Insights 5 reasons why your content marketing is still as important as ever

Now we all know that content marketing is by no means a new concept, but that doesn’t mean its value should be underestimated. No matter what industry you’re in, you're likely to use content in some shape or form – especially when it comes to your marketing. Content marketing has long been an important aspect of many businesses' marketing strategies, especially with the rise of the digital world. 

Content marketing revolves around creating valuable, relevant content to attract and engage with your target audiences. In simple terms, you create content (as the name suggests) that you know will speak to your carefully researched target audience and personas, in support of your wider brand awareness campaigns. Content marketing wouldn’t necessarily be the best option if immediate top-of-funnel sales or leads are your goal, but as we’ll find out throughout this insight, it is perfect for supporting a well-rounded approach for both brand awareness and advocacy stages. 

One question we often hear is ‘Is content really still King or has it been demoted to Prince?’ So here are our 5 reasons as to why you should still be focusing on content as part of your marketing strategy…

First up, what classifies as Content Marketing? 

In the modern age, more likely than not your content will be digital. Social media really shook up how we marketers view content marketing, so you’re likely to focus a lot on your social media aspect of this - things like Instagram posts or reels, LinkedIn posts etc. But aside from that, content marketing can include everything from blog posts to thought leadership pieces, downloadable PDFs, case studies and infographics. 

Why should you include it in your marketing strategy? 

1. Be seen as the thought leader

If there’s one thing content marketing is great for, it’s showing you and your brand as the thought leaders and authority in your industry. However, there is a bit of a warning that comes with this – this is not about showing off, but ensuring that the content you are producing is relevant to your target audience and helps them solve their problems/ pain points. It also helps if it’s good quality content too… 

Now, this obviously means different things to different businesses, but no matter what kind of business you are, it’s essential to build brand authority across your platforms. By producing content that showcases you as a thought leader, an educator or simply the answer to the question your customers are asking, they begin to view you as the authority within the industry.

2. An SEO dream

If there’s anything we know about content it’s that it does wonders for your SEO and organic traffic efforts. As we’ve already mentioned, it’s important that whatever content you’re putting out into the world, it needs to be good quality and relevant to your target audience and personas. Otherwise, why are you writing it in the first place? 

Once you’ve made sure that’s the case, think about your keywords and customers’ problems and provide content that helps them solve them with search terms in mind. Long form articles will help make sure you’re more in favour of Google and SERPS.

3. Boost brand awareness, engagement and loyalty 

Whether we admit it or not, what most of us marketers really want is to boost brand awareness and build a loyal customer base. I mean, why wouldn’t you? The more people that know about you, the more they’re likely to think of you when making a purchase and, therefore, the more likely it is they’ll actually make that purchase and think of you in the future. 

By building yourself up as the thought leader, or a trusted advisor, and providing the right content to your customers at the right time they will not only engage more with you but are more likely to remain loyal to the brand. Why would they look elsewhere if you’re giving them everything they need? 

4. Help to nurture leads and sales

While content marketing won’t immediately bring in sales (although if you’re very lucky, it might!), it will no doubt have an impact on the number of leads and sales conversions if done right. Content marketing is great for brand awareness and with that, we all know good brand awareness is good for sales. The more people who know of your brand, and trust you, your product or service, the more likely they are to buy from you. Content marketing can also be adapted depending on where a customer is in the sales funnel and is great as part of the nurture phase, so you can give them the content they need/ want at the right time. 

5. Build a better relationship with your customers

By nature, content marketing focuses on your customers, as you need to publish content that will resonate with them and their needs. You’ll likely adapt your content depending on how your audience reacts to and engages with it. As a result, content marketing helps to build a better relationship with them – they feel listened to and feel that they can trust you.

There are no doubt many many more great reasons to include content marketing in your wider marketing strategy, but these are our top 5. It doesn’t matter whether you’re B2B, B2C, in the technology sector or cosmetics industry – each brand and business has scope to include content marketing in some shape or form and it really can help boost your marketing efforts in more ways than one.