There’s a reason why content marketing is being dubbed the new “it” marketing strategy and 93 percent of B2B marketers use this all-star strategy. Content marketing provides an array of benefits from increased brand awareness to improved customer loyalty to better conversion rates. In fact, marketers believe in content marketing’s ability to bolster sales so wholeheartedly that 58 percent plan to increase their budget over the next 12 months, according to CMI’s “2014 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America” report.
While the advantages of content marketing have long been clear, the more tangible, or “hard” benefits, haven’t been so obvious… until now. In fact, all the industry pundits agree that content marketing does in fact yield ROI.
The Monetary Value of Content Marketing
Original, quality content can be the catalyst for increased traffic and conversion rates— two measureable benefits that marketers and C-suite decision-makers crave. Below we explore how content marketing can drive quality traffic and convert first time “suspects” into buyers.
Quality Traffic
According to the study titled “Content Marketing ROI” by Kapost and Eloqua, the more resources invested in content marketing the stronger the results over time. In fact, larger-sized organizations stand to generate over 100,000 site visits over a 24-month period, while mid-sized companies can produce an upwards of 10,000 site visits during that same timeframe. What’s more, research suggests that having a blog on a company site resulted in 55 percent more visitors. And as you know, the more traffic to your site the more sales.
Here are a few tips and tricks on how to promote your content through low-cost channels to help generate more traffic:
- Blogging: Your corporate blog is one of your most valuable assets. By providing your audience with interesting, valuable information that will bring back repeat business and visitors, you not only drive more traffic to your website, but you also increase your search engine rankings simultaneously.
- Social: Social media can be a powerful content distribution model. By promoting your latest blog post, whitepaper, or video via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you have the ability to reach more potential buyers and drive new traffic to your company blog and website.
- Email: Despite nay-sayers, email is still an effective way to engage with readers. Be sure to provide content that’s valuable and prompts readers to take next steps, like browsing your website or subscribing to your company’s corporate blog.
Conversion Rates
For marketers, conversion rates, or the number of visitors who become sales leads, are extremely important. After all, conversion ratios are the biggest indicators as to whether your efforts are proving successful. According to the aforementioned study, mid-sized organizations that leverage content marketing strategies yield 4,172 leads over 24 months, while larger companies generate an upwards of 13,569. What’s more, in the first five months, the cost of a lead drops 80 percent.
Below are two tips that will help you craft content that converts:
- Make it consumer-centric: Content should focus on the problems and desires of your target prospects and be consumer-centric as opposed to company-driven. What’s more, copy should start the sales process in a way that doesn’t leave the prospect with the feeling that he or she just sat through a long-winded sales pitch.
- Include evergreen content: Evergreen blog content is timeless. This in-depth, detailed content should be high-quality and valuable. Evergreen content can include “how-to’s,” do’s and don’ts,” and “101 tutorials.”
When it comes to convincing your C-suite to invest in a new marketing strategy, it all comes down to numbers. If your executives are still on the fence, remind them that not only is content marketing effective but it also yields ROI—and now you have the evidence to prove it. And don’t forget to really pack the punch with this powerful stat: Per dollar, content marketing produces three times more leads. They won’t be able to resist.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
