If you are still on the fence about content marketing, I hope this little collection of the benefits of content marketing will kick you off the fence and get your rear in gear.
These benefits are in near-random order for a couple of reasons. First, I am not that great with ordering things. Second, the benefits that are important to you will be different from someone else, so I don't want to present some as more important than others.
- Each point has been made by a marketing genius somewhere online, so we've given the link below each quote. I'd encourage you to click through and read what they have to say in their entirety.
- I've added my comments below each point so you can get a little color commentary on each benefit.
- Finally, I've made it simple for you to follow each of these folks on Twitter. Seriously, you need to do that.
#1 - Content marketing makes you money.
Content marketing can help you make money.
Barry Feldman
The Biggest, Yet Never Mentioned, Benefit Of Content Marketing
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I'm starting with this benefit for two reasons. One, I love Barry Feldman's style. Two, this one sentence sums it up for me. If a marketing strategy doesn't help you make more money, don't do it. Fortunately, content marketing and it's more edgy form, inbound marketing, deliver the goods better than any other strategy.
#2 - Content marketing generates sales more efficiently.
Small businesses depend on large sales, especially in the first year or two. The only problem is that smaller businesses don’t always have the customer base of larger competitors, which means you have to work harder to generate sales. Content marketing is one of the most efficient and successful ways you can do that, but only if you know how to use it correctly.
Timothy Carter
It's the goal of every business to generate more sales. Doing it more efficiently means more net profit, not just higher gross revenue. Content marketing is one of the least expensive forms of marketing if done internally.
#3 - Content marketing pulls in unexpected customers.
By keeping an active blog presence and making your social media sites the go-to hotspots for what you offer, you’ll do more than pull in new leads. You’ll attract customers you never expected.
Timothy Carter
You can introduce your company to people who didn't know you existed. That's one of the major purposes of marketing at large, and content marketing does it really well. By choosing topics that are on the minds of your customers and talking about them in helpful ways, you'll attract those folks through search engines. Search engines are getting better at understanding what a person means from the words they type, so focus on topics and answering questions, and don't sweat the "exact match" text quite as much.
#4 - Content marketing establishes yourself as a thought leader.
On the plus side of the ledger, content marketing can establish startups as thought leaders and domain experts, it can provide potential and existing customers with relevant and interesting information, and it can drive search engine optimization.
Mark Evans
If you have started a business, then you've already made a statement that you have something to say that isn't already being said. Content marketing makes a lot of sense for you. By taking a bold stance in the marketplace of ideas, you'll begin to establish yourself as the "expert," as much as I hate that term.
#5 - Content marketing is cheaper compared to alternative forms of marketing.
Content marketing is relatively cheap compared to most other options, but it requires you to invest your time, effort and a lot of patience before you can reap its returns.
Jim Haynes
This is a huge statement. The act of creating content is about as cheap as you can get, until you factor in your time. Really, how you value your time is the determining factor whether you should hire a content marketing company to help you or not. Expect to spend a minimum of 40 hours a month on your content marketing. If you don't have that kind of bandwidth, count your content marketing expense as advertising dollars well spent.
#6 - Content marketing increases sales.
The biggest benefit to content marketing is increased sales.
Jeremy Powers
I love simple sentences like these. Yep. Content marketing can help increase sales by meeting customers wherever they're at in the buying process and moving them forward giving them the knowledge they need to take their next step. If done well, you can walk them down your path to a sale consistently.
#7 - Content marketing builds valuable relationships with your audience.
Content marketing helps you to build valuable relationships with your audience and, ultimately, make sales.
Josh Pigford
If you are personal in your content marketing, and by that, I don't mean droning on and on about yourself, you will begin to experience trust from your readers. If you're transparent about your knowledge, experience, questions, and so forth, just as in real life, you become more approachable. That trust forms the basis for future marketplace transactions.
#8 - Content marketing helps make a personal connection.
Content marketing helps you make a personal connection.
George Passwater
This is one of those areas that faceless corporations just don't get, but the majority of small and mid-sized businesses should embrace. Be personal. Use your faces. Be real. Make a personal connection. In fact, the more you emphasize your unique personality, naturally you'll create an advantage in the marketplace because there is no way for someone to compare you to your competition. You're unique.
