Marketing demands experimentation, so one single strategy is never enough. Methods that pay off big usually require tons of work at the beginning. Content marketing is no exception. It includes quite a bit of planning, maneuvering, and volume, but it has become a crucial piece of successful marketing across channels like social media and ecommerce websites. 

Far from traditional marketing, content marketing is not just about numbers and discounts anymore. With content marketing, you're aiming to build relationships and turn your followers into loyal customers through the content you share with them. But what makes it effective? 

Content marketing generates three times more leads compared to outbound marketing. That's a baffling increase, especially considering that content marketing costs 62% less as well. Thus, today, we’re bringing you ten solid reasons to prioritize content marketing and optimize your strategies regarding it. 

9 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Important  

If you're at a crossroads wondering where to invest your time and resources, content marketing is a viable option. Here are ten reasons why we firmly believe this: 

1. It Builds Trust with Your Audience  

Trust remains one of the most decisive elements influencing customers' behavior. 81% of buyers in a survey said that the level of trust they had in a brand determined whether they’d buy from it or not. Building trust is your duty as a marketer, and content is your tool. 

For instance, highly personalized content, often user-generated content (UGC), builds trust and positions your brand among customers’ favorite choices. You can gather customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings, distribute them on your channels with the help of tools like Pixlee TurnTo, and supercharge your content marketing game. 

UGC is an incredible way to add social proof to your marketing efforts. Whether you’re showcasing your customers’ original content in an on-site, shoppable inspiration gallery or an Instagram post, you’re reassuring other potential customers that people actually like your product.

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Trust-building content doesn’t imply the use of flowery language and fancy designs. As a content marketer, you’re expected to find your audience’s most burning questions and then dish out content that answers these questions while positioning your brand as the hero. 

2. It Turns Buyers into Loyal Customers  

Customer retention is difficult to achieve without a solid marketing plan. When you focus only on promotional content, you’re not really leveraging the full power of content marketing to turn shoppers into long-term, loyal customers. 

A versatile content strategy helps you connect with buyers on a deeper level. Posting only promotional content simply won’t build you a tribe of loyal buyers. Instead, you should try to post educational content, how-to guides, and tutorials. Educational content is part of a solid content marketing strategy, and it increases the chances of purchasing by over 131%.

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UGC also helps brands incorporate more diverse content forms into their marketing campaigns. From tutorials and unboxing videos to product reviews, your customers may come up with new ways to display your product and convey its value that your marketing team may not have thought of.

3. It Generates More Sales Leads  

Capturing sales is more challenging today because users have a multitude of options. They need a strong reason to pick you in the sea of competitors. High-quality content can change their minds quickly. The more useful and relevant value you provide through your content, the more they’ll want, giving you the chance to nurture them into qualified leads.

Your potential leads could fall into one of three stages during their buyer journeys: 

1. Awareness. They’re aware they’re struggling to achieve the results they want and are searching for help when they stumble upon your content. 
2. Consideration. They have identified their exact problem and are now browsing for possible solutions. 
3. Decision. They’re aware of the possible solutions and are now searching for the business that offers the most reasonable option. 

You can create relevant content for all three types of buyer stages through effective content marketing to attract the most leads. With the help of content distribution software, you’ll minimize the time and effort needed to share your content via multiple channels.   

4. It Increases Brand Awareness  

Brand awareness is a popular topic nowadays, but how do you differentiate yourself among the ever-growing number of competitors? The answer is: by producing exceptional content and marketing it to reach both partners and customers who can further spread the word about your brand. You’ll also want to make sure your content is present on the most valuable platforms to your audience. When it comes to social media, consider using a platform like TikTok that isn’t quite as saturated with competitor brands as more established channels like Instagram are.

Once set in motion, content marketing will continuously bring eyeballs to your website and social media. For instance, publishing evergreen content on your blog will earn views for months and years to come. Additionally, users who have encountered your content on social media may be more likely to recall your brand later on when thinking about products to buy.

5. It Helps Define the Ideal Buyer More Accurately  

Knowing precisely who your ideal buyer helps you create better content and tailored offers. One or two customers aren’t enough to understand the ideal buyer. You need more data, which can be obtained by analyzing reactions to your content. 

