February 11, 2021 Amjad Desai

10 Reasons Why Content Marketing is Crucial for Your Business

How often do you refer to Hubspot for marketing knowledge? 

It’s probably one of the top 10 resources you turn to every time you have a question on marketing. Even if you don’t intentionally visit hubspot blogs, Google SERPs would show you Hubspot pages to answer your questions. 

But, did you know that Hubspot’s primary revenue is driven by its software solutions such as CRM platform or marketing hub? 

Yet, as a marketer, you look up to Hubspot as a resource for a wealth of marketing knowledge. 

Hubspot targets marketers of SMEs or large corporations using content marketing. Their website has resources that includes an amazing library of blogs, eBooks, free courses, calculators, templates for planning marketing and even certifications. They have created an exceptional customer journey that attracts their audience, captures them as leads and then nurtures them to recommend hubspot as the marketing automation tool of choice..

The authority they have built using content marketing has helped them grow from a funded company to become a publicly listed company.

This is a distinct example of content marketing done right. They publish content consistently on their platforms which contributes to their brand equity more than just the money. 

Let’s look at some figures:

  • Hubspot has 7M monthly website visitors, 
  • 305K Academy-certified professionals
  • 132K subscribers on YouTube
  • 2M followers on Facebook
  • 813K on Twitter
  • 527K on LinkedIn and 
  • 361K on Instagram.

hubspot-stats

[Image source: Hubspot.com]

The massive number of audience are following their brand solely because of the content they create. As a marketer, you know that such an audience is loyal and provides social and digital engagement that eventually contribute to your bottom line.

Hubspot generates USD 817 Million a year. Imagine how much your brand could grow if you leverage content marketing!

Useful Content — The Core of Your Marketing 

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

—  Content Marketing Institute

Useful content should be at the core of your brand’s marketing to be able to connect with your audience. A lot of businesses still fail to understand that providing relevant, useful content to your audiences and solving their problems is a better strategy than pitching products. Sometimes, the marketers working on a business are either oblivious of how to do it or their management is restricting them from executing content marketing.

The Hubspot example above clearly shows that content is more than just blogs. It’s everything from tweets to blogs to white papers to emails to webinars and more. It is everything that helps you communicate useful content with your audience at different stages of the marketing funnel

If you are a marketer who agrees that content marketing is essential for your brand’s success, keep reading to discover benefits that will help you persuade your C-Suite to invest more into content marketing

1) Drive More Conversion Than Traditional Marketing

Content marketing is more cost-effective than the traditional marketing tactics. 

The Demand Metric report shows that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates approximately 3 times more conversions. 

An advertising campaign can generate results only as long as your ad budgets last. 

However, with content marketing, your investment could benefit your brand thrice as much; sometimes, even 6 times, depending on the type of content you create. It is the best way to engage with your audiences, especially the ones who frown upon advertising. 

The only expense you need to incur for content marketing is the creation cost. But once published and distributed well, that content can help you convert leads without any further costs. 

2) Amplify ROI by Repurposing Content 

As you’d already know, the lifetime of any content doesn’t end once published.

It can be repurposed or reused into new assets which will help you drive more ROI. 

For example, a webinar content post can create so many pieces of content: 

  • Blog Posts
  • Shorter Videos
  • IGTV Videos
  • Social Media Posts
  • Podcasts
  • Emails
  • And More

It is what the GaryVee Content Strategy also shows you that one piece of content can be the source to create 64 pieces of content. 

Imagine, how many customer touchpoints you get with such volume of content! And how much ROI would that really mean to your brand?

3) Generate High-quality Leads

Content is pivotal in qualifying a lead and moving them down the funnel. 

Every piece of content needs to address the audience based on where they are at in the marketing funnel

Content marketing helps in generating leads and in pre-qualifying them based on their intent, which can help the sales team communicate better and close the lead. 

Another underlying benefit is that this will also help you weed out the leads, who aren’t really looking for your services.

4) Nurture Leads Swiftly

Lead nurturing is another remarkable benefit that content marketing can provide. 

Any lead that comes into your CRM needs to be nurtured to be able to convert into a customer. 

For example, a prospect who downloaded a white paper might not necessarily sign up for your service immediately. However, if they are added to an email funnel and receive content regularly that is helpful in their customer journey, you will be able to assist them towards becoming a paying customer.

5) Increase Search Dominance

Content makes your brand more visible on the internet. It helps increase traffic from search engines, referral sites, and social media. It also helps enhance social media visibility. 

Advertising works on a model that interrupts your audience on any platform, thereby caters to a passive audience. 

Content marketing, on the other hand, is used by businesses to communicate with the audience who are actively looking for information around your niche, based on their stage of the buyer’s journey.

People are constantly looking for answers or information on search platforms or social media. Your content should dominate the search results so that they discover your brand during those searches and visit your website or social media.

6) Guarantees Long-Term Traffic

As a marketer, you already know why it’s imperative to enable long-term traffic. All the effort we put into marketing is to ensure that more visitors enter our website, thereby giving us more opportunities to convert them. 

Even if visitors from other marketing strategies diminish over time, content marketing will continue to contribute to your website traffic. An insightful blog post today will add value the same way today and 5 years from now, though you’ll have to optimize it a bit in the future if there are any updates on the subject. 

If you follow the best search engine optimization practices, then you can trust your content to drive long-term results for your brand.

7) Boost Brand Awareness by Reaching a Wider Audience

Your business can create a brand image with the power of content. 

Content marketing, when done right, can help you connect with potential customers. Your content should show when your audience searches for solutions to their problems to boost awareness. 

Creating content that highlights the unique qualities of your brand will bolster your brand image. It will also enable your audience to recollect your brand name when they seek similar solutions in the future. 

8) Enable Social Media Engagement With Your Audience

There are 3.78 billion social media users worldwide in 2021 and the number is expected to grow up to 4.41 billion by 2025..

So, depending on the social media channels your audience use, content marketing will help you engage with them actively. 

You can connect with your audience through videos and graphics to convey original entertaining ideas and increase social engagement. This will also increase the shareability of your content, thereby reaching a significantly wider audience. 

9) Position Your Brand As An Industry Leader

Creating a dominating influence amongst your audience is possible through content marketing.

Sharing content about your niche through your unique perspectives and personal experiences help build credibility, trust and loyalty amongst your audience. 

Educate your audience through blogs, white papers, infographics, videos and podcasts on topics around your niche. Publishing opinion pieces on industry trends is a great way to showcase your industry expertise. 

10) Increase Brand Affinity Amongst Customers

After creating awareness of your brand, the next step is to build trust amongst your customers. 

Brand affinity is what is built when your customers believe that your organization shares the same values that they do. 

When your customer trusts and develops an emotional connection with your brand, they wouldn’t ever consider a competitor. Your brand can build that level of relationship through strategic content marketing. It is extremely helpful in retaining customers and building customer loyalty. 

Leverage The Power Of Content Marketing

Both B2B and B2C marketers worldwide are increasing their content marketing budgets in 2021. 

So, leverage content marketing to get a high return on investment and to gain all the long-term benefits highlighted above. 

If you want to know how content marketing can work for your brand or to get an expert opinion on your existing content marketing strategy or even a content audit -, contact us today to schedule a quick chat.

Amjad Desai

I’m a friendly digital marketing consultant from India, living in UAE. You’ll usually find me talking about productivity, marketing, social media, technology, automation, and life in general. I run Synclarity along with a friend. We’re a inbound digital marketing agency that help businesses deliver measurable results