The value of content marketing is not only in building a stable sales funnel for your business and growing your revenue consistently. It also stabilizes other aspects of your company, from recruitment to customer service and PR.
Let’s dig right in and find out the real value of content marketing!
The role and value of content throughout an organization
The content associated with your brand supports your image. Every piece of content you produce either supports or detracts from your brand.
Many content marketers have blinders on – they’re thinking about content to drive keyword rankings, sessions, and conversions. These are critical KPIs, but how about the big picture?
Let’s explore content for what it really is: an asset to your company with value that reaches far beyond snagging the attention of a prospective customer.
Marketing & Sales
Sales is the #1 reason marketers engage in content marketing and it’s one of the most effective and cost efficient methods of digital marketing (when done right).
Driving ROI – longevity of content results in a higher ROI than paid channels. High quality content also provides support to other aspects of your brand and marketing where ads do not.
Supporting Other Channels – if you use your content as the backbone of your online sales funnel, you can leverage it throughout various other channels. The most direct example of this is improving your ROI on ad spend.
By improving your quality and depth of content you can increase your conversion rate from ads and decrease your cost per click by increasing your quality score.
Multiple Touches – depending on your industry, your target audience is going to need various types of information and will interact with your brand (and your competitors) several times before they purchase. Do you want to pay for each of those interactions with ads?
Paying for the first interaction is a valid strategy, even if your visitors don’t convert. Having content depth will encourage your visitors to stay on your site rather than seek out the same information elsewhere. This builds trust and lowers the chance that your prospects will look to your competitors for information.
It’s shown that having an organic ranking accompany a paid ad can increase click through rates as much as 13%. Are you taking advantage of double exposure on the first page of Google?
Customer Service
Yes, sales is the biggest motivator for building a content funnel for your brand, but content can also drive your business by improving customer retention and increasing the lifetime value of your customers.
Modern buyers expect brands to take their personal needs seriously and handle them with care.
Turning a first time buyer into a repeat customer may be the most valuable thing you can do to grow your business, but hand holding gets expensive fast.
One way to lower your customer service cost and improve experience is through the right content. Starting off on the right foot with a customer is important. Being there to fill the gaps is just as important.
Frequently asked questions should be viewed as opportunities rather than pains. Be proactive and answer your customer’s questions with high quality content BEFORE they as them. Chances are if one person needs clarification on a part of your product or service, so will others.
As part of your customer’s buyer journey they are going to need questions answered. Is your sales team answering the same questions over and over again, or is your content educating your prospects and moving them further down the funnel?
Customers don’t want to get on the phone either. It’s often faster and easier for them to find their answer online. If you’re the source of their solutions you’ll build trust with them.
If your proactive customer service is better than your competitors, you’re going to win that lifetime client.
Recruitment
What advantage do leading companies have over all others? The best talent wants to work for the industry leader. This allows them to create better products and services, grow faster, and break away from the pack.
What most businesses don’t consider when deciding where to place their budget (ads vs. organic content) is the peripheral value each channel brings to their company.
Yes – ads will get you traffic fast.
Yes – you can advertise for openings and get applicants via ads.
No – ads are not going to make you an authority in your industry or provide you with a sustainable source of qualified candidates that want to work for the best company within your niche.
Prospects start their search online and they will quickly identify who they believe is the best company in their space. The authority is not only going to get the lion’s share of customers, but they are also going to recruit the best, further separating themselves from their competition.
Public Relations
You get to tell your story – don’t leave it in the hands of a third party.
Back to being proactive – do you want to be putting out fires “help remove bad press from search results” or do you want to be secure knowing your online image is stable?
We see too many requests for people asking to clean up bad reviews or to outrank competitors that are ranking higher for branded terms. If other sites are getting visits from your branded searches, it’s not a good sign.
Your site should be the hub of all outbound information. Give your brand advocates something to share (and make it easy).
As I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest pitfalls of businesses we evaluate is that they aren’t utilizing their existing content.
Create your content on your site first. Then utilize other platforms to broaden your reach. Websites like Quora, for example, can be a great way to reach an audience that otherwise may not have found you.
Summary
Where do you want to be this time next year?
If you’re planning for sustainable, long term growth, you better be thinking about your website and the content you’re hosting there. Ads on Google aren’t going to get any cheaper.
We’ve made the case for the value of using content to achieve authority status in your industry. If you aren’t sure about whether this applies to your business, let us know.
Get started now with our Free Digital Marketing Assessment!