Social media tools are a smart investment to help you publish more content and track your customers’ reactions to it. As you understand what your ideal buyers like and dislike to consume by analyzing the metrics from these tools, you can describe them more accurately. 

The content you create for social media, your brand’s website, and other marketing channels should have your target audience in mind from the get go. However, keep an open mind and always be monitoring ways to improve that content to more closely align with your target audience.

6. It Drives New Visitors Organically 

The best content offers maximal outcomes. Content marketing increases your viewership only when you produce the right prose. This means you must include keywords with high search volumes that are relevant to your brand. 

Once you’ve published a considerable amount of content on your brand’s website, you’re likely to get ranked in search engine results pages (SERPs) and gain visitors organically. Along the same lines, producing evergreen content for your social media channels brings organic visitors as well.  

User-generated content and Ratings & Reviews can actually improve search engine optimization (SEO) for brands. This is because shoppers are typically more likely to engage with UGC over branded content, and reviews feature long-tail keywords that shoppers are likely searching for. Over 25% of the search results for the 20 largest brands in the world are linked to UGC.

7. It Generates New Demand  

67% of marketers firmly believe that content marketing is a powerful and effective way to generate demand for your business. In a time when new businesses are launched on a daily basis, you should try hard to generate demand so you can survive and then thrive in the market. 

The entire process of demand generation goes through four steps: 

• Audience Identification
• Audience Attraction
• Engagement
• Demand Management

Personalized, engaging marketing content plays a major role in all four stages. Most importantly, it’s vital for generating demand. Take this demand you build a step further by making your content shoppable — both on social media and your brand’s website. Anywhere consumers are interacting with your products, there should be a clear path to purchase. Pixlee TurnTo gives brands the tools to tag products directly in UGC and social media content like TikToks when displayed across a brand’s site.

Content marketing taps into customers’ desires, educates them about their problems, and elegantly presents solutions. Through a timely execution of your content marketing strategy, you can turn a slightly interested audience into returning buyers.   

8. Content Marketing Is Cost-Efficient 

Traditional marketing isn’t as cost-efficient as content marketing. The moment you stop paying for advertising, you stop receiving traffic. Meanwhile, a content marketing strategy brings you traffic even after you’ve stopped promoting the content yourself. Others will discover it via searches and SEO optimization and even share it for more reach. 

The major costs for content marketing go towards creating the content. The costs for maintaining content visibility are pretty low. Thus, the effort put into publishing online content is totally worth it. Over 61% of US online consumers confirm they have bought based on blog recommendations. So keep publishing content. It will pay off one day.  

If you’re looking for an even more cost-effective content strategy, consider outsourcing content creation to influencers along with relying on UGC. UGC is a practically free source of high-quality content that can quickly boost your media library. 

Working with smaller-scale creators like micro-influencers can also generate awareness and sales for your brand at a reasonable price. Check out how to find influencers as well as our ultimate influencer pay guide to learn more.

10. It Increases Traction to Your Social Media Profiles  

Web traffic takes the stake as one of the most vital online channels, but you might be surprised to learn that 27% of small businesses don’t have a website, according to a survey. Social media remains a powerful marketing channel, and you can leverage it for more results, in case you don’t have a website.

Surely, combined with a web presence, social media yields more results. However, they can work together well in tandem by circulating your content between the two. For example, you could share a piece of UGC on Instagram, directing users to a specific product on your website. You could also feature that same piece of UGC in a carousel on that product’s page on your website. This creates a positive feedback loop of engagement on both channels.

Words and images are powerful tools. By building a content marketing strategy and publishing useful content consistently, you’ll surpass the results of traditional marketing for the same budget. Also, content marketing allows you to build a diverse business by reaching and connecting with audiences from around the globe.

Content marketing can help you generate demand for your products/services regardless of your business model. No matter the number of competitors in the market, as long as you provide helpful content, you’ll connect with potential buyers on a deeper level, build relationships and partnerships, and turn them into conversions.   

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Roman Shvydun writes informative articles about email account management, marketing, business, productivity, workplace culture, etc. His articles focus on balancing information with SEO needs, but never at the expense of providing an entertaining read. See a few more examples of Roman’s articles by visiting his Twitter.