Tips to Grow Your Business with Content Marketing

If you’ve been following the latest trends in marketing, you may have come across Content Marketing as a potential growth channel. Content Marketing is a technique that helps businesses attract and retain loyal customers by creating and sharing content with their target market.

Content can be delivered in various formats such as blog posts, videos, eBooks, or webinars. Content should always be tailored to user intent and the keywords they are searching for. Content should always provide value to user search queries, and not look spammy or of low quality – this can damage your brand’s reputation.

When executed properly, Content Marketing efforts will result in an increase in organic website traffic from all of the top Search Engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Getting more people to your site increases the chance of them becoming a customer, and Content Marketing can be one of the most cost-effective acquisition channels for your business.

Some Content Marketing statistics:

• The Content Marketing Institute reports that Content Marketing will account for 37% of total marketing investment in 2017, up from 28% last year.
• 66% of B2C marketers employ Content Marketing to increase sales
• Content with an educational or entertainment focus gets shared much more than purely promotional material Source: Hubspot Blogs – Content creation is 40x more effective at attracting customers than paid search Source: HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2014 Report
• 97% of B2B Content Marketing leads are qualified
• 64% of people will engage more with a brand after reading its content
• Content Marketing results in an average revenue per first order that is 10 times higher than outbound and online advertising

How to Grow Your Business with Content Marketing

Inbound marketing has been widely adopted as the next best thing since sliced bread by many Fortune 500 companies from different industries around the world, from big players such as GEICO, Google, and Microsoft to small startups looking for their feet in the digital market space. Inbound marketing combines SEO with blogging, social media, and email newsletters, resulting in high-quality traffic to your website. Content Marketing is an important part of the strategy. Content Marketing helps businesses attract and retain loyal customers by creating and sharing Content with their target market. Content can be delivered in several formats, such as blog posts, videos, information eBooks, or webinars. Content should always be tailored to user intent and the keywords they are searching for. Content should always provide value to user search queries, not look spammy or of low quality – this can damage your brand’s reputation.

When executed properly, Content Marketing efforts will result in an increase in organic website traffic from all of the top Search Engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Getting more people to your site increases the chance of them becoming a customer, and Content Marketing can be one of the most cost-effective acquisition channels for your business. Content Marketing has different tools and metrics which you should use to measure its success:

Content Sharing – Track how many times your content is shared on social media or emailed to another person using a tool such as SocialMention or BuzzSumo. This data can help you identify whether the Content was interesting enough for people to share with their contacts. It is also useful in measuring how much organic traffic Content is created.

Content Rankings – Track where your Content ranks across Search Engines by using a rank-checking tool such as Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz Pro. Tools like these will help you understand what keywords bring you traffic and where Content ranks for those keywords. Content Rankings also help you understand how important it is for users to find your Content by comparing keyword search volumes with rankings.

Organic Traffic – Track the number of new visitors on your site who found you through Search Engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Content Marketing will build brand awareness and user trust if the Content is interesting enough for people to share on their own social media profiles. Thus organic traffic generated via social sharing can boost Content’s rank across Search Engines.

Lead Generation – Track leads generated from Content using tools like HubSpot CRM, Woopra, or Google Analytics Event Tracking. Content that has high engagement rates (e.g., likes, comments) tells search engines there is value in the Content and will result in a higher ranking. Content that is well-researched and provides accurate information to users also helps to generate leads as people trust businesses that provide quality Content.

Content Marketing should be an important part of your overall marketing strategy and is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. When executed properly, Content Marketing can result in an increase in website traffic, leads, and brand awareness. It is important to track Content’s success using various tools and metrics in order to understand what content works best for your business and how you can improve your Content Marketing strategy.