#9 - Content marketing positions you as a helpful resource.
When you provide your community with advice on how to solve one of their most pressing problems, they’ll see you as a helpful resource.
Rachel Foster
5 Ways Content Marketing Can Benefit You
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Your customers are looking for answers. The typical buying process now starts with multiple pages of searches, blog reading, checking social channels for recommendations from friends, and comparing vendors. If you're not providing helpful resources for those looking for this information, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to gain credibility early in the buying process.
#10 - Content marketing can enhance your brand image.
Businesses of all types can enhance their brand image and overall marketing efforts by producing and sharing quality content. In fact, research conducted by Kapost has found that per dollar, content marketing contributes to three times more leads that tradition online advertising, such as paid search. As a result, developing a content marketing strategy can be a momentous game-changer for your business’s marketing plan.
Tyler Tafelsky
3 Benefits Of Creating A Content Marketing Strategy For Your Business
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The concept of "brand" can be a little squishy sometimes. But it's easy to see how producing high-quality content consistently can only build the trust of your audience. One word here. Make sure that you have checks in place that you don't publish any less than stellar quality. Every piece you produce either builds your brand or tears it down.
#11 - Content marketing shows people your human side.
The final benefit of content marketing is the opportunity to show people that you’re human.
Jeremy Chandler
We all know that you are human. Your entire company is filled with humans. So, don't work so hard to eliminate the human voice in your web presence. Encourage your writers to use a personal voice that ties in with your overall tone and voice. Let personalities shine.
#12 - Content marketing helps beat your competition.
Content marketing is better because your prospects prefer it; it costs you less money; it produces more sales leads and customers; it helps you beat your larger competitors; and the marketing results you begin generating today will last forever.
Aaron Houghton
The Benefits Of Content Marketing
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While I'm not huge on worrying about competition, I think if you had two companies with a similar offering, and one of them is doing content marketing well, customers will prefer working with them. It's definitely a competitive advantage. Honestly, in the new economy of content and inbound marketing, I think you should spend less and less time worrying about your competition, and more time discovering what makes your company unique. Once you do that, your competition can actually become an ally helping you connect with people you wouldn't have before.
#13 - Content marketing boosts customer engagement.
Content marketing is more than just the creation and distribution of content – it’s a relationship-building tool that, when executed properly, builds brand awareness, boosts customer engagement and retains interest throughout the sales conversion process.
Ritika Puri
For most companies, there are few traces left by visitors. They are just numbers on a Google Analytics report. But by using content marketing in an engaging way, you'll begin to see interaction through comments, social media channels, and landing page activity. That's one reason I love using HubSpot, is that I get a very personalized view of how customers are using and moving through my content.
If you are tired of just wishing that you could generate customers from your web presence, this guide is for you.
#14 - Content marketing attracts people with real interest in your brand.
The power of content marketing to propel brands forward in this new anti-interruption era is clear. The jury has returned with a verdict, and it’s guilty. Content marketing is guilty of attracting people who have real interest in the solutions a brand can provide.
Chad Pollitt
How The Enterprise Can Scale Content Marketing
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Attract people without being annoying. That sounds good, doesn't it? Instead of throwing dollars at getting in people's faces, you can focus on being their advocate with content marketing. When they start looking for solutions, you'll be in the mix.
#15 - Content marketing improves employee attitudes and confidence levels.
Content marketing improves employee attitudes and confidence levels.
Mike Sweeney
The 7 Not-So-Obvious Benefits Of Content Marketing
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As company owners, we may not realize the huge implications that content marketing has for your company if you can create an environment that nurtures employee participation. By giving employees a voice and an outlet to connect with your customers through content marketing, you'll see employees getting fired up about their work again. That's always means good things for your company. In fact, several studies recently published show that job satisfaction is more important to employees than salary in many sectors of our economy.
#16 - Content marketing helps nonprofits raise money.
Content marketing helps churches and nonprofits raise more money.
