16 Reasons Content Marketing is Important to a Canadian Business

Content marketing has gone from an exciting new marketing concept to an essential marketing powerhouse for pretty much every business across Canada and the US. If you’ve been asking yourself “Is content marketing important for my business?”, the answer is a resounding YES!

The importance of content marketing in Canadian digital marketing relates to its ability to increase the volume of quality traffic to your website. Content is king in creating awareness and generating quality leads which sustains healthy sales growth. Strategized and properly executed content has the power to pull your audience to your business’s website, which is ultimately the place where they will convert into leads, and then sales.

The most effective way to drive traffic to your website is through the content that you develop for your blog, for SEO and for your social media marketing. While there are plenty of important elements that live under these categories, it all boils down to the quality of your content.

The higher the quality of the content, the more valuable it is to your audience, and the more likely they are to engage with your business. The more they engage with your business and spend time on your website, the more likely they are to develop trust in your brand and become a prospect and client. Leaving you with a big return on your investment in content marketing.

Let’s dive in and take a closer look, starting with a definition.

What is Content Marketing?

Think of it this way:

Traditional marketing, including advertising, is about telling the world that you’re awesome at what you do. Content marketing is about showing the world that you’re awesome at what you do.  As a digital marketing agency, we refer to the practice of creating great content for use in online marketing activities as content marketing.

The ability to create great content on your website is a powerful tool. Because when you create your own content for your own website – it’s yours.

Why rent a platform when you can own?

Media platforms got rich on this model of allowing you to rent their platforms to share your message. The investment you make in building traffic to your website belongs to you. As a result, your website is a digital asset that you own.

So think of it this way: you increase the value of your business when you invest in digital marketing. And content marketing is a way to own media as opposed to renting it.

A key to success in content marketing is that the information must be both valuable and relevant for your target customers. It takes a commitment to consistency with content. Above all, this is what both the search algorithms and your ideal customer need to build your brand authority and domain authority.

Today content marketing enables our ideal customers to find us.

In contrast, traditional marketing focuses on pushing out promotional messages across various channels. This “in your face” approach has evolved to include digital marketing. Digital marketing employs new tools and approaches to find today’s consumer and serve them the information they are looking for.

This approach works because we are capturing the attention of your target audience by providing value. They are actively looking to solve a business problem, or seek specific information about a product or service they want to find.

They come across your informative content – and boom – the connection is made!

Experience has shown that over time your audiences will come to trust and rely on you as a source of subject matter expertise, and will reward you with their business and loyalty toward your brand.

Pull marketing wins over push marketing

That old way of demanding business from new clients with aggressive call-to-action statements (“Buy now!”) doesn’t work anymore. Consumer values have changed, so these approaches can make your company seem desperate, and will be a turn-off for consumers.

In today’s digital marketing world we optimize content so our ideal customer can find it.  We infuse it with reasons for them to come to know, like and trust us. We offer them something of value. The content we have developed as an aid to them is valuable.

We do this prior to asking anything of them. This strategy is at the heart of today’s inbound marketing.

Is content marketing important to your business?

Content marketing builds your business reputation online.  Viewers are served up with a range of content in forms such as blog posts, videos, infographics, presentations, social media posts.

By offering value in this way, we not only entice the viewer, but we also begin to build brand trust. There is an experience of the discovery of the valuable content, and a sense of delight in making the find.

Let’s take a closer look at the 16 specific advantages of content marketing.

1. At the heart of every single digital marketing strategy is content

The critical importance of content marketing is that it connects and supports all the elements of your digital marketing strategy. Think of it as the hub, with the supporting elements of your marketing plan being the spokes.

The content that you create can be used for your blog, for your email marketing, for your social media, and PPC ads. With a solid content marketing strategy in place, each channel uses the marketing tactics you deem best to achieve your marketing goals and sales revenue targets.

