It’s becoming more apparent that content marketing is a top way to connect to your audience, provide them with valuable information, and boost sales. However, it can be difficult to take on all of these tasks alone. A content marketing agency can help streamline your marketing efforts through strategy, SEO research, and more.
Are you considering hiring a remote agency to boost your content marketing efforts? Read our blog post below to learn more about:
- How to make your content marketing stand out to attract new customers, strengthen relationships with existing customers, and drive sales.
- Exploring the ways content marketing can improve your business, and the efforts it will take to see results.
- The benefits your company or team can expect by transitioning your content marketing responsibilities to an agency.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a form of marketing involving the creation and distribution of content. The curated content is meant to inspire a target audience to act or respond. Common forms of content within a content marketing campaign include blogs, articles, emails, infographics, and videos. Content marketing is not a sales pitch for your business, rather, its focus is providing value to your audience with an added bonus of growing your business.
At the end of your content, you may have a call to action (CTA) that asks users to take an action of your choice (viewing your website, signing up for a program, etc.) once they’ve finished viewing your content. Content marketing is a form of inbound marketing, meaning your customers come to you. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, is when the business makes the first move such as cold emailing.
How does content marketing attract potential customers?
It’s estimated that by 2025, people will generate 463 exabytes of data each day. In a sea of content, it’s crucial to develop a sales strategy that will effectively capture your audience’s attention. Content marketing gives you a perfect opportunity to increase credibility within your industry. As you curate your content, you’re establishing a foundation that will assist and inspire your audience to work with you simply by providing your customers with knowledge. Consumers are asking for content that will help them make smart decisions in what they buy and where they place their attention. A good goal is to have your consumers walk away from your content feeling great about the decision you’ve inspired them to take for themselves or their business.
Content marketing is also one of the best ways to deliver relevant information to your consumers while providing them with the solutions only your business can offer. As you create more content, you’re setting yourself up as an authority. This authority will ultimately increase consumer trust, which is crucial in today’s market. In fact, the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report revealed that 88 percent of consumers are more likely to buy from brands they trust. Look at trust as a form of currency and work your way up to building your customers’ trust through valuable, purposeful content.
How does content marketing drive sales?
As a business owner, it’s always helpful to be aware of strategies that can drive sales. Implementing a content marketing campaign is a solid strategy to drive traffic to your website and convert content browsers into customers. Content marketing creates a greater chance that your target audience will end up on your website. Whether you’re marketing a blog post through social media or linking to a landing page video, there are numerous ways within a content marketing campaign to bring consumers directly to your website.
Content marketing drives organic traffic, meaning that you don’t have to create paid ads in order to bring customers to your website. Once a potential customer is on your page through your content, they’re more likely to explore the rest of your website and possibly make a purchase. One of the best ways to ensure consumers make their way to your website is to utilize search engine optimization (SEO). Start by obtaining an SEO audit to determine where your website currently sits on search rankings. A content marketing agency can then implement consistent SEO-optimized content into your overall SEO strategy.
Content marketing advantages and disadvantages
There are both pros and cons to utilizing content marketing in your sales strategy. Here are some upsides to developing a content marketing strategy.
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- Builds a loyal following. As you develop content, ensure that you’re taking in your audience’s feedback and asking them what they’d like your content to expand on or if there are other forms of content they’d like to see from your brand. The more optimized your content is, the more likely your target audience will come back to listen to what you have to say.
- Reaches customers who block ads. As ad-blocking software advances, the chance of a portion of your target audience receiving your paid ads is slim. Content marketing gets around ad blockers and can capture the attention of consumers who may immediately click out of or scroll past advertisements.
- Increases conversions. Once your high-quality content attracts potential buyers to your website, your calls to action can persuade them to make a purchase.
Here are a few downsides of content marketing to be aware of:
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- Results take time. Content marketing works better when you’re in it for the long haul. To see increased web traffic and conversion rates, it’s vital to put in the time and effort to find out what works with your audience. The actual time frame when you’ll see results can vary depending on your business, however, the general consensus is that it takes six to nine months of steady, SEO-optimized content curation to see results.
- There are multiple metrics to consider. Web traffic analytics and online conversions are easy to follow, however, there are other crucial metrics in content marketing that are difficult to measure such as brand recognition and consumer loyalty.
- Specific skills and resources are required. Curating content can be a time-consuming process as you have to brainstorm, curate, and publish content as well as engage followers through social media platforms and email. There are certain skills that are required to make content marketing successful which can be difficult for a team that has limited experience in SEO, writing, and content management.
Seven reasons to hire a content marketing agency
1. Give more time back to your business
The effort involved to develop a successful content marketing strategy can deter your team members from crucial tasks for the business. That’s why hiring a content marketing agency can be the perfect remedy for a team that wants to utilize content marketing without taking on an in-house content strategist. Because content marketing agencies specialize in marketing, you and your team can focus on what you do best.
2. Maintain consistent content production
As mentioned above, it takes almost a year to see the results from content marketing. If you have one employee doing all the in-house work for your content, you may find that progress lags if they don’t publish a piece of content on time or are on vacation. Additionally, it can be difficult for one person to keep up with a consistent content calendar all on their own. A content marketing agency can help you maintain content production that keeps your brand on track to see a timely return.
3. Leverage different perspectives
As a leader in your industry, it can be easy to find you’re too close to the nitty-gritty details and may benefit from an outside perspective. Content marketing agencies have a wide range of expertise and experience on certain topics that could create a fresh perspective for your content. Communicate with a potential agency about how they can produce quality content on topics of your choosing.
4. Gain a diverse skillset
Many content marketing agencies begin online, meaning they have a unique vantage point of online marketing strategies. These agencies are usually made up of SEO strategists, designers, editors, PR experts, analysts, designers, bloggers, and more. Therefore, if your business has any gaps, you can outsource a content marketing agency to take over any weaker links so your team can focus on their own areas of expertise.
5. Reduce project management burdens
As a business owner juggling multiple tasks, it’s not ideal to also have to provide oversight on content management. A content marketing agency can help you zero in on content deadlines and give you the chance to review content once it’s finished so that it simply has to be published to your website. Some content marketing agencies can even produce pieces for you so you don’t have to worry about adhering to a content calendar on your own.
6. Gain access to new tools and technology
With so many marketing tools and technology out there, from social media automation tools to reputation monitoring software, it can be difficult to know which ones will best work with your business. Content marketing agencies have a unique perspective on tools such as content schedulers, software for SEO audits, and tools that can publish content on multiple channels. Additionally, these agencies usually utilize forms of SEO software that lay the foundation for tracking crucial metrics.
7. Utilize a content strategy
A content strategy is a key component to developing a successful content marketing campaign. Your content strategy will lay the foundation for the content you’ll create and measure metrics. A content marketing agency can take the guesswork out of creating an effective content strategy that will bring your business measurable results.
A content marketing agency could be the answer your business needs to drive more organic content to your website, boost conversion rates, and gain a loyal customer base. To learn how Lightning Media Partners can help, check out our content marketing packages.