Ben Stroup
Content marketing is severely underused by nonprofits in my cursory investigation. By staying top of mind and addressing current issues surrounding your mission, you help create a lifeline of funding to those who are most sympathetic with your causes.
#17 - Content marketing attracts job seekers and recruits the right employees.
Another way to find talent is through your own company website. Brafton Inc., a content agency, says “hiring managers must think like marketers and realize that job seekers are customers, too. It’s as important to sell the brand … to professionals looking for work as it is to market goods to prospects on the conversion edge. Content marketing can be effective in both situations.”
Clayton Stobbs
Recruiting Talent For Content Marketing Success
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Don't forget that you're not just marketing to your customers, you're presenting your company to a much wider audience. By creating top content, you can attract top talent who wants to be a part of it.
#18 - Content marketing works with any industry.
I know what you’re thinking: “Content marketing is great, but it won’t work for my industry. I don’t have anything worthwhile to say!” I can promise you that simply isn’t the case. Any company, in any industry, can have a successful content marketing strategy and can truly win business because of the information it shares.
Jim Brown
Content marketing works for any industry if it's done well. Like anything, if you do something poorly or halfway, you'll flop. I think that happens with content marketing a lot because it's easy to underestimate how much time and effort content marketing requires. If you're ready to put it the time & effort, or money to have someone help you, you'll see success.
#19 - Content marketing improves your customer experience.
Content keeps the Internet buzzing and great content is what gives brands something to discuss with their customers beyond complaints and challenges, compliments, or questions.
Jason Boies
Listening to your customers is paramount to creating effective content. Every interaction you have with a customer or a potential customer can give you insight into the questions they have. By addressing those questions clearly and early in the buying process, you reduce the amount of complaints and confusion. That makes for a better customer experience all around.
#20 - Content marketing helps grow a long-term audience.
Each piece of content you create is an opportunity to hook new people and grow your long-term audience. As this audience grows, you’ll have an even bigger base of people willing to share your content.
Loren Baker
Beyond Links: Reaping The Long-Term Benefits Of Content Marketing
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Growing an audience is a huge advantage of content marketing. Instead of starting from scratch as in traditional marketing, you actually build on your successes. By using follow up strategies with email nurturing and social media promotion, you can make steady gains in your audience.
#21 - Content marketing establishes selection criteria and a framework for decision-making.
Ultimately, great content can help establish selection criteria and a framework for decision making that favours your product or service over a competitor.
Sam Brennand
4 Key Benefits Of Content Marketing For Startups
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As a buyer moves through the awareness stage, into the consideration stage, if you've established trust with them, you'll be able to give them guidance to know what they should be looking for. You become the guide, the advocate, for them.
#22 - Content marketing levels the playing field in the marketplace.
The Internet has leveled the marketing playing field between small/medium businesses and corporate behemoths. One of the online marketing tools that places all businesses on equal footing involves content marketing.
Brandon Hoe
A small company can produce just as good of stuff as a big company, and can certainly nail the "being human" just as well. There are some limitations to this theory, of course, because a larger company has more human resources to create more content. However, by focusing on the topics that your customers care about, and getting very specific with your buyer personas, you can certainly make big gains.
#23 - Content marketing creates informed buyers.
This ongoing stream of valuable content creates informed buyers who will, in-turn, reward you with business and loyalty.
Nate Holmes
Your customers are going to be knowledgeable about your service, so you need to make sure you're the one doing the teaching. The beautiful thing is that by pouring your efforts into content marketing, you're teaching and training customers about how to get the most out of your service or product before they even buy.
#24 - Content marketing gets people's attention.
Outstanding content will rise above the noise, and more and more people will find it, consume it, and share it. The fastest way to grow your audience and get more people paying attention is to pump out awesome content.
Ted Balowski
I wish I could say that creating awesome content is easy. It's not. But, if you spend the time to speak clearly to the right audience, you will get attention. And it will be precisely who you are talking to. It's a remarkable dynamic.
#25 - Content marketing can increase email response rates.
Because outreach is often the first experience a prospect may have with your brand, it’s vital to make a great first impression. Email response rates can be increased by keeping communication professional, free of any spelling or grammatical errors, knowledgeable (understanding a site’s audience and purpose) and centered around value (here’s how you’d like to serve that audience).
