Learning Hub | Content Marketing

Why Does Content Marketing Matter So Much?

It’s not an exaggeration to say that every successful business, no matter how big or small, utilizes some form of content marketing. You should be, too.

If you aren’t familiar with content marketing, it is defined as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Coming up with an efficient marketing strategy involves several steps:

  • Defining your brand identity
    • Before you can distribute any materials, you need to have a cohesive vision of what your brand is.
  • Understanding your target audience inside and out
    • What are their demographics?
    • How tech-savvy are they?
    • How do they learn about your business?
  • Understanding how they interact with your business
    • Online?
    • In-store?
  • Defining your end goal (i.e. What do you want all of your distributed materials to ultimately cause your customers to do?)
    • Visit your store
    • Sign-up for your blog newsletter
    • Complete a checkout purchase
    • Use your services
  • Outlining your marketing budget
    • How much can you spend in total?
    • Which forms of content marketing can you spend little to nothing on?
    • Which ones cost more?
    • How much focus should go to each?
  • Coming up with great material
    • Catchy, impactful slogans
    • Relevant blog topics
    • High-definition photos and videos
    • Intriguing social media posts
    • Efficient emails

One great thing about content marketing is that companies can get creative with it. Since it’s not a direct promotion of your brand, there isn’t just one way to do it. There are probably forms that haven’t even been thought of yet.

The flexibility of content marketing and its proven success for companies all over the world are just a couple of reasons why it has grown in popularity, out-pacing more traditional forms like advertising.

With a lower budget, companies can generate leads, drive site and brick-and-mortar traffic, and increase sales. Simply put, it’s popular because it works.

Successful Content Marketing Will Drive Business Growth & Interaction

Common Types of Content Marketing:

  • Copy – The Words On The Page
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Blogs/Articles
  • Social Media Posts
  • Ads
  • Hashtags
  • Emails
  • Downloadable Materials: eBooks, Whitepapers and Case Studies
  • Infographics

A focus on content marketing not only forces you to be ultra-familiar with your audience members’ demographics, but it makes you apply strategic planning to your creative endeavors.

Successful content marketing correlates to and heals your target audience members’ pain points. By knowing the questions that they are likely to ask and publishing content that provides the answers, you are putting your company out there as more than a supplier of products and services.

You are making it possible for your company to become a thought leader in your industry.

While it does take time to see results from your aggregated content marketing campaigns, you are building relationships while reinforcing your brand the entire time. This stability in reputation and image will ensure that the relationships you are taking time to nurture are ones that will be marked by loyalty in the future.

The ROI on content marketing is a little trickier to calculate than that of, say, a billboard ad. But, this is a classic case of quality over quantity, and the good news is that several types of content marketing campaigns can be implemented affordably.

We guarantee that a focus on content marketing will set you apart from competitors, build loyal customer relationships, generate leads, and drive conversions.

How do we know? We’ve seen the proof time and time again.

Take a look at the specs of our own blog campaign below to see the serious numbers that content marketing can generate when carried out strategically and consistently.

The Proof is in The Pudding

Though we have had our blog since the inception of verdemedia.com, we implemented a strategic plan in 2016 that focused on scheduling regular posts, boosting SEO, etc. We focused some of our resources on content marketing, allowing us to drive more traffic to our site.

From January 1st, 2015 to October 31st, 2016, our site traffic increased from 111 blog visits/month to 2,427 visits. That’s a 22X increase in traffic over a 2-year period simply from consistent, strategic blogging.

Revenue from leads that those blogs generated increased by 50% in that same time period. As a result, our client base changed from 100% local, in-state leads to 50% in-state/50% out-of-state due to our increased reach through content marketing.

Verde Media Can Help You Build A Content Strategy

We know it can be difficult to have an outsider involved in any aspect of your business. Those aren’t easy reins to hand over. However, if you are lacking either the know-how or the resources to devise a successful content marketing strategy, we can help!

We’ll work hand-in-hand with you to make sure that you understand and agree with the strategy we lay out and our reasoning behind it.

We’re happy to say that Verde Media doesn’t employ a one-size-fits-all solution. We will look at what makes your company unique, familiarize ourselves with your brand and get to know your target audience before coming up with a plan of action.

Once you’re on board, we’ll work closely together, asking for your input and answering any questions that you may have along the way.

If you’d like to learn more about our process, please call us at 586.434.0678.

You can also fill out our online quote form to tell us more about your business. Be sure to include any questions that you have, and one of our team members will contact you within one business day.