The persuasive power of content marketing
Contents · 7 sections
The persuasive power of content marketing
Ever heard the phrase “content is king”? It’s true: content rules the internet. It’s one of the most powerful forces online, not only for search engines like Google but for the person who matters most in our digital world: the user.
Creating and maintaining online content is anything but easy, though. Quality content takes time and resources, and making it unique is harder still.
Content marketing is the marketing process of creating and distributing valuable content that attracts and engages potential customers. It targets a specific audience with one goal: prompting a desired action. In other words, it turns a company’s prospects into paying customers, and that turns into profit.
Think of it this way: if traditional marketing and advertising tell your customers that you’re a good, honest company with great products or services, content marketing clearly shows, highlights and proves those claims.
The added value of content
Stories are a powerful tool. They let us move our users emotionally. Content can even give character to inanimate objects.
To test the power of words, two enthusiasts set out to answer one question: “Can words alone add value to an inanimate object?” The result was the Significant Objects project. Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn bought a handful of trinkets at garage sales and thrift stores for a grand total of $128.74. Then they handed each item to a hand-picked writer, who invented a fictional but captivating story about it, and they sold the objects on eBay. It didn’t take long for the experiment to pay off. Not only did they make $3,612.51, they proved their theory. That was just the first phase. Over time, the idea grew into a cause. Follow the phases of the Significant Objects Project.
The story behind the products you sell is far more valuable to your customers than the price tag. The added value you offer is what brings them back. Show them. Tell them. Describe it. Present your products differently from your competitors and from the usual. Bring your product to life and let its soul come through in your content.
Building authority online
Content marketing is much more than marketing. It’s the message you send your audience and a long-term relationship with your customers, and how strong that relationship gets is entirely up to you. Your users care a great deal about valuable content, and just as much about how often you deliver it. Once they decide to buy, you earn their loyalty, because they picked your brand over the competition.
Content and brand are tied together. Whatever information you share with your users, your brand is the first thing they’ll associate it with. Your brand and corporate identity are your face. Content is the body that holds the brand up and keeps it where you want it. Authority doesn’t come from a big name but from what stands behind it.
Content marketing shows how much you care about your users: yesterday, today and tomorrow. People love feeling valued and noticed. With unique content, your brand can stand out from the competition and attract more potential customers. If content is king, then the brand is queen, and the two go together. Build and maintain both, and the spot you want in the rankings on Google can start to feel much easier to reach.
Why you should bet on content marketing
Content marketing can give customers real value, because it delivers content the way your audience wants it, based on their needs. It lets you convey your brand’s identity without the pushy tactics and “cheap” phrases that would cost you your users’ trust. Whatever you present should be filtered so it’s clear, interesting and easy to digest.
A 2015 report by PageFair and Adobe found that about 200 million people worldwide use ad-blocking software. That tells you how important it is to build a marketing strategy that doesn’t depend on traditional advertising. This is where content comes in.
Content marketing may not be cheap or easy, but it definitely works. It generates more leads than traditional marketing methods. Just know that it takes investment, time, skill and heart. The last one matters most, because your users can easily tell when something was thrown together or deliberately padded.
Different types of content
Different types of content call for different ways of presenting information, and there are plenty to choose from.
Blog
Running a blog shows how transparent a business can be. The steady stream of content you share with your audience also shapes their decisions:
- Companies with their own blog report 97% more leads.
- 90% of consumers find detailed information useful.
- 61% of consumers feel more at ease when they know a company has a blog.
- 50% of consumers say content marketing has a positive influence on their buying decisions.
How long should a blog post be?
- 75 to 300 words: If you want to spark discussion among your users, very short posts are exactly what you need. Keep in mind, though, that they aren’t SEO-friendly, no matter how many social shares they get.
- 300 to 600 words: If there’s an unwritten standard for text length, this is it. A medium-length post that generates a good number of comments and shares.
- ~ 750 words: This is the standard length for professional writers such as journalists and news reporters. Articles like these can earn you good links and shares from other bloggers.
- ~ 2,450 words: The highest-ranking articles on Google are around 2,450 words long. With posts this long, you can aim for consistent, strong search rankings as well as thousands of new readers every month.