Your business creates engaging, high-quality content, that is then built into and supports each of your digital marketing campaigns. For example, let’s say that you want to run a PPC campaign to draw more traffic to your website. Once visitors arrive at your website you need content that will keep them there, and will have them return to your site again and again.

The quality of this site visit experience will determine whether they will sign up for an offer and supply you with their email address. And your email base equally needs content based on their relationship to your company and stage in the buying cycle.

Nurture your prospects with online content

These are called nurturing campaigns. When you develop email content that is engaging and valuable, it encourages readers to take the next step. You can re-use strong pieces of content that you’ve created to help nurture those leads, such as a blog or white paper, that have proven to move prospects through the funnel.

Can you see the importance of content marketing’s fundamental role in all other areas of your digital marketing strategy? It’s the common thread that integrates your campaigns and makes them work.

 

3. Write great content for better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines like Google perform crawls of each website’s content in order to determine what users they will bring to your website. Strong content will generate more website traffic because the search engines have a clear idea on the purpose of the business. Optimizing your web pages to better perform with search engine ranking is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

SEO is a more technical reason to create great content, but also a great one. It is how search engines use your content to connect you to your next customer!

People, including buyers of your products and services, go online and use the power of Google and search engines to find solutions using keyword strings. For example if you’re looking for wedding dresses in Toronto, you might search “wedding dresses Toronto” or “best bridal stores Toronto”. Google then reveals the top content for those keyword strings.

The businesses who have mastered how to get to the top of search are the big winners in organic search. They’re bringing qualified traffic to their websites. So, one of the best ways that you can build organic traffic to your website is with great content!

Employ content for strong user and search engine experience for a double win!

Google, and other search engines, work to find the most relevant information regarding the particular search query. This creates the need for expert content in order to continue to attract your ideal target consumers to your content and your website.

Keep in mind that search engine algorithms are always changing and improving. They are always improving their ability to deliver relevant content in response to specific queries. In recent years Google’s algorithm updates increasingly reward good quality content and punish poor quality content.

For that reason, up to date content is rewarded. This means your marketing plan must include not only creating new content, but also updating older content that has performed well.

Evaluate your content and make changes to stay relevant!

To stay relevant, you can repurpose existing content, update dates or statistics, and evaluate changes in keyword rankings so your content continues to perform well in searches. All of this helps you maintain a strong ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) and keeps qualified traffic coming to your site!

According to Neil Patel, content creation is the most effective SEO technique in increasing traffic to your website. Business websites that consistently post new blog content have an average of 434% more pages indexed by search engines than those that don’t publish at all.

The more content you have on your site, the more pages the search engine has to index and show to users in their search engine results.

Keep in mind that more pages of content on your website do not necessarily result in higher traffic. However it does give your business the opportunity to rank for more keywords, and this in turn can drive more traffic.

Creating blogs on various topics relevant to your target audience gives your website more opportunities to rank for the keywords that your target users are searching for.

A greater quantity of good content on your site also gives visitors more reasons to spend time on your site. The higher on-site time spent by visitors can also positively impact your search engine optimization. Google sees time spent on a site as an indication that your website provides valuable content.

Do you need more great content for your website? Schedule a strategy session with Asset Digital Communications.

4. Content marketing is cost-effective.

Content marketing is affordable! A study by DemandMetric revealed that content marketing costs about 62% less than traditional marketing tactics, and it generates about 3 times as many leads!

This fact should capture the attention of any small business that wants to grow. Content marketing is less expensive than many forms of traditional marketing and more effective as well.

It’s important to note that content marketing is time intensive, and it can also take a while to see the results of your efforts. This is especially true when it comes to SEO. However, when it comes to creating quality content, a little can go a long way.

Keep in mind that, unless you hire an agency, creating great content takes time and effort. In fact, Social Media Examiner, reports that more than 81% of marketers experienced increased traffic by investing as little as 6 hours per week in their social media content.

Once the content has been finalized, the search engine crawlers also need time to digest and rank the content. Over time great content will rise in the rankings. It doesn’t just happen overnight.

