7 Reasons your business needs content marketing

Today, customers expect high-quality, consistent content from their favourite brands. But it takes more than a standard content marketing blog to keep them happy. Customers want infographics, insights, ebooks, videos, podcasts, interactive graphics, quizzes, and even the odd cheeky gif.

And good content really is king.

It helps big and small businesses rank higher on Google, attract more eyeballs, and, ultimately, convert those views into sales.

How content improves search engine rankings

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Google's search engine algorithms love good content. They're programmed to find it and promote it onto the holy grail of digital marketing - the first Google search page.

But what makes good content, according to Google? It comes down to four main factors.

Length: Is the content too long to read or too short to be meaningful? Blogs of around 1,000 words rank higher than shorter posts.

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Relevance: Is the content directly related to its subject or title? Does it solve a problem? Does it answer a searched-for question? Is it factually correct and well-researched?

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Uniqueness: Google will look to promote unique and well-written content over copy and pasted churn stuffed with keywords.

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Engagement: Are other people clicking and sharing the content? If so, it must be good. Google helps the best content reach more people by ranking it higher.

7 Reasons why your business needs content

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Here's a look at why your business needs content. And we've included some of the best B2B content marketing ideas and strategies to give you some inspiration for your own campaigns.

1. Build trust

Great content like a well-written blog post tells people they've come to the right place. From a landing page to your tweets, good content equals credibility. And credibility is an essential part of building up your company's reputation.

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Free content also builds trust in your brand. Sharing your expertise without asking for payment upfront signals confidence, transparency, and integrity. It's proof of concept. You're showcasing your skills before asking clients to hand over money.

2. Brand positioning

Brand positioning is the art of sharing your company's unique value in ways that resonate with your buyer, compelling them to engage, trust, and buy.

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How your brand resonates with customers depends on how you talk to them. And this is where good content comes in. Don't just talk about what your company does. Lengthy blogs packed full of technical details will, let's be honest, get pretty boring after a while.

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Focus on content that makes your brand desirably different from the competition. And make it value-driven, i.e. why are you different? What problems do you solve? How can you make people's lives easier or better?

3. Brand awareness

Brand awareness content is - unsurprisingly - content that makes customers aware of your business. But it's a little more complicated than telling people where to find you.

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The best brand awareness content campaigns build 'a personality' around your company. Social media marketing is perfect for this.

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The Wendy's fast food Twitter account is - in contemporary internet speak - 'absolutely fire.' It's witty, self-deprecating, and very, very funny. Half the tweets aren't even about burgers. They're celebrity gossip, and even memes.

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Wendy's Twitter speaks to its customers in the way they speak to each other. Tweets from Wendy's don't read like they're from a company trying to sell you something; they read like a text or WhatsApp from a best friend.

4. Organic traffic and increased traffic

SEO (search engine optimised) content is structured around popular phrases or words people search for - and by search, we mean Google.

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SEO content always ranks higher on Google, increasing your organic traffic rates

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5. Generate leads via search intent.

Search intent is the reason why people google a specific term or question.

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Effective content marketing identifies the intent behind their target audience searches, then creates content that provides the information or advice it wants.  

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Health conscious people want to know about what food or habits will make them feel healthier. So they’ll probably click a blog or YouTube video about 'The 10 best superfoods that boost energy levels.’

6. Low customer acquisition cost

Get your content marketing right, and it's far more cost-effective than pay-per-click marketing. It takes minutes to craft a Tweet that could reach thousands of people in less than a few hours. And it costs next to nothing in people-hours.

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It's even better if you can persuade customers into sharing your content with friends and colleagues. They're essentially advertising you to other potential clients, and at zero cost.

7. Build an audience and a community

A third of internet users follow brands on social media. And they don't just follow. They comment, like, and share. They act like members of a community, not passive consumers of a product.

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You can leverage these behaviours by building a brand community around your service and products. And content is the way to do it.

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People love interactive content like surveys or personality quizzes. They give customers a voice and are ideal for gathering info on selling and cross-selling opportunities.

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And embrace the power of user-generated content. Few companies do this any better than women's fashion brand Aerie.

It invited customers to share untouched photos of themselves in swimsuits under the hashtag #AerieREAL. This body-positive marketing campaign grew into the Aerie Real Life community website. It includes articles on well-being, user-generated stories, and links to real-world meet-up events. And, obviously, there are loads of links to stuff that these community members can buy.

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Sales enablement and content marketing experts

Our proven playbook and compelling sales content move prospects forward and to conversion. We blend your market intelligence with our sales expertise to create an exceptional sales toolkit your team will be proud to use, enabling connections, starting conversations, and driving conversions, helping you win customers and beat competitors. It's everything your sales reps need for success, from engaging infographics to insightful solution briefs and email and messaging templates to factsheets and call scripts, delivering a 30% boost to your sales performance. Adopt the strategies used by big tech, build buyer trust, and start smashing sales quotas today.

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Book a free discovery call with our team to learn more.

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