In 2022, 66% of marketers expect their content marketing budget to increase from that of 2021. More and more companies are utilizing content marketing to its full potential. But what makes content marketing so compelling? In this article, we’ll be looking at ten benefits of content marketing in B2B tech.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is an inbound marketing strategy that works by establishing your company as a trusted resource in your industry. When searching for topics related to your product or service, future customers should discover your content, which is hosted and optimized on your website. In time, this will place you at the forefront of buyers’ minds, due to the value that you have provided.
Due to this, it can take longer to achieve results through content marketing when compared to outbound approaches. However, it’s important to note that the benefits of content marketing also last far longer.
Ten Benefits of Content Marketing:
1. Builds a Relationship
In a survey of LinkedIn users, 45% said a company’s thought leadership had led them to award it business. Having a wealth of high-quality content on your site will up your perceived credibility, proficiency, and relevance. In time, external sites will link to your posts, creating additional inbound traffic, and further increasing your domain authority. Furthermore, compelling, informative content will keep customers on your site for longer, foster trust, and create brand familiarity – all leading to higher conversion rates.
2. Creates a Way for People to Find You
With outbound marketing, your content is going out and placing itself in front of the eyes of potential customers. With inbound marketing, customers come to you. Outbound marketing includes things such as cold calling, paid ads, attending trade shows, and email blasts. It’s all about pushing your brand out into the world as far as possible. The difficulty with outbound marketing is that people are inundated with it. Between pop-ups, junk emails, five-second ads before youtube videos, and more, the average person is bombarded with at least 2,000 marketing interruptions per day – and has subsequently, become an expert at filtering them out. This is part of the reason why outbound marketing generally has a lower ROI than its inbound counterpart – it’s easy to get lost in the white noise of competing advertisements.
Among the benefits of content marketing is that you’re targeting people who are already searching for industry-relevant information. This means they arrive at your site engaged and receptive to what you have to say. Even if their initial contact does not result in a conversion, the impression of your brand as trustworthy and authoritative will remain in their mind.
3. Organic Rankings = Free Marketing
Search engines reward high-quality content by increasing your rankings. Therefore, by answering potential customers’ burning questions, you’ll be getting more eyes on your site for absolutely free. The more people visit, and linger, the better Google ranks your site. Among the top benefits of content marketing is how a blog or video can continue to draw attention long after it’s posted, unlike social media posts.
4. It’s Cost-Effective
Demand Metric found that, on average, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and will generate over 3x as many leads. The value of building brand loyalty and brand awareness cannot be overstated, as it lasts long after an ad campaign ends. According to an analysis by MIT, in collaboration with HubSpot, nearly 93% of companies that start using inbound marketing increase their lead generation.
5. Improves Site Crawability
Google likes content. They use robots to ‘crawl’ websites, to determine their reputability and pertinence to their purported topic.
By filling your site with compelling blogs, Google’s robots will be able to understand your market positioning and relevance within that market more easily. Therefore, it can rank your website higher for relevant search terms.
6. Qualifies Leads
Paid advertising in some tech sectors can often find itself attracting top-of-the-funnel clicks. For instance, people that search for AI might see an ad for your AI company, but not all of this traffic will be qualified for making a purchase. Many are simply interested in how the technology works, rather than your product. This looks like increased traffic as a result of the paid ad campaign, but in reality, they have no real need for your product offer.
Content marketers counter this by strategically choosing keywords and topics that are relevant to professionals in your target market. This increases the likelihood that the leads your marketing generates will be viable, and ultimately lucrative.
7. Fills Your Social Media Calendar
No matter how interesting your product is, there are only so many times you can extol its benefits in a tweet before you’ll be unfollowed. People don’t engage fully with ads-y content. By having a steady output of interesting and valuable content, you’ll be able to ensure engagement across your feeds and grow your social media presence further.
8. Potential to Build Community
A Blockthrough PageFair Adblock report found that more than 763 million devices globally block ads. One of the benefits of content marketing is you won’t be missing out on targeting those devices. By encouraging comments, creating sharable content, and authoring guest posts on other blogs, you can take a step further towards becoming a community hub for your target market.
9. It Reinforces Outbound Marketing
One of the benefits of content marketing is it allows you to create exclusive resources to offer your customers, which can then be implemented into other marketing efforts. ‘Lead magnets’ such as free cheat sheets or guides, can be used to entice website visitors to sign up to mailing lists. And while PPC (pay-per-click) marketing may drive traffic to your site effectively, it won’t make guests convert. The compelling, high-quality content on your site will.
10. It Drives Conversions
That’s not to say that outbound marketing isn’t a useful or necessary tool – it absolutely can be, especially for short-term results – but for maximum impact and ROI, it’s best paired with content. Ultimately, the objective of a business is to grow its revenue. Marketing should reflect that goal. In a crowded online marketplace, customers go with the brand they trust.
Ultimately, the benefits of content marketing are that it will inform and ingratiate potential customers. It will increase your brand awareness and provide you with free marketing via organic rankings. It increases the likelihood of viable leads finding you, and this all together will ultimately drive your conversion rates higher. At Nituno, we create a variety of quality content for our clients, offering value to your leads and potential customers. Get in touch today and let us create a content marketing strategy that suits your business.
