Why your startup should marry content marketing

Here is a small quiz! Which marketing channel builds strong brand awareness in addition to generating sales?

9 out of 10 if you have guessed pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. I agree with you that PPC brands your business while selling your products.

10 out of 10 if you have thought about content marketing. Why?

Content marketing and PPC both brand your business along with selling your products.

However, the cost per lead through content marketing is lower than pay-per-click marketing, which makes content marketing a preferred, budget-friendly online marketing strategy for startups to drive sales and build a brand.

Here are the top reasons why your startup should marry to content marketing:

1- Strong Brand Awareness

My friend, brand awareness plays a vital role in increasing the sales of your products. Almost all marketers consider it a new currency in today’s highly competitive world for growth hacking.

However, brand awareness is not limited to just remembering or knowing your products. It extends to having a conviction that your product is the best solution to a particular problem.

As content marketing is all about mapping content to different stages of effective content marketing strategy can give your brand a big boost in terms of brand awareness and sales.

Social media sharing tool, Buffer has created omnipresent brand awareness through content marketing. Even I’ve come to know this brand through its awesome blog posts.

2- More Sales-ready Leads

In today’s marketplace, buyers have become wary of ads. They trust the brands that walk them through the different stages of buyer’s journey without forcing them to make a purchase.

My friends, buyers might need a nudge, but they certainly hate to be pushed.

Content marketing, by its virtue, helps buyers at every stage of the buyer’s journey. So it helps them move through the sales funnel.

In other words, content marketing helps you get more sales-ready leads.

3- Increased Referral Traffic

This one entirely depends on how much you are committed to guest blogging. When you write guest posts for high-authority websites, you will have an opportunity to link back to your website in the author bio. If you do it for the websites with high-traffic, you can get a good amount of referral traffic to your website.

4- Thought Leadership

Oxford Dictionary defines thought leadership as,

“Intellectual influence; innovative or pioneering thinking.”

And people are influenced by the individuals who help them in any sense.

Needless to say, the main objective of content marking is to provide useful content so that buyers can make an informed decision.

In other words, content marketing can build your thought leadership.

Some companies have excelled at content marketing and created a niche for them.

The best example is Neil Patel. He has built his thought leadership through content marketing only.

5- Improved SEO and SMO

Yes, my friend, content marketing improves search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO). How?

Whether it is SEO or SMO, useful, engaging content is at the core. However, to reap the optimum benefits from content marketing, you should create search engine optimized content.

You should follow the best SEO practices for your website or any content you produce under content marketing efforts.

Conclusion:

Content marketing is a highly effective weapon in the arsenal of online marketers.

Being a startup, you might be strapped for cash sometimes.

Not only content marketing demands less budget as compared to the traditional marketing channels but also offers many advantages that no other marketing channel provide.

What about you?

Have you adopted content marketing yet? Is it helping you reap the benefits?

Do share your thought in the comment section. I’d love to hear about it.