Brian Jensen
Every interaction you have with a customer whether in person, in email, phone call, or traditional marketing methods, should be focused on giving value. Giving value is the core of content marketing. Instead of asking for something of the customer first, always give first.
#26 - Content marketing encourages virality.
Years ago, brands would rely on word of mouth to spread a message, and in recent years many believe this has died out. In reality, it’s completely the opposite, word of mouth marketing has grown at an incredible rate – it’s just called social media now. The ability to share something with a certain number of people, and then be able to watch it go viral in real-time is fantastic.
Will Scott
Create something that's interesting and especially entertaining, and you've got the potential to be seen by a much larger audience. You're not going to see that kind of virality with traditional marketing. Just isn't going to happen.
#27 - Content marketing gives you the opportunity to experiment.
With content marketing however, brands have the chance to test the water. They have the opportunity to publish multiple pieces of content and monitor the performance of them. From here, they are able to optimise to give their audience the most engaging and well received bits of information. Making mistakes is part of life growing up, however when it comes to marketing and advertising, big mistakes can sometimes lead to a reputation being tarnished.
Will Scott
Because you're going to create so much content, you're not going to hit a home run every time. The beautiful thing is that you can learn how to get better. You also have the freedom to try things without feeling like you're going to take down the whole company with you. One word of caution here, though, is to always remember that every piece of content you produce does either build or tear down your image.
#28 - Content marketing increase your viral launching pad.
Benefit #3: Increases your viral launching pad. If you ever want to launch a viral campaign, you'll have a base of users to start you off with. Let's say you want to launch a video contest, where users send in funny videos around a specific theme and the winner gets a prize. If you hadn't been publishing content, how would you find 100+ people to submit videos?
Pam Lawhorne
An advantage of building a favorable audience is that you begin to multiply the outlets for your content. If you have 10,000 people on your email list and you've consistently provided them value through content marketing, they're going to be more eager to help you get the word out through your next campaign.
#29 - Content marketing reduces your dependence on external sources.
Content marketing also has significant benefits specifically for lead generation, according to Brendan Cournoyer, content marketing manager at Brainshark Inc. “Content marketing reduces the need to obtain lists of leads from external sources just to keep your sales funnel full,” he says. “Instead, you create the content and generate more leads yourself.”
Jason Hahn
You own your content. The importance of this can't be understated. I love this point.
#30 - Content marketing gives you more control over your message.
Cournoyer adds that content marketing gives companies more control over their message, so they can make sure it’s aimed at your unique audience of potential customers. “After all, no one knows your business better than you.”
Jason Hahn
Establish buyer personas. Ask the question, "Who am I trying to talk to?" And then, create all of your content around those few fictitious people. Don't give yourself the freedom to talk to no one in particular. With your content, you can stay focused on your message. Just make sure that message is about giving value and not about chest-thumping or bragging.
#31 - Content marketing increases newsletter signups.
Content should add such a large amount of value that visitors want to sign up for more information and talk about the content.
Mary Thomas
Benefit Of Content Marketing
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Of course, increasing newsletter signups is just a means to an end, but building an email list is a huge priority within the content marketing process. While I'm not a fan of newsletters for most industries, you can increase your signups for handcrafted email updates, and personalized communication through content marketing as well.
#32 - Content marketing influences purchasing decisions.
If content marketing is assuming more significance in 2013 that’s because more and more businesses begin to realize how much it influences purchase decisions.
Martin Horton
Influencing a purchase decision means that you help customers see that the wisest choice is to use your service or product. Or, even better, you help them evaluate whether they are a good fit for what your company offers.
#33 - Content marketing boosts employee morale.
We celebrate every new team blog post. It’s become fun to talk about what we’re writing about next, or brainstorm with teammates about the outline for a particular piece. Getting more of your team to contribute – and then showing them the retweets and engagement it generates – can be a source of pride.
Matt Heinz
Why Every Employee Should Be Writing Blog Posts
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Happy employees = happy customers. Enough said.
#34 - Content marketing elicits favorable responses from your customers.
