They say that “content is king” – but considering how important content is nowadays as part of a sales and marketing programmes, it’s probably fairer to call it the “kingdom” rather than the “king”.
While in the past, content marketing was often just about setting yourself apart from your competitors, it has quickly evolved into a necessity amongst modern brands. Behind every great company is a wealth of valuable and relevant content that matches up precisely with their target audience.
So what exactly is all the hype about?
Support Sales and Generate Leads
Primers, guides and other high-quality content helps sales teams start conversations, answer questions, educate the market and win over even the most sceptical lead. Content in the form of valuable downloadable and shareable assets can also be used for generating and capturing lead information to feed your sales teams and channel partners.
Develop Higher Quality Leads
The ability to drive new revenue results is, in part, based on the quality of the audience created. Securing the best quality audience is done by using the right content to target, attract and engage the right high-value and relevant group.
Reach Prospects in a Different Way
People don’t want to be pitched; they want to be educated. And that’s exactly what content can do.
Done right, it’s the kind of marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing – a kind of marketing that doesn’t talk at your customers, but with them.
Improve Brand Reputation
In the modern crowded digital marketplace, it’s crucial that businesses develop trust with their prospective customers. When the content they see is appealing, enlightening, and useful, they come to trust the brand that has delivered that content. And it’s trust which, ultimately, drives sales.
Power your SEO
SEO plays an important part in improving visibility for your business online. However, if you want to improve SEO, you need to create optimised and quality content.
The more good content you have on your site, the more reasons you give visitors to linger and explore your online business' presence. Google monitors these times as one indicator that your site provides valuable content – that it’s trustworthy.
With more valuable content on your own site, you also give your brand the opportunity to rank for more keywords that target users are searching for on the search engines.
Differentiate
To be competitive in the market, customers need to perceive a business’s offering as being superior or particularly well-suited to their situation when compared to other similar offerings. It’s content which helps to convey that differentiation.
Showcase Subject Matter Expertise
Consumers want to know that they are dealing with experts who know the ins and outs of the industry. Content marketing allows your brand to demonstrate its expertise in the field while providing valuable knowledge that can help readers make a more educated purchasing decision.
This expertise doesn’t always involve reinventing the wheel; but it does, at the very least, mean explaining why the wheel is so vital.