attract website visitors in the awareness stage. Also, you can convert them into qualified leads using e-books, whitepapers, etc.

In the consideration stage, you can use explainer videos, tutorials, guides, etc. to educate active leads about your products/brand. The idea is to showcase what your product/brand can help them accomplish.

Likewise, in the decision stage, you can use client testimonials, case studies, etc. to convince a consumer to buy your product or service. The key is to use the right content to position your product as the right solution to their problems.

Here’s a summary of how different content formats fit into every stage of the buyer’s journey:

Thus, the effective use of content marketing is essential for driving conversions throughout the buyer’s journey. In its absence, qualified prospects will leak through your sales funnel. You’ll end up spending your precious marketing moolah without yielding any actual leads, sales, and revenue.

6. Content Marketing Skyrockets Your Social Media Presence

Content marketing benefits aren’t just limited to increased website traffic and conversions. You can even use it to build and grow your social media following across various platforms.

For instance, let’s say a consumer comes across one of your blog posts in a relevant SERP. They click on the link and start reading your blog post. If the reader is impressed by your content, they’ll likely check out your brand on social media. You can even use strategic CTAs on your website to entice them to follow your social media profiles.

Once they start following you on social, you can build audience engagement on social media using content formats, such as:

• Infographics
• Memes
• Humorous quotes
• One-liners and tweets
• Short videos
• High-quality images
• Animation

If your audience derives value and entertainment from your social media posts, they’ll end up sharing it on their profiles. This, in turn, will help you reach out to a more diverse audience and further amplify your social media following. Needless to say, it’s going to be instrumental in strengthening your brand-building efforts.

7. Content Builds Customer Relationships

Content marketing helps you build a strong and lasting relationship with your potential and existing customers. When you provide potential customers with useful content before and after their first purchase, they feel valued. It positions your brand as one that cares about its customers and is eager to help them.

This, in turn, helps you win their trust and convince them to purchase from you. Also, consistently delighting your customers with valuable content helps you earn their loyalty. In addition to making repeat purchases from you, they’ll also vouch for your brand in their networks.

Effective content marketing can make your customer service team’s life easier. All you have to do is identify the most common questions your potential and existing customers ask at various buying stages. Then create extensive and resourceful blog posts, videos, guides, etc. to answer their questions.

Instead of spending hours working to analyze and resolve a customer query, your service reps can provide them with links to relevant content assets. You can even collate helpful blog posts and other content assets into a comprehensive knowledge base. Take a look at this example:

8. Content Marketing Reinforces Brand Authority and Reputation

When you consistently publish outstanding content across multiple channels, it positions your brand as an authoritative voice in your industry which strengthens brand reputation, credibility, and customer trust.

Increased brand authority ensures your audience looks up to you for reliable, useful, and relevant content. It’s particularly useful in improving brand affinity and building a loyal and engaged community around your brand.

9. Content Marketing Delivers Continuous ROI

Yes, the initial cost of successfully executing a content marketing strategy can be high. However, unlike outbound marketing and paid advertising, the results of content marketing are far longer lasting.

For instance, a witty and detailed infographic will continue to get shared on social media as long as it remains relevant. Likewise, an evergreen blog post will continue to attract website visitors years after it’s been published.

The biggest content marketing benefit is that it provides long-term gain. As long as your content assets are live and relevant, they’ll help you accomplish your marketing goals. Which ensures you will continue to generate conversions and revenue from your published content assets.

10. Content Keeps the Conversation Going

Content marketing is a great way to initiate two-way communication directly with your audience.

One look at the comments section of your blog posts and social media posts gives you insight into what your audience wants. Responding to these comments and fulfilling their needs further strengthens your relationship with your audience.

Final Thoughts

Content marketing is an indispensable part of every digital marketing campaign.

Whether you want to build brand awareness and authority or increase sales and revenue, you need awesome content. It also breathes life into your SEO and inbound marketing strategies.

It helps you win your target consumers’ trust and build an enduring relationship with them.

Partner with WriteForMe to Kickstart Your Content Marketing Strategy

Are you ready to kickstart your content marketing strategy and start reaping the benefits of content marketing?

Content us at WriteForMe today for your FREE content marketing playbook customized for your business, and get a jump start on your content marketing strategy.