Whatever the length, pay attention to the topic you choose. It has to match what your audience wants. If your readers don’t find the topic interesting, it can’t bring you the results you want. That’s why you need to know your target audience well and think like them.
Whether you’re launching a blog or writing your first posts, preparation is everything. A few tricks can help you write an outstanding blog post.
Maybe writing doesn’t come easily to you, and the numbers above seem out of reach, especially without experience. You can always hire a freelance copywriter on sites like Upwork. Many companies prefer to work with marketing agencies that offer professional copywriting services, even though they cost a bit more. That saves you the time and effort of hunting down sources for articles, news and information.
Infographics
You’ve seen them everywhere, and their colors and graphics have surely caught your eye. Infographics are tall, vertical graphics packed with statistics, charts and other information. Creating one starts with a strategy (research, planning and analysis) that then feeds into design and production. Because it’s a long process that takes care and expertise, the best and safest option, and the one many companies choose, is to hire an agency that specializes in this kind of work.
Once your infographic is ready, start promoting it: post it on your blog, share it with other bloggers or send it to the media. Graphics like these are also popular on Pinterest, where you can upload the image and tag it appropriately.
Video
Many people think video is expensive and hard to pull off. The truth is, you don’t need professional equipment to create good content. Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example. He started making videos to promote his family’s wine store and gradually developed his ideas through those very videos. Today he’s an entrepreneur, author, speaker and one of the most influential people online. It goes to show how important it is to think outside the box we so often get put in.
But do you really need video marketing? Yes! Video is the new black. At the time of writing, YouTube is the second most popular social network (after Facebook). If you run a business, show your customers what your company does and what it’s really about. Shoot a video about your work, your mission and your team. Keep it relaxed and film it on your phone, just in good light. Give viewers something of value: useful tips, product reviews, interviews or your personal story. It will close the distance between you and your audience.
E-books
E-books are a powerful content marketing tool. Printing a book costs far more than publishing one on your website or blog, though putting it together takes just as much work either way. Don’t let that scare you. If you plan your e-book well in advance, you’ll have plenty of time to gather the material and organize it.
And if you’ve already written plenty of articles in your niche, you can compile them into a complete e-book. E-books are also far more accessible. Most are free, which is one more light bulb that goes on in your user’s mind. On top of that, they help you reach a new, bigger audience.
Presentations
Visual content doesn’t belong only on your blog or website. It’s also worth sharing on platforms like SlideShare, one of the most widely used places for sharing visual content and one that many companies underestimate.
If you’ve led training sessions or seminars, don’t be afraid to upload your PowerPoint presentation to SlideShare. Many of your users are probably looking for exactly that. Every piece of content you share can matter, so don’t downplay it. Especially when it’s unique.
How content marketing and SEO connect
Content marketing also supports your other digital marketing channels. It feeds your social media marketing and contributes to SEO by earning inbound links and building up your website’s content.
SEO has certain requirements, and content marketing is what meets them. If you have no content, there’s nothing on your website to optimize. For content marketing to deliver the results you want and influence your audience, it has to meet SEO requirements in full:
- Meet the requirements for content;
- Create fresh and consistent content;
- Include keywords;
- Include links;
- Have meta data, tags and text formatting.
Content marketing and SEO go hand in hand, which makes them easy to build into your digital marketing strategy.
What’s the next step?
The digital world is part of who we are, and digital marketing is a long-term investment in your business. Consider this: 90% of the “life” of a Facebook post plays out within 48 hours, while for an article that window stretches to about 2 years.
Statistics from the Content Marketing Institute show that 88% of brands worldwide use content marketing, and 25% of them invest their budgets in it.
Content marketing has become a very powerful method, and it needs careful direction. Plan the whole process, from creating content tailored to your niche to getting it in front of the end user. Content marketing specialists can analyze the market and the competition, get to grips with your niche quickly and make the smartest calls about what to publish. If you believe in a bright future for your business, start building your content marketing strategy today!
Petar Dyaksov
Entrepreneur and founder of a digital agency, in e-commerce since 2009. He grows online businesses such as Fragrances.bg and Timedix and shares his experience as a speaker, moderator and mentor at nearly 80 conferences and trainings.
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