Some 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing, and 86% of B2C marketers do. And no wonder: Customers and clients, and potential customers and clients, respond more favorably to content than they do to advertisements and overt selling.
Verónica Maria Jarski
A Guide To Marketing Genius: Content Marketing [Infographic]
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Nobody likes to be yelled at. We'd rather be taught by someone who actually cares about us. Make sure that your content isn't "outbound selling" in disguise, but that it is a genuine effort on your part to teach your customers.
#35 - Content marketing is recyclable.
If you’re at a crossroads with using your content once or “recycling” it, try picking the second option. Content must build upon itself in order to last and developing it out into more detail will only help your marketing and strategy.
Sabel Harris
A blog post can become a download, which can be made into a video, which can be made into a slideshow, which can be emailed to prospective interested clients. There is no limit to how much you can recycle your content. That's pretty sweet.
#36 - Content marketing makes it easy to create additional value in the future.
Here’s a secret: you don’t always have to produce new content. Recycling existing content can be just as effective and significantly less time consuming. But let’s get this straight, recycling doesn’t mean taking an article that you posted 2 years ago and changing the publication date. To recycle content the right way — the smart way — you should be adding value to something that you’ve already created.
Jenna Hanington
How To Recycle Content...The Smart Way
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Don't reinvent the wheel all the time. I fall prey to this blunder way too much. If you've invested time into a topic in the past, spend a little time adding more specifics to one area, or springboard off of something you've already written.
#37 - Content marketing educates your employees.
Because of this dedication to continuous education, the content you create can then often be used to further educate other members of your team in addition to the audience you are targeting. The content we create for more general audiences often has a more detailed, in-depth counterpart created simultaneously to help better educate and inform our team members about information that matters to our industry, their jobs, or anything else of pertinence.
Chris Winfield
How To Weave Content Marketing Into Your Company’s DNA
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You're not just educating your customers, you're educating your employees. When I bring on a new employee at Nectafy, the blog is required reading. This way they get up to speed quickly on our tone, and our personality, and can begin to use the same terminology and perspective.
#38 - Content marketing is reusable.
One of the best parts about creating visual content as part of a content marketing strategy is the way various elements can be reused. More specifically, there are often innumerable opportunities to reuse pieces of artwork from visual content like infographics and infoguides.
Chris Winfield
How To Weave Content Marketing Into Your Company’s DNA
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Don't forget graphics. They take longer to produce, and you may have to outsource them to do them right. But you can reuse your written content in graphic form.
#39 - Content marketing can be repurposed and reimagined without reinventing the wheel.
Since feeding the content marketing beast with more and more content while keeping within a limited budget is difficult, here are how twenty content marketing experts responded to the question: “How do you define repurposed/reimagined/reused content and how do you refer to it?”
Heidi Cohen
How To Reuse Your Content Marketing
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The article on the other end of this link deserves your attention. That's why we included it here. "Feeding the content marketing beast," is one of the biggest challenges any content marketer faces, so read on.
#40 - Content marketing spurs creativity.
There are other ways to increase your traffic or generate more sales from your reader base, but I’ve found the tactics above work extremely well. You just have to get a bit creative and be willing to think outside the box.
Neil Patel
Neil Patel is one of the most helpful writers on content marketing that I know. His articles constantly push me to think differently about content marketing. Without a doubt trying to get in the mind of your customer is hard work, and does involve trial and error. Content marketing gives you the opportunity to develop this skill. You can only become better at your business by going through the content marketing process.
#41 - Content marketing is a natural fit for buying psychology.
One of the most effective ways you can boost your sales is to integrate psychology into your marketing.
Neil Patel
How To Integrate Psychology Into Your Marketing
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Content marketing aligns naturally with how customers shop. Take a look at some of Neil Patel's ideas of integrating psychology into your content.
#42 - Content marketing gives you the opportunity to find out what's important to your customers.
By extracting data from the social space and segmenting out their user activity to figure out what people are actually saying, Whole Foods discovers what their followers are passionate about and learns more about what is important to them. They then create engaging content that their users enjoy.
