We have all heard the phrase "content is king", but is the pain of creating new content all the time worth all the hard work?
It takes a lot of resources, energy and time to create content such as blog posts, emails or social media posts. Especially ones that are in-depth, offer helpful information, and look great.
From research, creating, editing, optimising and posting, there never seems to be enough hours in the day.
Creating new content seems like an unachievable task when you consider that you should post 11 blog posters per month, send one social post daily, and send an email campaign weekly.
But let's say you can post new content often. Will this help you gain traffic, improve your ranking on search engines and bring you more customers?
Let's find out!
In this blog, we will weigh the benefits and negatives of content marketing to help answer the question, "is content marketing worth it?."
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
It is an ongoing process best integrated into your overall marketing strategy.
Some common content marketing tactics include blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, ebooks, infographics, case studies, and white papers.
Does Content Marketing Work?
The goal of any form of marketing is to increase the number of people who are aware of your business. This can be done in many ways (including advertising, events, and word-of-mouth). However, one of the most effective ways has to be content marketing.
It's no secret that content marketing works. In fact, it's been shown to be more effective than other forms of marketing, costs less and produces up to 3 times more leads. Furthermore, content marketers who prioritise blogging see 7.8X more organic traffic than those who don't.
Why? Because it allows your business to speak directly to your audience, answering their queries and providing solutions to their problems. It also gives you the opportunity to show, not tell.
The most important thing to remember is that content marketing takes time. Results don't happen overnight, which means you need to be patient. Do everything right from the start. You'll likely see a positive return on your investment.
Before you open your writing document, let's quickly go over the benefits and negatives of content marketing, just because.
What Are The Benefits Of Content Marketing?
1/ Boost your SEO and organic traffic
Content creation is essential for SEO and driving more website traffic. Generating high-quality content that helps, engages and entertains your audience will help you get better rankings in search engine results pages (SERP).
Additionally, suppose your content is high-quality and helpful. In that case, high-authority sites are more likely to link to it, boosting the number of backlinks to your content and increasing your trust amongst search engines.
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2/ Great Return on Investment
Content marketing is relatively inexpensive to do. Especially if you're a good writer and have good graphic design skills.
Content marketing generally has one of the best return on investment-ratios among any marketing channel or activity.
You can calculate your content marketing ROI by using this formula:
Image Source: SEM Rush
3/ Brand Awareness, Lead Generation and Purchase Intent
If people can't find your business, they won't know you exist. They won't buy from you if they don't know you exist.
Creating high-quality, valuable content that educates and informs your audience helps attract new customers and retain existing ones.
This goes for any content created and distributed on any channel, including social media, website or email.
Creating content with high search intent will convert more visitors to leads than generic non-helpful content.
Consider making a content marketing funnel that tailors content for different consumer journey stages.
Image Source: Wix
What Are The Negatives Of Content Marketing?
1/ It Takes Time To See The Benefits
Content marketing can be a long process. There is usually a period of trial and error to discover what works best before you see results.
2/ Skills And Resource
Creating and distributing content across your marketing channels can be time-consuming. You must create the content, publish it, and assess its impact. For certain types of content, such as infographics and videos, you may have to hire outside help or develop in-house expertise, which can be costly.
3/ Finding Content Ideas
Coming up with new content ideas all the time can be exhausting. Regardless of your creativity, sometimes it's not easy to think of new things to create.
You can use tools such as Ubersuggest, SEM Rush and Answer the Public to find SEO-related ideas.
You can use social media explore features to find top-performing content based on that particular keyword.
Using Google analytics, social media analytics tools, and keyword rank tracking, you can generate new ideas based on the performance of your previous content.
Finally, Pip Decks can help you create better stories that can be used for your content.
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Is Content Marketing Right for You?
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic, generate leads, improve your SEO and ultimately grow your business. The best part about it? It's super cost-effective!
But how do you know if it's worth it to you and your business? You first need to identify if you need to boost your presence on the web and attract potential customers.
Here are some quick questions to ask yourself to help you decide whether content marketing is worth it for you:
Do you want to reach more people?
Is your website getting visitors but not converting them into leads?
Are you trying to increase brand awareness?
Are you trying to boost your search engine ranking?
If you answered yes to these questions, then content marketing may be worth it to you.
Answer: Is Content Marketing Worth It?
YES!
Content marketing is a powerful strategy that can boost traffic, drive leads, and convert customers. While it may take some time to see the benefits and optimise your content for maximum impact, it's worth the effort.
The more content you create, distribute, and promote, the more likely you will see benefits.
However, try your best to create content that will wow your audience and make them want to return for more. Provide value, solutions and answers to their problems. Consider the consumer journey and perhaps think about creating a content marketing funnel to help map out your ideas.
Create unique and engaging visual content to help spread your brand message, and ensure your audience isn't scrolling right past you.
So what do you think? Is content marketing worth it to you? Let me know in the comments.