A content marketing strategy is a popular promotional tool. When marketers create content marketing strategies, they always include some form of content creation in the mix.
But what is the purpose of content? Why is it such a critical staple of content strategy? What are common content marketing objectives, and how do they help your overall digital marketing activities?
Let’s take a look at some of the prime benefits of content marketing and consider four of the main purposes behind why you want to create quality content for your brand.
Content marketing can have a powerful influence on many different areas of business. One of the most important benefits of content marketing is its ability to serve as a traffic and lead generator that offers genuine information, advice, insights, and solutions for a potential customer.
A good content strategy amplifies this value by using content to build a brand’s authority. The ability to build authority through thought leadership and demonstrating experience and expertise is a primary pillar of a good growth marketing strategy.
Authority and consumer value may be primary benefits when you look at content marketing from a 10,000-foot perspective. However, when you zoom in, there are more specific ways content marketing goals can impact a brand.
Let’s consider four of the main purposes behind effective content marketing.
Content marketing resources may be a great place to include keywords and backlinks, but at the end of the day, their most important purpose is to provide informative and educational value for readers. This isn’t just theoretical, either. Google has made it clear through its recent updates that satisfying user needs and offering unique, valuable perspectives is the top priority for the search engine.
Content marketers are following suit by ensuring that all of their content marketing resources are directly benefiting consumers who engage with them. That doesn’t mean educating consumers is the only goal here. (There are still three more things on this list, after all.) But at this point, the ability to inform and educate is central to all content creation.
A main content marketing objective for most growth marketers is to build authority. We already touched on this briefly in the content marketing benefits section above.
However, it’s worth revisiting to dig a little further into the term “authority.” According to Forbes contributor John Hall, “The best way to establish topical authority is to create interrelated content that approaches a topic from multiple angles using multiple pieces of content.”
The takeaway here? Building authority and customer loyalty is something that happens at a topical as well as an industry level. You can send generic vibes that you’re an industry leader, but that will only get you so far. Your content allows you to show off that leadership in distinct and specific ways.
The quality and details you can include in a quality piece of content (whether that’s blog posts, a guest article, an email, a social media post, or anything else) are one of your best bets to show consumers that you know your stuff. This requires focusing on individual topics and answering niche questions as well as big-picture items.
Let’s start by clarifying the header of this section. Good content marketing converts.
When you create content, you can use it to encourage consumers to take action and move toward accomplishing your business goal. This can be anything from signing up for a newsletter to asking for a demo or even making a purchase.
When a user takes a desired action, it becomes a conversion. This is one of the most beneficial elements that content can do for your brand. It allows you to orchestrate specific activities while simultaneously offering genuine value to consumers.
It’s important to remember that high-converting content takes time, patience, and skill to develop. Invest in content performance analysis. Track the right content performance metrics. Get your finger on the pulse of your conversion rates so that you can ensure it is helping you achieve your marketing goals.
If you haven’t picked up on this by now, effective content marketing is multi-faceted. High-quality content can answer user questions, build brand authority, and provide CTAs at the same time. It can also quietly (and critically) boost your brand awareness.
Content marketing helps your brand’s online visibility through good SEO. Search engine optimization ensures that your content is keyword-rich, contains a healthy amount of links, and is technically optimized — all without sacrificing user value and readability in the process.
When you’re able to implement SEO in your content, it helps you perform well in SERPs. This means your content ranks higher and is more likely to attract organic traffic, which is a cost-effective way to build a brand and achieve important marketing KPIs.
Content is an important part of any 21st-century marketing strategy. But you can’t adopt a “Field of Dreams” approach and expect success. A successful content marketing strategy aims to understand the purpose behind each piece of content that you create.
Take the time to understand how your content can build brand authority, boost SEO, educate, and convert. This allows you to craft each asset for optimal performance. You can take the time to add keywords, include CTAs, and demonstrate detailed and unique perspectives. Consider hiring a content marketing agency if you need some assistance when creating your strategy.
Above all, it allows you to provide real, applicable value to your target audience as you seek to answer their questions and direct them toward your brand’s solutions (i.e., your products and services) for their larger problems.