Brent Gleeson
Successful Content Marketing In Action
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The key here is that Whole Foods cares enough about what it's customers say to listen, and then create content. That same strategy is available to your company.
#43 - Content marketing improves your social media presence.
Having a content strategy that will address the needs of your target market will make your website grow. And in turn, make your social media presence grow, and increase sales and leads.
Matt Lee
If Your Website Isn't Growing, It's Shrinking
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By having strong content, you actually have something to say in social space. That doesn't mean that you constantly blab about yourself. It does mean, though, that if you've identified your buyer personas, and you're writing content around those, what you share will be meaningful to your audience on the social channels where they hang out.
#44 - Content marketing helps in market research.
Success in business depends on identifying a market that is interested in your solution. Market research can help determine which products to offer and the marketing mix to adopt for higher ROI. Using different content, you can address your market’s pain, struggles or needs and offer a relevant solution that is better than what is available in the market. Help ease your customer's pain just enough on their own, to where they need you to completely rid of their problem.
Matt Lee
If Your Website Isn't Growing, It's Shrinking
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By keeping an eye on your analytics, and what pages people are reading before they purchase, you can develop some powerful insight into what's working and what's missing the mark.
#45 - Content marketing improves your PR strategy.
PR should embrace content marketing. If there’s one trend that has reached a tipping point in PR — it is content marketing. Content marketing is a perfect blend of SEO and social media for the online marketing mix. But for PR, there’s one other key point: media and blogger relations.
Frank Strong
Why PR Should Embrace Content Marketing
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I don't know a ton about PR, but I do know that in the past, it felt an awful lot like it was just a bunch of pretend press releases. By using content marketing, you'll have things to talk about that will actually help your readers instead of bore them. It's the perfect scenario.
#46 - Content marketing lowers advertising costs while increasing ROI.
The BusinessBolts.com study says small businesses are finding benefits in traffic, search rankings and brand building in exchange for minimal effort. Sixty-two percent of small businesses reported spending less than $100 per month on content marketing and almost half (45%) said content has lowered their advertising costs.
Frank Strong
Small Business Love Affair with Content Marketing
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If you're spending money on traditional methods of advertising, content marketing will definitely save you money over those forms. Even if you need to hire a content marketing agency to help you, the return on your investment makes it an obvious choice for any company.
#47 - Content marketing turns shoppers into buyers without the hard sell.
Content marketing makes so much sense on so many levels. It helps market a business well if it is backed up by a sound strategy and executed with consistency. The beauty of it is that it has the power to turn shoppers into buyers. It can sell without directly advertising goods and services. No hard sell necessary.
Claire Ratushny
Why Is So Much Content Marketing Failing Miserably?
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I'm not much of a salesman. I never have been. However, if I'm convinced that what I have can really meet someone's need, I am passionate about helping. Content marketing gives me the outlet to help without being pushy.
#48 - Content marketing lets you tell important stories about your brand.
Now more than ever, brands have the ability to unearth and tell their stories in ways that captivate and engage audiences. Smaller brands aren't relegated to serving customers within a 50-mile radius. Brands of all sizes can commit to stories that befit their products, their employees and the essence of their brands, and they can tell them on channels with worldwide reach.
Jon Thomas
We all love a story. Don't fall into the trap of boring content. Tell the stories that fuel your company. Pull back the curtain and let people back stage.
#49 - Content marketing generates positive buzz.
Pretty cool, huh? Of course it is. That’s why it went viral. What’s even cooler is how the marketing team behind this campaign is using content marketing to get people talking about Dove. They’ve generated positive buzz around their brand and they’ve got people viewing, clicking, sharing, and even blogging about their brand.
Keith Knowles
Think about your content marketing from your customers' perspective. If your content meets an emotional or social need, make sure it's easy to be shared, because people will share it.
#50 - Content marketing keeps your employees engaged.
As a business leader, the principles of content marketing also apply to keeping your employees engaged. In your web content, you appeal to your ideal customers by being informative, helpful, and interested in their challenges. Those are the same keys to help your staff maintain enthusiasm and high performance.
