“Content is king.”
You’ve probably heard this famous quote by Bill Gates a hundred times. You may be tired of hearing it, but guess what: it still rings true after nearly three decades.
Content is central to everything you do as a business owner. It fuels your digital marketing strategy and drives buyers to your virtual door. Building long-term success is impossible without it because it helps you attract, convert, and retain customers.
How? By guiding them through your sales funnel and creating lasting impressions.
Here’s how content marketing drives sales, the benefits you can expect from an effective strategy, and essential tips to make every effort count.
Content marketing and sales go hand in hand.
How do you choose the best product or service for your needs? You look for content that addresses your pain points and answers your burning questions.
You read blog posts and case studies, watch video tutorials, listen to podcasts, and explore other content. You seek valuable information about various features, benefits, and drawbacks to make an informed decision.
That’s what your customers do.
They look for quality, relevant content that provides solutions to their problems. They search for value at every buyer’s journey stage.
The AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) model perfectly showcases the stages consumers go through when making purchasing decisions.
Content helps you grab their attention, stimulate their interest, compel them to choose your product or service, and eventually take action.
It helps influence their decision before they even consider buying. When they’re ready to make a purchase, they’ll know who to turn to because you will already be on their radar.
Every successful business owner will give you the same answer: content marketing drives sales. Here’s how.
An effective content marketing strategy helps increase organic traffic by boosting your online visibility. That comes down to good old SEO.
SEO is still relevant because it helps people find information quickly. They type a keyword or phrase in a search bar, and the search engine displays content answering their query.
Implementing relevant keywords into your content will make it appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), driving people to your site.
Of course, Google and other search engines use more than keywords to rank websites. Making your content SEO-friendly means optimizing metadata, headings, visuals, URLs, links, and other on-page and off-page elements.
The best part? Helpful, informative, accurate, relevant, and unique information attracts qualified traffic – people most likely to purchase.
Engaging your audience with quality content is an excellent way to convert them into customers.
People want engaging content, be it educational, inspiring, entertaining, insightful, or thought-provoking.
You can make any piece captivating, whether it tackles marketing, finance, business planning, or any other topic relevant to your target audience.
The key is to make your content resonate with consumers. If they can relate to it, they’ll quickly shift from “I like it” to “I want it” when considering your product or service.
Your potential customers look for content that addresses their pain points to make informed purchasing decisions. Providing the information they’re looking for helps move them down the sales funnel.
What does that mean?
It means providing a solution to a specific problem your potential customers face. Content that lists your product’s features or praises your brand won’t cut it. One that highlights its benefits and explains how it can improve people’s lives or work will hit the bull’s eye.
That content stands out because it provides value, making people choose you over other brands.
Now that you understand how content marketing drives sales, it’s time to dive into its benefits. The following are crucial, besides increased website traffic and engagement.
Content marketing is an excellent method to build or raise brand awareness. It helps you share your unique story, connect with potential customers, and stand out from the competition.
It’s perfect for showcasing your values instead of trying to sell products or services.
Promoting your content across channels is the key to building brand awareness and ensuring people recognize you instantly.
Blogs, emails, social media posts, case studies, and other pieces will introduce consumers to your brand. They’ll know where to look once they’re ready to purchase.
Quality content can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry or niche. You can build authority, credibility, and trust, making people more confident in choosing you over other brands.
You can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, painting a picture of a business professional who knows how to help clients.
That will help you make a lasting impression, a significant part of all successful B2B SEO strategies and marketing efforts. You’ll generate demand for your products or services, ultimately boosting sales.
High-quality content converts. When it addresses pain points and provides real value, it quickly turns people into customers.
Using it throughout the B2B buyer’s journey will consistently drive increased sales. It will make your sales funnel a mean lead-generating machine that doesn’t let potential customers slip through the cracks.
Consistency is critical in content marketing as it helps maintain engagement and retain customers in the long term. You can use content (e.g., email newsletters and social media posts) to build personalized relationships, make people feel connected to your brand, and encourage repeat purchases.
Personalized experiences are the key to turning customers into brand advocates. They promote your business through word of mouth, bringing you more referrals and increasing your sales for free.
You can use many content marketing tips and tricks to achieve increased sales. The following are the tip of the iceberg, but they’re critical for every campaign.
Consumers should recognize your brand voice instantly. When they watch your video tutorial or read your blog post, email, or social media post, they should tell it’s you without looking at your brand name or logo.
Besides helping you stand out, a unique brand voice will attract ideal customers like a magnet. It will showcase your personality, enhance your content marketing strategy, and drive more sales.
We can’t stress the significance of quality content enough. Relevant content that search engines and your audience like will drive more sales than any other marketing strategy.
The best B2B lead magnets are blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, infographics, tutorials, case studies, whitepapers, webinars, and checklists. Your best bet is evergreen content that stays relevant for a long time, but its topical counterpart can also be engaging and converting.
User-generated content (e.g., videos, images, product or service reviews, testimonials, and social media posts) is also a fantastic choice. It can build trust, raise brand awareness, and influence purchasing decisions.
Every blog post, ebook, webinar, podcast episode, case study, and other content should tell a compelling story. Storytelling helps humanize your brand, engage your audience, and make them relate to your company.
Stories capture attention, gain people’s interest, and build brand affinity. Influencing buyers through an emotional connection inspires loyalty and advocacy.
Enriching every story with visuals will further engage your audience. Images, videos, infographics, and screenshots that provide value can work wonders for engagement.
For instance, video content marketing is perfect for explaining the features and benefits of your product or service. It can also increase your SERP ranking, get you more backlinks, and boost your conversions and sales.
A call to action (CTA) is critical for increasing conversions and sales. It tells your audience what to do next to gain value from your brand.
That can be subscribing to an email newsletter, downloading an ebook or other gated content, signing up for a service, requesting a quote or demo, buying a product, scheduling a consultation, etc.
A CTA can also create a sense of urgency when offering a limited-time deal (e.g., “Sign up now for a discounted annual plan!”).
Adding a compelling CTA to every content piece will encourage potential customers to join your client base. Omitting a CTA or failing to remove friction might leave room for your competitors to capture their attention.
Fun fact: HubSpot found that personalized CTAs are 202% better at converting leads than their default counterparts. Add a personal touch and watch the magic happen.
You don’t always have to create content from scratch. You can repurpose existing pieces to drive more website traffic, extend your reach, and generate more leads, conversions, and sales.
For instance, you can turn a blog post into a bite-sized video tutorial or social media post (e.g., an Instagram carousel or reel, a LinkedIn post, or a Twitter thread).
Conversely, you can repurpose social media posts and checklists into blogs to expand on various topics.
Content repurposing will save you time while allowing you to reinforce your message and deliver it in a new way. You’ll get more value from your existing pieces and grow your online presence without significant effort.
Monitoring your content marketing strategy’s performance is crucial for knowing what works and what might need an adjustment. Otherwise, you’ll only shoot in the dark and hope for the best.
Setting and measuring your B2B marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) is one way to monitor and improve your campaigns. They’ll help you understand what content drives increased sales and which channels bring the most customers.
You’ll plan your campaigns better in the long term and keep your content relevant and high-converting. Some tools you can use are Google Analytics, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Looker, Pardot, Tableau, and Chartbeat.
Understanding how content marketing drives sales will help you make the most of your efforts. This blog post only touches the surface, so dig deeper to explore other methods to boost sales and revenue.
Read our previous blog to explore the common mistakes in B2B marketing campaigns and learn how to avoid the pitfalls.
OneIMS is here if you need help with your content marketing strategy. Check out our solutions to see how we can help grow your business and maximize your ROI.