The key to strong content ROI is creating a content marketing strategy that really understands your target market, what they want to read, and where they want to consume this content.

Your ROI is maximized when a strong content marketing strategy is created for your target audience. An essential early step in a great content strategy is to develop a description of the ideal customer, or customer “Persona”. When you understand more about who you are speaking to, you can create content that exactly targets the questions they are looking online for answers to.

6. Build trust with your website visitors

Great content is a powerful tool in building trust in a business.

Consumers read your content, and from it, gain an understanding of your business, your values as a company, and your brand. As they read, they form opinions and will align with your brand if they like how you are presenting yourself.

Your brand comes to life for them. This helps you to establish a positive brand reputation before they’ve made their first purchase. Developing great content builds your business reputation over time. Of course, once you start, you need to maintain consistency with content creation.

The trust you build helps your business establish a positive brand reputation. This can keep you top of mind when the consumer is ready to buy.

In addition, when your leads and customers start to see that you are consistently publishing content across platforms, they may come to see you as a leader in the industry. Publishing content through third-party publications or sharing your content with influencers can also help you further build trust within your target market.

Need more proof? Here are some pretty amazing statistics!

These are powerful reasons to nail your content marketing. But we’ve only just started: there’s more!

 

9. Great content strengthens your customer relationships

Another compelling reason to create content is that it helps you to build and strengthen relationships with your current customers!

We’ve given you a couple of reasons why content marketing is important for attracting new leads to your business. But a good content strategy is also an integral part of strengthening your relationship with your existing customers. Look at this research on customer retention:

What does all this tell you about customers and leads?

Loyal customers are critical to the success of your business. You must dial in your content marketing strategy, and incorporate great content and insights that your existing customers value. Then you will capitalize on the power of custom content to strengthen these important customer relationships.

Developing your online content should serve multiple purposes. For example it should include content that will attract leads to your business, and as well keep customers engaged with great content developed specifically for post-purchase consumption.

Content that provides value for your customer base will help increase brand loyalty by strengthening those relationships you have with your customers online. This serves to encourage repeat sales with cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. We maintain steady focus on building the value delivered to that customer over time.

The result:

You develop that customer into a powerful advocate for your company!

What type of content is useful to build and retain current customers?

 

Each time you deliver great content that helps your customers make smarter purchasing decisions, you are building trust in your company and encouraging repeat sales. The customer’s connection to your business is strengthened and you’re rewarded for the proactive and insightful content that you have developed for them.

10. Set yourself apart from your competitors with great content.

In today’s fast paced world, many businesses operate with intensified competition coming from different directions. I bet you’re familiar with at least one of these situations:

• Established businesses encounter new competition from start-ups run by Millennials.
• Competitors merge, presenting small business with a much larger competitor with more resources to compete.
• Companies integrate vertically which can create new competition in your marketplace.

An ongoing challenge to business is the ever-shifting competitive landscape.  As a small business it’s essential for your survival that you differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Content marketing is the perfect tool for this purpose! Content marketing can be a highly effective way for small businesses to set themselves apart in their industry or marketplace.  With great content, you can demonstrate what makes their company special.

And there is a beautiful silver lining …

Small businesses can outsmart larger competitors with content marketing!

A strong content marketing strategy means that even small business can take on mighty competitors. The proverbial David is now able to slay the much bigger Goliath in the online marketing world!

Your content is a creative exercise of showing your consumers your unique personality.

Is your brand fun, playful, your geeky, or caring?

Is your company active within the community?

These are all qualities that set you apart. Your audience would like to know about these!

Businesses vary in their values and culture, and it is important to express your uniqueness. Perhaps you have developed a specialized process, product or innovative product feature.

The opportunity to develop thoughtful, custom content does not have to mean spilling company secrets. Rather, it’s about setting yourself apart from your competitors.

Inject your business values and culture into your content

As you create content, think about your company’s culture and values. Working these into the content helps your audience to get to know you better.

