top of page
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the art of educating, informing, or entertaining readers while turning them into customers.
Most of us never stop to consider where all the information online comes from. Google is just a tool that helps you find it, but who exactly creates and publishes the endless videos, articles, news, and images that we stare at on the bus?
It’s not a question of who, but what. Content marketing is the driving force behind everything we read, watch, or listen to on our devices. Brands and other websites publish this content to gain exposure, drive traffic, and build a meaningful relationship with audiences. Welcome to content marketing.
By publishing valuable resources or information, brands can grow their audience naturally without continuously paying for clicks or impressions, a handy way of preserving your advertising budget. Whether it’s eBooks, newsletters, blogs, or guides, content marketing gives you a first-class ticket to your audience's favourite reading spot, ensuring your brand is always there when they search for information.
If you've connected the dots, this page is a great example of content marketing — it’s free information we’ve written to show off our knowledge and help you learn about a topic of interest (you're welcome).
Benefits of content marketing
Yes — there are benefits to giving away content for free. While individual mileage will vary, it's widely proven that customers are willing to reward brands that publish engaging content. Specifically:
over 70% of B2B purchase decisions are influenced by written content
brands that blog earn 67% more leads than those without a blog
leads generated through content marketing are up to 400% more likely to convert
70% of customers prefer learning about a brand through organic content over ads.
But before you go rushing to set up your company’s new blog, keep in mind that content marketing takes months of planning and commitment to get right. Brands hoping to drive up short-term sales or build publicity overnight might be left disappointed. Like any strategy, patience pays dividends!
The good news is that if you're willing to wait it out and commit to content marketing long-term, a well-oiled strategy can keep driving up your traffic and generating leads for years to come.
What's the cost of producing content?
The recent surge in content marketing comes down to just how easy it is to create content in-house. Almost any information that your company has access to can be re-purposed into high-performing content at virtually no cost, including testimonials, bloopers, archived photographs, or even internal sales figures.
For example, a veterinary clinic could tally-up which dog breeds they treat most often for heat stroke and then use that data to inform dog lovers in Texas about which breeds are best for their climate.
If you'd rather leave it to experts, partnering with a content agency can start from as little as $320 AUD ($215 USD, €197, or £170) for a professionally written blog post or editorial, which includes topic selection, SEO, and Tone of Voice adaptation. That's a general estimate only as prices will vary depending on your needs and the size of your campaign. Reach out for a quote to get a more detailed price.
Despite the hype around AI-generated content, its use in content marketing is still limited. Any reader can discern between a genuine article and a collection of words strung together by an algorithm. Content created by software lacks the emotional and cultural charm that makes reading such an inter-personal medium to begin with. There are also concerns around SEO given that AI relies heavily on existing information published elsewhere.
Bottom line — hiring a qualified (and breathing) writer is still the best way to reliably produce high-ranking content, especially if you need advice on Tone of Voice, topic planning, and other strategic decisions.
How to make your content successful
Getting content to the top of Google and onto your audience's screen starts with setting clear goals for each piece. Without a well-defined purpose, it's impossible to measure or track the performance of your content, making any sort of success as viable as immortality. Before putting pen to paper (or fingers on keyboards), it's best to make sure every piece of content is focused on at least one key purpose:
education (eg. a makeup tutorial)
motivation (a blog post about losing weight)
information (raw data on house prices or unemployment rates)
conversion (sales letters or product guides)
entertainment (news, comedy, short films etc).
While it's tempting to think every piece can be a conversion tool to maximise your revenue, the best performing campaigns contain content from all five of areas. In fact, the most successful brands keep sales-focused content to a minimum by focusing on providing genuine value to their audience.
But even the most useful and valuable content won't perform if it lacks quality. The drawback to having so much content available is that good content is becoming harder to find each day. Search engines can filter out some of the noise but there’s still no shortage of irrelevant, outdated, or incorrect information circulating online (like CNN).
In these cases, content marketing can even hurt your brand if you consistently publish low-value material, burning your credibility in Google SERPs and the eyes of the public. To avoid that trap, you should aim to make your content:
relevant
quality
shareable and;
accessible.
Our free infographic goes into more detail on those pillars and includes practical steps to supercharge your content in-house.
Turning content into revenue
Traditionally, content publishers are reimbursed in the form of audience growth and brand recognition. But if starving your competitors of traffic and outranking them in Google isn't enough, content marketing can also be used as an invaluable lead nurturing tool. The easiest way to unlock that potential is by attracting a wide audience with general topics and then gradually pushing them towards the meatier sections of your digital channels.
For instance, an online supermarket can produce a blog post educating readers about low-carb diets. Once their interest is piqued, linking to their low-carb range of products is an easy win for the sales team. Of course, advanced campaigns involve multiple layers of this strategy over days or even months of content exposure.
A common search query for “money-saving tips” can lead to a blog post about finding great deals online. That post could lead to an infographic about avoiding scams or identity theft when using online vendors. That infographic can lead to a video explaining how to optimise your browser’s security settings. Finally, that video can link to a landing page that offers a free trial for an anti-virus software.
In that scenario, the lead journey starts with a general topic covered in a blog post — a channel that’s quick and easy to access. As the topics become more product-focused, different types of content are used (the infographic and video) until finally linking to a bottom-funnel piece for conversion (the landing page).
While bottom-of-the-funnel content (BOFU) is the best source of revenue in content marketing, getting your users to that stage requires a healthy mix of top (TOFU) and middle (MOFU) content as well. Generally, it's best to reserve expensive types of content (like videos or demos) for audiences that have the highest chance of conversion while using low-cost content (blogs, newsletters etc) as bait.
Need content that converts?
We write inspiring content from top of the funnel to your bottom line. Talk to us about rallying your readers today.
bottom of page