Why making high quality content can help your business grow
Content Marketing | Lead Generation
Key takeaways
- Content marketing helps you educate potential clients, nurturing them towards making an enquiry.
- It starts a conversation and answers questions, building trust and warming up leads.
- It also helps your website rank more highly on search engines, as it generates traffic and links, which are important signals to search engines that you’re important.
We have said again and again, that “content is king” … and it is! Content is the thing that is going to drive your business growth. The reason for this, is that it forms the basis for everything else in your marketing strategy, digital or otherwise. It’s the foundation of the building. You might be able to build a house without ensuring you have good, sound foundations; but pretty soon that house is going to come crashing down around your ears!
The thing is, a lot of business owners are (entirely understandably) focusing on the product or service they are experienced in providing.
But being a great mechanic who has saved for years to open up your own garage; won’t necessarily also make you a great marketing strategist when it comes to growing that business which you have worked so hard to build.
Unfortunately, the days of good old fashioned, neighbour to neighbour, out on the street word of mouth recommendations…have faded into the rear-view mirror (objects are definitely not closer than they appear)!
So, you have your mechanic shop all set up…now you need to hire a “builder” to help you get the foundation stones laid correctly to build a strong marketing strategy and keep that house of yours standing tall. Before you know it, you’ll be opening another branch a few towns over.
So why is really good content so important? What is content marketing and what can it really do to help grow your business? Why bother spending time, money and energy on this at all?
How does content marketing work?
Come to that…what is content marketing? What does content marketing include? I asked Google that very question, and this was the answer I got:
con·tent mar·ket·ing
[content marketing]
NOUN
a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services:
You can find out more about the basics of content marketing here, but in a nutshell; it’s about creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content, via a variety of digital channels like: social media, email newsletters, communities, forums and most crucially… organic search.
Content marketing works by starting conversations and sharing knowledge, rather than just by telling consumers what your company does and how it does it. Content marketing instead answers questions and points out potential solutions to problems.
It’s not a flyer through your door promoting a new garage in town with an introductory half price offer on tyres. Who knows when you might actually need a new tyre? But it’s not now.
It’s more like the mechanic coming into your home (when you do need some new tyres), to personally offer advice on which tyres might need replacing and which material would be best to use and why. He might not even specifically recommend his garage, but when he has been so helpful…why would you go anywhere else? Particularly when many other people in the area seem to be recommending his services in one way or another across social media and blogs.
His handy “how to tyre checker” video has also saved you money…turns out that the front nearside tyre doesn’t need replacing like you thought…one less to buy!
Content marketing is friendly, it’s authentic and you feel you trust the brand behind it.
Convert clicks to clients: The ultimate strategy to more website leads
Our free guide reveals the strategy we use for our clients to achieve long-term business growth. Interested?
Why content Marketing is important for growth
So now that we understand what it is, why is it so important for growth specifically? I mean sure, it sounds like a great way to gain a few customers, but it seems like an awful lot of effort is involved…is it really worth it?
- It’s an opportunity to educate your potential customers
- It helps you get customers attention…and crucially keep it
- It builds brand authority
- It supports lead generation activities
- It increases leads, conversions and sales
- It feeds your website’s performance on organic search
- It opens up new channels (social media)
1. Let’s start with education (shouldn’t we always)
Educating potential consumers is one of the best ways to start them on their journey from potential customers to actual customers. Very often, people just start searching for information about a topic, or for an answer to a question. Sometimes, they don’t even know enough about the product or service they are interested in, to know which questions to ask!
I wouldn’t have the first clue what questions to ask about car tyres. I might realise they are looking a bit bald and figure I need a new set, but a tyre’s a tyre…right?
So how do we educate potential customers? If I come to your garage’s website and all there is on there are a few nice pictures of some tyre stacks, a basic price list and your contact details and opening hours…I’m not getting much of an education on tyre quality/type/fitting etc am I?
Imagine instead that I come on to your website and there is an entire menu page dedicated to tyres. Here you have that handy “how to” video for assessing tyre tread, as well as a great FAQ section that takes all the embarrassment out of my ridiculous lack of tyre knowledge. I now know that how I use my car has a big impact on the tyres I might require. Am I just tootling to the shops and doing the school run, or am I doing some serious off-roading every weekend? There’s a lot more besides, I just don’t know what it is yet, because I really am woefully ignorant on the subject of tyres, but I’m sure you can spot the opportunity to change that (wink wink)!
Also in the blog section you have lots of helpful up to date pieces about tyre materials and tread depth (I’m riveted), not to mention some fantastic customer reviews linked in the social media section. Lot’s of happy customers seemed to have tagged you on Instagram.
By now you will have realised that we have progressed to our second point.
2. Getting customers attention and keeping it.
Why would I look elsewhere for a new set of tyres when the content, both on this business’s website and off it (forums, reviews and social media), is so good. I have learned lots of things I didn’t even know I needed to learn about tyres, and thanks to all those Instagram pics of happy customers standing next to their newly tyred (that’s a word right?) cars, I have a great deal of trust in this particular mechanic and how he and his team do things.
I now trust this garage with my car. I believe they have the right level of authority to be able to deal with my tyre needs in exactly the right manner.
3. Increased leads, conversions and sales
The great content marketing strategy of this garage means that I am now far more likely to buy my tyres here than I am to go looking anywhere else. But I’m not alone.
According to the Content Marketing Institute Statistics, exemplary content marketing increases conversion rates by an astonishing 600%! And that is only the first eye watering statistic on this page.
- When compared to paid search, content marketing bags x3 the number of leads for the same money spent.
- It generates x3 as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 60% less
- Almost half of 18 – 49-year-olds get their news and information online, so you are broadening your audience and future proofing your enquiry line by using these platforms.
- Small businesses with blogs, get 126% more lead growth than small businesses without
- A study in the US shows that after reading a recommendation on a blog, 61% of consumers went on to make a purchase
Why content marketing is important for B2B
But let’s imagine you are not a mechanic with a small garage selling tyres. What if you are in the business to business sphere? Well, a lot of the above still applies. It is a more effective way of building trust with business clients than via traditional distribution approaches. It also lowers lead generation costs substantially and the content created is very adaptable, meaning it can be used across several channels, again, a real cost saver.
It also provides an essential feedback loop. As I mentioned at the beginning, content marketing is about starting a conversation and answering questions. This can be particularly important when dealing with another business that may be making a large financial commitment. These kinds of conversations (and in particular reviews from other companies and influencers in the field if appropriate), really help to build not just brand awareness but brand trust.
So how does content marketing help your SEO?
When it comes to SEO content marketing really is your best friend. These two go together like peas in a pod; content marketing is the best fuel a good SEO campaign can possibly have.
If you write content based on the keywords that your target audience is using in search engines, you can attract users to your site. This additional traffic is a signal to search engines that your site is important. Search engines then place your site higher up the results pages.
Indeed, publishing 16 or more blog posts a month will bring in 3.5 times more traffic than publishing 4 or less!
The higher you rank, the greater the chance that you will get click throughs to your site.
The great thing about SEO is that this feedback loop is endless, and it really is the gift that keeps on giving. Once your SEO is established, any leads or conversions generated from it are completely free
High quality content: future proofing your business
Content is the fuel that makes your website work. The traffic that it generates for your website is an important signal to search engines that you are authoritative in your niche and need to be ranked higher on search engines. This increases the chance of users landing on your website and making an enquiry.
But content also works to warm up leads that may not be ready to buy straight away. It future proofs your enquiries, as those who may not want to buy just yet, may build a relationship with your business that leads to a sale further down the line.
Great content builds a future for your business’s growth, in more ways than one.