Seeing your product or service through the eyes of your consumers also means articulating the problems that your product or service solves. Taking time to describe both the problem and the solution will demonstrate to your audience your professional expertise.

Buyers today do research online prior to making a purchase decision. When buyers find your content, they will see you as a helpful resource and be more inclined to buy from you.

When you look closely at your customer, their needs, and your company and offerings, you can see that there are a great many ways that you can create custom content that sets you apart from your competition.

This consistent content shared over time becomes a powerful asset to your business. It will influence buyers toward your company, and sway them toward working with you.

Content marketing is a great tool for differentiating your business from its competitors in an increasingly competitive world.

11. Your next customer is looking for useful content.

The emergence and growing sophistication of content marketing means that while you are putting your content out to the world to see, only those who are really interested in what you have to say are the ones who will find and view it.

Today, we can reverse engineer the buyer persona, and the buyers needs, and then write content that will be found and consumed by them. More than at any previous time in marketing history we have been able to be highly targeted in finding new customers.

Think about what questions your clients have and the best ways to answer these questions with your content. One of the strongest elements that content marketing relies on is offered information without the expectation of receiving anything in return.

Without the expectation of getting anything back from your offering, your audience develops trust in your brand as they don’t feel that you are trying to sell them something. By acting as a reliable source for expertise in an area that they might be lacking in, your content is useful, which also makes your business useful in their eyes.

You might not be expecting anything in return, like a direct transaction, but the potential for attracting new customers and gaining impressions and clicks is much higher. These are the interactions that come from the distribution of useful content, which ultimately makes content marketing an important part of your strategy.

12. Consumers share great content over social and this amplifies your content’s reach

Similar to producing useful content, producing great content shows the world that you are an expert in your field.

For example using content to explain how to solve a common problem in a new and unique way is something that a piece of content that a target buyer will want to save.

As users share content, it amplifies its viewership. Social media is one of the most popular ways that consumers share valuable content.

When you encourage your followers or website visitors to share your content you are building your reputation as a thought leader and subject matter expert.

Social media is rapidly establishing itself with search engines as the best way for content to reach consumers.

13. They come back for more! Great content generates return visits to your website

How often have you saved a great website in your bookmarks to refer back to later? We all do.

So each time you create really great content on your website, you increase the likelihood that people will come back to your site again. You become a trusted resource, your credibility builds, and the opportunity for great website conversions is enhanced.

The best example of this practice is forming a community around your content. This requires identifying a need, being committed to it, and consistently generating great content!

Michael Stelzner has done an outstanding job at this by developing both a website as well as podcasts around his Social Media Examiner programs.

14.Your content marketing plan should include backlinks, which increase your site ranking

When you create expert content, other websites will want to link to it and share it with their followers. There is an exponential effect, where depending on the linking site, your audience can multiply rapidly.

Additionally, back linking is one of the criteria search engines use to rank your site.

More links means higher domain authority for your website and more potential for leads as your audience spends more time clicking through your site.. This is definitely a good thing for your website and your business.

15. Great content will build your Brand Authority

Buyers want peace of mind in knowing that they are dealing with true experts. This is another reason why content marketing is important.

Content marketing demonstrates your expertise by providing valuable knowledge that helps consumers make more educated purchasing decisions.

Your great content, shared with each blog post, info-graphic, or white paper, reaffirms your leadership position for your leads and customers. The consistent production of great content builds your brand authority.

As your brand authority increases, you will start to see some major advantages. Google will send more quality organic traffic to your website.

The more traffic that comes to your website, the more people are consuming your content. These quality website visitors will not only stay longer on your website, and read more of your content, they are more likely to accept your offers, or convert, and become prospects, leads and sales. Quality content is a great reason for website visitors to return for more, save for later, or to share your content via social or email.

Consumers get continual reminders about how much you know about the challenges they face.

So then, when it comes time for them to make a purchase, who will they turn to? You will be established in their minds as a successful, respected and highly knowledgeable source who can deliver a solution to their problem.