Why Content Marketing is Important for Brands & Businesses

One of the top reasons why content marketing brings value to your business is because content is an important marketing tool that cannot be ignored by any serious business.

Today, over 90% of B2B marketers are actively using smart content strategies to double their outcomes, according to a recent report; because they understand the importance of content marketing.

Although you may have doubts on whether content marketing will bring value to your business or not, it’s absolutely normal to feel unsure, sometimes.

More so, because in some cases, you may spend lots of hours creating premium quality content yet you don’t get to enjoy commensurate outcomes.

However, with studies like the recent one conducted by Optinmonster, it has been confirmed that 91% of businesses are using content marketing to drive huge growth.

And this has been corroborated by CMI who believes that Content Marketing is the most effective strategy to promote a small business.

If such a huge number of brands are using pragmatic content marketing strategies to gain improved results for their business, then it only means one thing; that content marketing can actually deliver real value for your business.

Now, before we discuss further on whether content marketing brings value to your business or not, I want us to recap on what content marketing is all about…

What is Content Marketing?

In its simplest definition, content marketing is basically the act of creating and sharing valuable, entertaining and informative content to a clearly identified audience over a period of time, in order to drive specific outcomes.

If you notice from the definition above, you’ll realize that for content marketing to be successful, you must have a specific goal for creating that piece of content, and you must also identify the audience that will be interested in such content.

Also, that content must be shared consistently over a specified period of time.

Now that you know what content marketing is all about, in the following passages, I will be discussing with you the popular ways content marketing brings value to your business and why you should start a content marketing campaign today…

Increased Brand Awareness

One of the most popular ways content marketing brings value to your business is that it drives increased brand awareness for your business. This is also the opinion shared by Marketing Insider Group.

Naturally without content marketing, people only get to know about your business either through paid advertising, promotions, influencer marketing etc.

But with a good and well created content targeted at the right audience, content marketing gets the message about your brand out there for more people to see, FREE.

So, the more high quality content you create, the more people share it with others. And in turn, you get free publicity for your brand.

Again, content marketing is important for brands and businesses because the moment readers share your content, they are not only sharing the content, they are also sharing your brand, your services and everything associated with the brand, including the website, blog or social media handle you posted the content.

When this is done they don’t merely end up sharing the value in your content they are also recommending you and your brand in the process.

In the end, content marketing works in helping you showcase your brand to a wider audience while driving sustained confidence in the brand.

Drives New Clients

Like I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts, some of my biggest clients contacted me after reading one of my content on this blog.

Now this is not just about me. Most brands have been able to reach out to new clients and audiences who naturally wouldn’t have known about their businesses if not for content marketing.

This is because the more you write quality content targeted at a specific audience, the more you close the gap between your buyers and your products/services.

In essence, content marketing brings value to your brand by attracting the right audience to your website and social platforms.

The more your audience gets exposed to your brands, the more it becomes easy for them to build the trust needed in making a buying decision over time.

Builds Authority & Thought Leadership

As a brand, another popular reason why content marketing is important is that it builds thought leadership for your brand.

It’s natural, content marketing helps you build respect and authority in your niche.

This is because, the more your audience consume your HIGHLY VALUABLE content, the more, their perception of your brand in improves.

With time, this improved brand perception goes further to establish your brand authority in the industry.

Turns out, the more you create this solution focused content, more and more people begin to see you as the expert that you are.

They get to trust your judgment and recommendations. Over time, they also pass that perception over to your products and services.

Although, it might take some time to build your brand as a thought leader, content marketing makes it easier to build the credibility that drives positive brand perception. This is one of the ways content marketing brings value to your brand.

Improves Website Traffic

For some brands, getting improved traffic is one of the main reasons why content marketing is important to them.

Great content brings in traffic to your site. Both from the search engine and other channels.

In fact, if you already have a website for your business without creating content, your website will not have a decent ranking on the search engine or even traffic.

The reason behind this is not far fetched. Content is one of the major triggers that drive traffic over to your website. And to continue getting a decent traffic to your website, you have to keep posting a decent number of unique, optimized and useful content.

Without a sustained update of content, it becomes difficult to attract a reasonable number of website visits or traffic. And this will in turn affect your business, as you will not be able to attract customers using your website.

Drives Improved SEO Benefits

Another important way content marketing brings value to your business is that it can improve your SEO benefits.

When done right, a good content marketing strategy can reposition your website on the search engine rankings.

A better search engine ranking will ensure your brand gets more visibility when people are searching for keywords related to your content, using the search engine.

Another important benefit of content when it comes to SEO is that it gives you the chance to use relevant keywords throughout your blog thus making it even more easy for your target users to find your blog while using targeted keywords.

Helps in Link Building

Also, content marketing helps in link building which is an important part of SEO.

When you create a very good piece of content that produces immense value to your target audience, it becomes easier for other blogs to link to that piece of content, from their website.

When this happens, these links serve as a positive rating on the particular content.

The more links you have pointing to your content from high quality websites, the more Google feels that particular page deserves more publicity, thus giving the page a chance to get a better ranking and more visibility on the search engine.

So, as a pragmatic entrepreneur, you can leverage content marketing to get better backlinks and drive improved results for your website.

Final Words

Now, there are so many ways content marketing brings value to your business and just like you just read in this guide, a lot of small businesses like yours are already engaging in content marketing to drive strategic growth for their brands.

You’ll be missing out if you don’t take a steps to identify your goals, create a content strategy and embark on a rigorous content marketing campaign today.

Now that you’ve been convinced on why content marketing is important for your business, it’s time to learn more about how to create a content strategy and embark on a content marketing campaign. You can learn that FREE here.

You can also sign up for more intensive lectures on how to use content marketing to grow your business, by joining our Content Marketing class here.

Now, it’s over to you! What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to Content Marketing? Drop your thoughts in the comments section.