Posts

How Important Is Content When It Comes to Showcasing Your Business?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | How Important Is Content When It Comes to Showcasing Your Business?

Content is the cornerstone of any successful business strategy. It’s the primary means through which businesses communicate with their audience, establish their brand identity, and drive engagement. From website copy to social media posts, content is the bridge that connects a business to its potential customers, making it an important element in showcasing your business. Here’s why content is so important.

Establishing Brand Identity and Authority

Content is instrumental in defining your brand’s voice, values, and personality. High-quality, consistent content helps to establish a strong brand identity, which is essential for differentiating your business in a crowded marketplace.

For example, a company that regularly publishes insightful, industry-specific blog posts demonstrates its expertise and positions itself as a thought leader. This authority builds trust with potential customers, which makes them more likely to choose your business over competitors. Agencies like Ai Global Media can help you build your authority through excellent content.

Enhancing SEO and Online Visibility

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of online marketing, and content is at its core. Google prioritizes websites that regularly update their content with relevant, high-quality information.

By creating content that incorporates targeted keywords and addresses common queries in your industry, you can improve your search engine rankings. Higher visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) means more organic traffic to your website, which can lead to an increase in inquiries and sales.

Driving Engagement and Building Relationships

Engaging content creates an interaction between your business and your audience. Through blog posts, videos, social media updates, and newsletters, you can provide valuable information, entertainment, and updates that keep your audience interested. Interactive content, like doing polls, quizzes, and live Q&A sessions, can further enhance engagement. This ongoing interaction helps to build a loyal community around your brand, which is vital for long-term success.

Generating Leads and Conversions

Content isn’t just about attracting visitors; it’s also about converting them into leads and customers. Effective content guides potential customers through the sales funnel, from awareness to consideration to decision-making. For instance, a well-crafted landing page with compelling copy and a clear call to action (CTA) can persuade visitors to sign up for a newsletter or request a quote. Similarly, case studies, testimonials, and detailed product descriptions can help potential customers make informed decisions, leading to higher conversion rates.

Supporting Other Marketing Strategies

Content is the backbone of various marketing strategies, including social media and email marketing and paid advertising. High-quality content provides the material needed for engaging social media posts, informative newsletters, and persuasive ad copy. By having a consistent message across all platforms, you’re making sure that your audience receives a cohesive and reinforcing brand experience, no matter where they come across your business.

Adapting to Market Trends and Consumer Preferences

In a quickly changing market, the ability to adapt is crucial. Content allows businesses to stay relevant by addressing current trends and responding to consumer preferences. Regularly updated content can reflect the latest developments in your industry, showcase new products or services, and highlight how your business is evolving. This adaptability not only keeps your audience informed but also demonstrates your business’s commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction.

Summing Things Up

Content is a fundamental element of showcasing your business. Businesses that prioritize high-quality, relevant, and engaging content are better positioned to attract and keep customers, ultimately leading to sustained growth and success. Whether you’re a small startup or an established enterprise, investing in content creation and strategy is essential for showcasing your business effectively.

Content Marketing that Converts

/in /by

‘Content is king’. I’ve heard that phrase for years. But what does it mean? Does it mean that by offering thought-provoking, useful, creative information buyers will be motivated to contact you at the right time along their complete (including pre-sales) decision path? By sending out veiled advertising in the form of ‘articles’ to random email addresses you can convert readers to action? How is ‘conversion’ defined – opening the email? Making a purchase that can be directly tracked back to the email? Let’s look at the problems.

  1. Wrong Time: Content is useful only at the time it’s needed and won’t be opened otherwise, even if your solution is needed later. Even when offering options, research, or educational benefits, your content currently targets the activity of product/vendor selection; you miss key opportunities to enter earlier, during the buyer’s necessary pre-sales activity – assembling the correct Buying Decision Team members, sorting out change issues and responsibilities, getting consensus, etc. – to become a true trusted advisor and support partner. Imagine offering the type of content that drives buyers during every decision and pre-sales activity. Then you’ve part of the solution, every step of the way, as they approach a final purchase. And they trust you.
  2. Wrong People: You get a 1% (or less) conversion rate because your missive connects with only those whose email addresses you have and, even if they might eventually be part of a Buying Decision Team, who consider it spam. It’s possible to offer content that readers seek out because it’s vital to their path toward excellence.
  3. Wrong Focus: Content is often merely an ad vaguely concealed as an ‘article’. Buyers know this. It’s possible to use content to facilitate the non-solution-focused consensus and change issues readers must attend to as they ready themselves to make a purchase.

The way you’re doing it now:

  • neither attracts nor retains a specific audience,
  • ignores ways to enter and influence buyers early in their pre-sales decisions,
  • doesn’t drive customer action unless they are at the specific point of readiness,
  • merely annoys.

You’re finding the low hanging fruit who would have found you anyway. Content marketing can help prospective buyers dispense suitable information 1. into the hands of the right people 2. at the time they need it while 3. coaching them to get their ducks in a row to move forward.

It’s possible to write content on important relevant topics that readers WANT to read – i.e. the pros and cons of concrete over glass for housing, or how we can hear others without bias – and will help them go from an idea to a purchase through linking to your site, reading and saving other articles, and using them to help traverse their action route.

Case Study

I get anywhere from 40-51% conversion with my content marketing. My readers take action from my articles: click on linked articles or sites; download free books/chapters; buy a product; share/RT/Like daily. Here’s what I do:

  1. I write well-written, provocative, 750-word articles that may have little to do with my services or books specifically but are of real interest to that population who may ultimately be buyers. (You found the title interesting enough to read this far, right?) I offer links that tie in to my books /services: I’ve written about diversity, leadership, collaboration, questions. Yet my services focus on facilitating buying decisions and bias-free communication.
  2. I only send articles to subscribers, and Friends, LinkedIn, and 15 ezines, such as HR.com, Sales and Service Excellence, StrategyDriven, who often publish them to vast readerships. (Sometimes 3 or more of my articles appear each week.) I have 3 blogs that often get onto best lists, such as top innovative content, top sales blog, top business blog. Net, net, I’m getting large distribution in really targeted fashion: those folks most likely to read and potentially need my services/products. Sort-of ‘hot leads.’ No spam.
  3. Like you, I let social media splash my content to enable interested folks to find it and start conversations. I get many new subscribers and ‘friends’ weekly. My lists grow with interested folks. Daily, I get Thank You notes that begin conversations and sell products.

Questions:

  • Why would people open your content if they consider it spam?
  • How can you compose true thought pieces that people want to open?
  • How can you use your content to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales and buying decision path?
  • Seriously: are you willing to try something different to get a higher ‘conversion’ rate? Seriously.

What you’re doing now only converts the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier by offering valuable intelligence that will encourage curiosity; introduce, explain and target the full set of decision stages; and keep your name topmost in buyer’s minds. You’re currently taking the lazy route: throwing spaghetti on the wall hoping enough of it will stick. Do you want to write? Or enable real business opportunities?

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.