Once upon a time, not so many years ago, marketers relied on creative advertising and ‘spray-and-pray’ campaigns to gain the attention of their potential buyers. These traditional tactics – or should that be historic? – generally had a product-centric approach – boasting features that organisations themselves considered to be the key attraction points for their customers. For the most part, these campaigns would work relatively well, sales happened and all was good with the world.
And then something changed.
Consumers, thanks to advancing technology, realised they needn’t be subjected to intrusive marketing anymore. They had more control over their media consumption than ever before. The Internet, and in particular search engines, allowed them to look for information on solutions they wanted, as opposed to being bombarded with products they didn’t. The process of discovering, researching and buying products or services was, in fact, all well within their own control. Traditional marketing results started dwindling, budgets were slashed and marketers were put under pressure to prove their contribution to business growth and revenue generation.
And so marketers changed.
Marketers recognised consumer's insatiable appetite for information and used what they knew about how they went about finding this information to develop a new marketing tactic. And so the Content Marketing evolution emerged. Content Marketing Institute offers a comprehensive definition:
Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Content marketing essentially changes the way we communicate with our prospects and customers. Content on offer is not a sales-driven pitch, but rather aims to educate and inform buyers. The belief (and proven result) is that by arming prospects with information that helps them independently move through the sales cycle, more often than not this results in them rewarding you with business and loyalty.
As you can see, this approach is incredibly valuable for potential buyers. It just so happens that it is undeniably desirable for businesses too! By actively pursuing content marketing as an element of your overall marketing strategy, you inherently address 5 other marketing challenges. What a win! Let's have a look at those now.
Common Marketing Challenges Cured with Content Marketing
Content Marketing Delivers Long Term ROI
Most traditional marketing campaigns have a limited lifespan and need to be regularly refreshed. Messaging and creative needs to be updated to current trends or adjusting business objectives. Creation of those types of campaign can be considered as a direct expense. Once you shut off the paid advertising window, the information is lost and ROI is absolute. Content, on the other hand, is an asset that continues to deliver return on investment long after creation. Due to the permanent nature of online content, it can be found for weeks, months or even years after it is published through search engine queries, backlinks or social media shares. This longevity means that you can attribute greater return on investment in the long term and often why certain content pieces are referred to as 'evergreen' content due to their unlimited lifespan and revenue generating potential long after creation and promotion costs have been covered.
Content Marketing Drives Website Traffic
Let's consider the scenario where you rely on offline marketing to drive traffic to your website. A website URL printed on a business card, stuck on a billboard or shoved in the corner of a magazine advertisment is going to send a trickle of traffic to your website. But you don't want just a trickle, you want a flood! Content marketing, most especially the practice of blogging, is highly effectively in delivering more traffic to your website. In fact, a HubSpot survey revealed that companies that blog consistently (15 or more times per month) see 5 times the amount of traffic than those that do not blog. We have seen the results of this first hand since committing to a regular blogging schedule. Our monthly traffic has consistently grown month-on-month and we are seeing more and more organic traffic landing on our site.
Content Marketing Helps Generate Leads
One of the primary objectives of the marketing department - generating leads - can be helped along with content marketing. Content takes various shapes and a popular format to aid lead generation is an eBook or the like. eBooks, guides or checklists are all great content offers that provide your prospect with a deeper understanding (compared to a blog post) on a specific subject. These content offers are generally housed behind forms and therefore they need to be seen as high-quality, valuable resources to the prospect in order for them to provide you with their contact details in exchange. As they download your content, they are added to your contacts database, giving you an opportunity to engage with them via a lead nurturing campaign. It's also a good idea to promote your content offers with other content formats.
Content Marketing Brings Down Lead Generation Costs
Mass media broadcasting and advertising are costly - very costly. If we consider the conversion rates that we *think* we are getting from these efforts (see next point on measurability) we are looking at a staggering cost per lead. Content marketing can be implemented and actioned with a considerably lower budget and by comparison achieves a far better conversion rate. This lower cost and higher conversion pushes the cost per lead acquired down. HubSpot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing report claims that using inbound tactics, which includes content marketing, saves an average of 13% in overall cost per lead.
Content Marketing Results Are Measurable
Probably one of the most critical factors for marketers today is measurability. I hinted above at the lack of accurate reporting on the ROI of traditional marketing methods. This is primarily due to the fact that you can't easily track the interactions. You aren't able to confidently attribute website traffic to a specific trade show visitor or a particular advertisement. Without these sources it is near impossible to calculate precise return on investment. Content marketing activities are implicitly traceable and therefore it is easier to report on overall costs vs. acquisition and revenue. This level of reporting is valued by the C-suite who want to see the marketing impact on business and aren't all that impressed by open rates or social shares as an indication of marketing success. Being able to present your results, in black and white, and in terms that your executives care about will go a long way to helping you negotiate on budgets and performance incentives!
I am certainly not implying that content marketing is a quick-fix and you're not going to see incredible results overnight. In order to be successful you'll need a clear strategy aligned to overall marketing goals and business objectives, sufficient resources to ensure consistent, high-quality content creation and marketing software in place that allows you to track and measure the results of your actions.
If you're looking for further reading on the efficacy of content marketing I recommend this eConsultancy blog that highlights 6 awesome case studies.
