Expert Tips For What is Content Marketing & Why Do I Need It?

As we move further into the digital age, content marketing is becoming increasingly more important. In order to stay ahead of the competition, you need to have a content marketing strategy plan that’s up-to-date, innovative, and compelling for your customers and prospects, setting you apart from the rest. In this blog post, we’ll explore what content marketing is, the benefits of content marketing, and how to build a content marketing strategy to grow your business.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant. Consistent content (audio, visual, and/or written) to appeal to and keep a clear target audience, which in turn drives profit and achieves business goals. A successful content strategy should attract your audience at every step, keeping them engaged after their purchase.

Why Do I Need Content Marketing?

A common misconception new business owners may have is that a content marketing strategy is nice to have, but not a necessity early on. Let’s debunk that. Producing high-quality, compelling content can be invaluable in establishing trust with new target audiences and contribute to long-term business success. Content marketing helps businesses prepare and plan for consistent and reliable, cost-effective sources of new leads and website traffic. If you can develop a single blog post that gets a solid amount of traffic, an embedded link or fee tool will continue to generate leads for you over time, long after the post date. This reliable traffic and lead source from your evergreen content can give you the flexibility to try out other marketing tactics to build revenue, like sponsored content, social media ads, and distributed content. Apart from attracting leads, impactful content educates your prospective customers and generates brand awareness.

Why is Content Marketing So Important?

Content marketing opens a conversation with your audience and keeps those conversations fresh, helpful, and engaging over time. Great content marketing leads to engagement and builds relationships and trust amongst your target audience. A recent study states that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see increased ROI than companies that don’t. Content marketing captures 7.8x more organic traffic and generates 3x the leads, and costs less than other digital marketing channels. Lastly, content marketing is a welcoming extension for the user rather than an interruption from their activity.

What Are the Steps to Building a Content Marketing Strategy?

1. Define your goal: knowing why you want to create content and your aim for developing a content marketing plan is essential to determining what’s best for your strategy.
   
2. Conduct research: clearly defining your target audience is the key to developing a successful content marketing strategy. By understanding your target audience, you can produce relevant and impactful content that will keep them engaged and wanting to learn more.
3. Run content audit: most brands usually start with blog posts. If you’re looking to expand into different formats, you can run a content audit to evaluate your highest and lowest performing content. Then use that information to determine your next steps.
4. Decide on a content management system: some critical parts of content management are content creation, publication, and analytics. You’ll want to invest in a content management system to keep track of your content in a way that’s easy to read and sustainable.
5. Determine what type of content works best for your business: you can choose whichever media you think resonates best with your audience, from written blog posts to audio content like podcasts and more.
6. Generate ideas for content: it’s brainstorming time! Start coming up with ideas for what you want your content to be about. There are many tools you can use to surface relevant keywords or google SEO analytics to gain the most exposure and generate leads for your brand.
7. Publish and manage content: your content marketing strategy should include more than just the type of content you’ll create – it should also include how you’ll organize your content. A content calendar will help you publish a well-balanced and diverse content library for your website and work in conjunction with other marketing channels like social media marketing.

In conclusion, building a content marketing strategy tailored to your business and target audience is the key to establishing trust and an impactful relationship with your customers. Great content marketing is educational and keeps your audience engaged, leading to higher conversion rates and lead generation that, in turn, helps your bottom line. If you’re ready to start developing lucrative and powerful content marketing strategies to accelerate and grow your business, contact Agency Partner Interactive today to schedule a consultation. The experts at API have all the tools and resources needed to create outstanding content that’s helpful for your audience while keeping the conversation fresh and engaging.