Why is Content Marketing Essential for Digital Marketing Success?

The digital boom has changed the way companies interact with customers, making content marketing a crucial strategy for attracting customers and boosting loyalty. Recent research has revealed that two-thirds of people consider content marketing useful, significantly outweighing the 33% who consider it biased. Even when customers know they are reading marketing material, they continue to express interest, with over 50% of those surveyed being more likely to research a company’s products or services after consuming its content. In this post, we highlight the reasons why content is key to any business wishing to remain competitive.

Establishing Brand Authority

Many leading companies are hiring savvy content writers to produce content that will establish them as authorities in their field. By providing white papers, blog posts, insider tips and other content that is actually useful, companies can build trust, which is key when it comes to acquiring and retaining clients. As noted by Forbes, “Having brand authority means consumers will feel confident that you know what you’re doing, and thus that their money is well spent with your company.” Content not only needs to be informative but also curated to clients. Analytics can help companies determine a strategy that includes personalizing content to different target or client groups.

Encouraging Consumers to Engage

As noted in a thesis by J Denham-Smith and P Harvidsson (Content Marketing’s Effect on Customer Engagement), “The goal of content marketing is to provide consumers with content that they are willing to engage with. Ways of engaging in content mean sharing, liking, commenting and adapting the message, then spreading it, thereby creating user-generated content.” In essence, valuable content marketing leads to sharing and recommendations. Create excitement around content enables a company to reach the sites of social influencers, who can significantly boost its brand awareness.

Content Marketing Drives Sales

Over 82% of people make purchases from a company after consuming its content. This statistic highlights the value of investment in content. Your blog may have thousands of visitors and your social media hundreds of likes, but these figures need to be converted into sales if content marketing is to meet its aim. According to Moran (2016), content marketing should possess four key qualities: it should be credible, targeted, differentiated, and measurable.

We have mentioned the key reasons why content marketing is currently a big priority for most businesses that invest in digital marketing strategies. To stay at the top of your game, it is important to produce quality content, but also to curate it to your clients. Ensure your content is shared, commented on, and liked, and measure whether or not it is making a difference to your conversion rate.