Brenda Stoltz
Internal Content Marketing To Keep Employees Engaged
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Content marketing provides ever-changing challenges. Invite your employees into this process, watch the grow and develop.
#51 - Content marketing gives your employees a fresh way to contribute.
Content marketing is a important tool in attracting visitors to your company and engaging prospective customers it the sales process. But quality content is the most important feature of your content marketing. What better way to get great content than to tap the best resources at your disposal… your employees!
Maureen Thorne
Transform Employees Into Content Producers To Support Your Company’s Content Marketing Strategy
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Your employees who deal with your customers daily are the prime candidates to create content. They have the best sense of what your customers are looking for. Intentionally carve out time in your employees' schedule to create content, and give them the freedom to communicate for your company.
#52 - Content marketing focuses your team around a common vision.
Whether it concerns sales consultants, product marketers, R&D managers, customer service agents or the country manager, they all create content and information the whole time. Even when they never blog or create clean and ready types of content your content strategy typically uses, it’s essential to get them involved as they know your target audiences and story, and have good information sitting somewhere.
Renilde De Wit
Even if some of your employees don't write or produce videos, your entire company needs to buy into your content strategy. There are remarkable things that happen when your whole team is on board.
#53 - Content marketing can be applied all the way down the funnel even to product descriptions.
Viewed as the last stop, the very “bottom of the funnel” when it comes to communicating with consumers, the lowly product description is often overlooked. Considered the necessary but dullest ingredient in the marketing mix, product descriptions are, in fact, vital players in online sales.
Ann Meany
Instead of a dry, dusty description of your product, use a product description to educate and entertain, just like any piece of content. If your reader is reading a product description, they're only a couple of clicks away from becoming a customer. Make that content count.
#54 - Content marketing helps you manage your online reputation.
That is the key to managing your reputation online: Create your own domain, establish a clear, fleshed-out presence on multiple social networking sites, post to each of them at least once a month and keep monitoring the web for unflattering photos or mentions. If they come up, do your best to bury them with positive content.
Susan Adams
6 Steps To Managing Your Online Reputation
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When people search for your company, content marketing helps you make sure they find plenty of great stuff about you.
#55 - Content marketing helps counter negative reviews.
Negative information is often hard to avoid. Literally anyone has the ability to share their views, opinions, issues and experiences with a company, online. Creating positive content can help negate any negative news.
Debbie Williams
There are plenty of opinions out there about your company. By having a strong content presence, you'll be able to weather any negative storms.
#56 - Content marketing empowers your prospects.
Smart content marketing alters the perspective of prospects so that they are more inclined to do business with you. You do this by providing contrast, because people naturally perceive facts in a relative comparison to other facts.
Brian Clark
3 Simple Techniques For More Persuasive Content Marketing
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Knowledge is power. Give your customers knowledge, and they will become smarter customers. If you're talking to the right people, smarter customers mean that they buy from you.
#57 - Contet marketing helps you respond to customer concerns proactively.
An easy method for collecting topics from audiences is to read comments, compare likes and shares between posts, and respond to customer concerns through reassuring content.
Mike Zammuto
#58 - Content marketing encourages customer interaction.
Often, readers will start to converse with one another in a comment section. The unbeliever or critic is the one you should reach out to, but never sacrifice your integrity or style to please one haughty customer.
Mike Zammuto
Great content gets conversations started. Don't be afraid of those conversations. Even negative comments give you a chance to educate and delight those who are inclined to trust you.
#59 - Content marketing gives your company a voice.
Employee-generated content makes the "one voice" approach to communication impossible. And that's why it works so well. Sometimes an author's unique style can become a huge voice for the company--authenticity, not corporate speak, results in real credibility and a real connection between an author and an audience.
Jeff Haden
The Best Content Marketing Is Free
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Yes, yes, yes. Empower your employees to write with their voice about their perspectives that answer your customer's questions. It's a huge win for your company
Whew! That was quite a list. I hope you're convinced about the value of content marketing now.
Even though it's a pretty long list, I know I must have missed some. Did I completely miss your favorite?
If you've written an article about a benefit of content marketing, comment with the link, and throw your Twitter handle in there, too! If I love it, I'll include it in the article as well.
