Daily Facts - Day #11: You'll be rewarded tenfold

bysmartketeer

6.8K followers

Updated 6 years ago

According to Demand Metric …

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.

It might sound exaggerated, but it isn't! If you are serious about blogging and content marketing, your efforts will be rewarded tenfold. And this is not only a “figure of speech” ...

Want some proof? Done! I'll give you 12 reasons ...

1. Research-based buying decisions

According to Adweek, more than 80% of online shoppers conduct a detailed and thorough online research before making a purchase.

What does it mean? It means, that with data comparison methods and truly useful informational content you can help them to make the right decision and that will help you to build trust.

And guess what? When the time comes, they are going to buy from you, because they trust you. If you are able to become a trusted “educational resource” providing more and more useful content related to a certain topic or vertical, you are going to build a long-term relationship.

2. Brand awareness and brand preference

It’s important to help people to discover us. Unfortunately, it’s not easy at all. Similarly, it’s vital to make people to trust us. Which is even harder to achieve. Content marketing will help you in both cases.

According to Regalix, 96% of marketers use search engines to find and to provide useful informational content. And is a well-know SEO fact, that the most important ranking factor is still the – useful, relevant and unique – content itself.

In other words, with useful informational content you are going to build a powerful organic awareness getting better rankings for your brand. The higher brand exposure will help you to position yourself as a thought leader and the thought leadership is the perfect way to become a preferred brand.

3. Good wine needs no bush

An aggressive and pushy sales letter won’t be shared by anyone. On the other hand, if your stuff is appreciated and well received, the social beast will do the rest. A truly useful and evergreen content can go viral instantly. Your fans will act as your advertisers generating an almost unstoppable chain reaction that can help you to become a trusted authority.

4. Extremely low costs

Content marketing is the most cost effective marketing method. Basically, you can get started even with zero up-front investment. No doubt, a self-hosted and professionally designed website can make a great difference, but even so, we are talking about a ridiculously small investment and a jaw-dropping ROI.

More than that, in content marketing you are going to reach and engage your customers without paying for their attention. The traditional marketing is based mostly on expensive paid advertising methods that are used to “rent” an artificially generated attention for a limited period of time (while your ads are running). In content marketing – due to the provided value – the interest is real, therefore will generate a much higher conversion rate. And will last forever. For free.

5. Long-term sustainability with long-term results

Almost every marketing method used in traditional marketing has the very same disadvantage: the time-limited effect and impact. A paid ad is displayed for a given period, an email campaign has a certain well-defined length, etc.

In content marketing a useful evergreen content will be found over and over again through search engines. A value-packed and enlightening content will be shared and re-shared in continuous loops via social media. And so on. It’s a chain reaction with a cumulative effect. You can easily get hundreds of new customers today with a well-written and useful piece of content created two years ago.

6. The traditional advertising is already dead

Putting aside the sophisticated and more or less efficient targeting opportunities, fact is: an ad is nothing else, but an unwanted, unrequested piece of information throwed under your nose with an explicit financial interest. And that’s why everybody hates ads.

To put it simply, people don’t want to see ads. They want useful information. With content marketing you can help them to get what they want.

7. Everybody loves free stuff

Believe it or not, the internet was built to facilitate the free flow of information. An admirable concept … which has nothing to do with the existing realities of the online marketing industry. As Oscar Wilde stated – in “The picture of Dorian Gray” -, “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Unfortunately, is true. As a result of all those scientifically elaborated brainwashing marketing tactics and strategies nowadays we are ready to pay for everything, even for information.

And strange as it may sound, for the very same reason we love and appreciate free stuff even more, so your value-packed freely accessible content will definitely help you to build trust-based relationships.

8. Perfect for long sales cycles

In many industries – for example, insurance – there are quite long intervals between two consecutive payments or merchant-customer interactions. In these situations is vital to keep the relationship alive and healthy, but obviously, can’t be achieved using only worthless periodic newsletters or shady, transparent sales materials.

The solution is to provide new, relevant and useful content that will consolidate the existing bond.

9. Integration and compatibility

The only rule is to create and to deliver value. You are free to create any type of content you want and you can use any channel to deliver your content. As a result, your content marketing efforts and tactics can be easily and efficiently integrated in your overall digital marketing strategy.

10. You’ll end up becoming an influencer

Obviously, you’ll have a large number of readers, fans, followers, etc who will never buy anything from you and that’s just right. What is more important, every single piece of content can – and usually will – create a new connection. Your content will help you to build your profile and to establish long-term relationships. With more and more helpful content you are going to improve your search engine rankings and you are going to build a stronger brand. If you know how to do something that others don’t, or you can do it better than others, then you are already an expert and you will gain credibility. You will end up becoming a trusted influencer.

11. Automatic SEO improvement

The SEO of your website automatically improves if you are producing regular high-quality content. Search engines love quality content and content marketing is the cheaper and most effective way to boost your rankings. Even without being an SEO expert …

12. Content marketing is future-proof

Content marketing is here to stay. No matter how the digital technologies will evolve, there always will be a need for more and more helpful content. More than that, you own the content and because you are already in the game you’ll be able to adapt quickly and efficiently.

So it's acually twelvth fold .... Have I convinced you?