“Joe Pulizzi – Keynote” by TopRank Marketing is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Joe Pulizzi once said, “Content marketing is not a campaign — it’s an approach, a philosophy, and a business strategy.” Not many marketers took seriously what he said or even understood his reasoning about why content marketing is important.
However, in an interview with Ty Kiisel, the godfather of content marketing and author of Content Inc. gives glimpses of how he came to that conclusion. He says content marketing is only successful when creative, quality content is put out constantly over a long period, citing the case-study businesses he discusses in his book.
Joe, who is the founder of Content Marketing Institute, a columnist for LinkedIn and Entrepreneur.com, and an author of multiple content marketing books, believes content only works if it solves a customer’s pain and builds trust. We can’t agree more.
Taking your time to create engaging and informative content turns your website into the ultimate go-to when a customer needs help about a subject in your niche. This pull increases your authority and portrays you as credible, expediting your journey to the top.
Read on for some of the ways content marketing can transform your business.
Brand Authenticity
Customers take long to trust anything they find online. If your company is entirely online-based, prospects will want to ensure you exist and are reliable before committing to doing business with you.
Putting content on various traffic sources is one way to get this much-needed trust from customers and prospects. According to Ann Handley, writer of bestseller Everybody Writes, it shows there is an actual human involved, and one who has the subject down pat. Authenticity is one reason why content marketing is important.
“When we say to be authentic, we mean you should make it clear that your stuff has the stamp of an actual person or actual people and that that person or those people have the qualities (a point of view, a personality, a sense of enthusiasm for the subject, and suitability to your audience) that make for a compelling approach to content as a solid foundation for the start of your relationship with your audience,” reads one of her famous quotes.
Ann Handley is a digital marketing guru known for her work in textual content creation and delivery. She explores the application of the unwritten rules and lessons of creating good content across various online assets, including web pages, landing pages, home pages, marketing offers, email, blogs, and social media.
She implies that regardless of your niche, posting content about a subject shows you understand it and can be relied on for assistance. It yields a sort of loyalty that is virtually impossible to get using traditional content marketing approaches.
Brand Vision
Your business vision is the mental picture of what you would want your company to look like eventually or after a certain period. It gives you an objective and something to grow towards.
While it is advisable to avoid distractions and keep your eyes on the prize at all times, visions don’t necessarily need to be cast in stone. Change in industry dynamics, competition, and customer preference might call for a change in objectives.
One easy way to know when your vision needs tweaking is by paying attention to customer feedback. As Joe Pulizzi puts it, “When you’re creating content and you’re getting feedback from the audience it allows you to hone your vision, as well as embed your vision ultimately with whatever it is that you’re creating.” Honing your vision is another reason why content marketing is important.
Content elicits questions, inquiries, and suggestions from your audience, helping you create more accurate user personas and, consequently, a more practical vision for your business.
Brand Awareness Shows Why Content Marketing Is Important
“The best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect, and trust of those who might buy,” says Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of Moz, blogger, and leader in the SEO domain.
According to him, content marketing is more than just backlinks and keyword ranking; it is an opportunity to tell a story. A well-told story resonates with the target audience and increases brand awareness.
Content marketing helps you showcase what your business represents and everything that makes it unique. Customers love bonding with brands on a personal level. With artful storytelling, you can achieve this in a straightforward and hassle-free fashion.
Content Marketing Makes it Easier to Understand Customers
Understanding your customers in a market brimming with competition might be what sets you apart from your closest rivals. Customers will always choose the product or service that meets their specifications to bits.
Unfortunately, most marketers don’t know the first thing about viewing their businesses from the customer’s perspective. They don’t know what to listen to, let alone how to make sense of what they have heard.
“Listening is not understanding the words of the question asked. Listening is understanding why the question was asked in the first place,” says British American inspirational speaker Simon Sinek, renowned for his books Start With Why and The Infinite Game. The opportunity to listen is another reason why content marketing is important.
Content marketing can help you understand your customers better by providing the basis for questions and opinions. This way, you won’t struggle to establish the motive and drive behind their questions and suggestions.
Content Marketing Improves Personalized Brand Communication
“We all know that the battle for attention has never been greater. So this is about developing a more sophisticated approach to how we think about our content. In this hyper-segmented world, increasingly that means building one-to-one brand experiences, making content speak to a personalized journey.”
This quote by Keith Weed reminds us of one thing: customers are hard to impress, and getting their attention might require delivering to their unique specifications. Keith, a champion of the 5C Framework, describes the customer as the “true north” and believes understanding them should be every marketer’s number one priority.
Content invites feedback in the form of reviews, questions, and complaints and helps you understand individual customers better. With this knowledge, it is easier to create more accurate content for customers. And above all, customer satisfaction is why content marketing is important.
Visit the TerraCurrent blog for more examples of why content marketing is important.