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Why Brands Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Content Marketing

Why Brands Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Content Marketing

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Sometimes the online world can seem more like the stage for a shouting match than an effective marketing medium. Brands competing to be heard above the commotion are inundating consumers with marketing ploys and clever ads enticing them to the next stall.

How do you possibly compete in the chaotic Internet marketing space?

By publishing great content.

With the majority of B2B and B2C businesses now using content to promote their brands, the days of getting by without a content marketing strategy have passed. When you connect with your audience through content, you’re forging emotional ties that lead to real business opportunities.

The bottom line: Customers buy from brands they trust. By sharing your company’s vision, expertise, and passion through consistent content, you invite audience members inside your company walls, earning their continued trust and loyalty in the process.

The Rewards of Content Marketing

A solid content strategy strengthens your relationships with current clients, attracts quality leads, and drives big ROI for your company. It also empowers your entire team to educate prospects and close more sales. By publishing high-quality articles, reports, and blog posts, you promote four hallmarks of a successful business:

1. Awareness: The more visible your brand, the more opportunities you have to interact with customers and acquaint them with your company.

2. Credibility: Don’t underestimate the relationship between credibility and ROI. Content marketing helps brands gain trust with potential customers, resulting in higher conversion rates and sales.

For example, Mint.com, a financial services site, attracted 1.5 million users and sold for $170 million within two years. This was due in large part to its comprehensive personal finance blog. Users loved the content Mint published to complement its money management services, making the company a top industry performer.

3. Influence: By building a body of valuable content, you can educate prospects, partners, clients, and other industry figures and become a respected thought leader. And when readers buy into your content, it serves as a catalyst to move them through the sales funnel.

4. Authenticity: Custom content helps establish a genuine relationship between prospects and your brand. Content that comes from individuals within your organization projects authenticity while still providing concrete information and value.

Buffer, a company that produces a popular social media scheduling app, excels at using content to connect with its audience. Everyone — from the CEO to the software developers — contributes to the blog, and the brand’s content topics go well beyond Buffer’s services to include other productivity and life improvement hacks. By having staffers write about a variety of topics — such as being paid in bitcoin, personal experiments in gratitude, and struggles with sleep rituals — Buffer develops rapport with its community.

How to Nail Your Content Marketing Strategy

At Influence & Co., we take a process-driven approach to content. We help clients identify their target audiences and company goals and use that information to build a strategy for external and on-site content. Understanding who you’re writing for and why you’re creating a piece of content is key to generating real results.

Here’s how to make that happen in your organization:

1. Get to know your customers. 

The goal isn’t always to reach the largest number of people; it’s to get in front off potential leads. Find out what the prospect-to-client journey looks like for your audience, and create content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs. Then publish helpful articles on sites you know they read.

Through our work with Allison Engel, head of global marketing and operations for the Dell Center for Entrepreneurs, we’ve helped Dell reach its audience more effectively. Allison leveraged her expertise from inside the corporation to provide valuable information on pitching enterprise clients such as Dell and on establishing credibility with entrepreneurs.

2. Extract employee knowledge. 

Work with team members across your organization to develop great content on company culture and vision, industry trends, and client case studies. Your employees have great insights and experiences you can harness to become an influential brand instead of simply a transactional one. By including your entire team in the content creation process, your brand becomes more accessible and earns credibility with prospects.

3. Market to qualified leads. 

Once you’ve identified potential leads, show them you understand their unique needs and provide the know-how to help them achieve their goals. Case studies and in-house reports can give hesitant prospects the final push they need to sign. Having that relevant content on hand is crucial for guiding them through the process.

The biggest obstacle brands face with content is breaking out of the mold. You have the unique expertise right at your fingertips — your employees. By building out a thoughtful strategy, extracting that employee knowledge, packaging it in a meaningful way, and placing it in front of the right audience, you can start churning out consistent content and reaping the fiscal benefits of a well-rounded content strategy.

Download the Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing

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About Ryan O'Connell

I’m dedicated to growing brands and businesses. I’m an avid fan of startups, traveling the world, hockey, and sarcastic remarks.

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