Content marketing is an intrinsic part of a marketing strategy that helps boost online sales. Creating and publishing content is a way to reach a wider audience, boost your rankings in search results, and establish yourself as an industry authority.
However, many e-commerce store owners have difficulty seeing a direct link between content marketing and more sales.
If you are looking to drastically increase your number of sales online consider investing in content marketing.
In short, content marketing sits at the very top of the sales marketing funnel. It is content on your site that gives value to your readers, drives brand awareness, and brings new potential customers to your site.
Before looking in more detail at some of the ways content marketing can help your sales to skyrocket, it’s important to know what exactly is content marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a term that encompasses most types of information posted on your website or social media. Content marketing can be in the form of blog posts, long articles, infographics, videos, FAQs, and white papers.
The website Dictonary.com defines content marketing as information distributed to a targeted audience that is of value. This differs from other marketing strategies which advertise services and products directly to customers. (1)
So, the key points of content marketing are to identify your target audience and then create information that is of value.
The Content Marketing Institute says that the key achievable goals of content marketing are: (2)
- To increase sales and engage more consumers
- To save money on advertising
- To engage with customers who are loyal to your brand
3 Reasons Why Content Marketing Can Boost Your Sales
What are the many reasons to include content marketing as the foundation of a robust marketing strategy? Here are 3 reasons why you should invest in content marketing as soon as possible.
1. Drive more traffic to your site to increase sales
First, content marketing is an excellent way to attract more customers to your site. Consumers actively search the internet for solutions to problems.
So, they may start an online search with a question that starts with “how to…”, or “what is the best…”. A site that has information answering specific questions and offering solutions to common problems will appear in the search engine results page (SERP).
2. Address the needs and concerns of your audience
Another reason why content marketing can help boost the number of sales is that you answer their questions. This helps potential customers to see your site as an important online resource.
However, does providing valuable information through content marketing really boost sales? According to Hubspot, content marketing results in 3x more leads than paid-for advertising. Also, nearly half of consumers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before contacting a website or sales rep. (3)
Providing valuable information to your potential customers will help to build a relationship with them.
3. Generate and convert more leads
Of course, for content marketing to be an effective sales tool, you should have appropriate calls to action to point potential customers in the right direction.
A content marketing strategy should be a series of posts or articles that have a mix of general and specific information. The goal is to help potential customers make informed decisions on your product or service.
For example, posts that cover subjects on how to choose or pick a product would be top of the content funnel. However, to provide more value to consumers and increase sales, you could have posts that are more specific on costs and specifications. This could be case studies, cost comparisons, or focus on a specific type of product or service.
The last piece of the content funnel would be pages that feature calls-to-action to make it easy for the interested consumer to make the decision to become your customer.
From these 3 reasons, you can see that content marketing is an effective way to generate more leads, boost customer loyalty, and ultimately increase your online sales.
Sources:
- https://www.dictionary.com/browse/content-marketing
- https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
- https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
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