By now there’s a good chance you’ve heard people raving about content marketing; if you’re a marketer yourself, content marketing how-tos and think pieces flood your social feeds. If you’ve done research on the popular inbound method, you know it requires a relatively large amount of time and effort, especially to get your first campaign off the ground. But don’t let this investment deter you from flexing your creative skills and joining in the movement.
If you’re still unsure if content marketing is right for your company, take stock of the missed opportunities that this marketing method could help fill. While we believe that content marketing is always a good investment, especially for B2B companies, whose services and products are more complex. Here are five telltale signs that you need to implement a content marketing program sooner rather than later.
You Already Produce Content
There are many reasons why businesses should use content marketing, but a clear sign that you should adopt the content marketing methodology is that you’re already putting effort into producing content. If your company creates valuable materials like whitepapers, eBooks and infographics but the assets don’t seem to get the traction you’re looking for, it may be because you lack a strategy for delivering and amplifying these pieces. Even the greatest marketing tactics shouldn’t be executed without a purpose or a plan. A content strategy will help align your marketing and sales tactics, providing your company with a comprehensive approach for creating, sharing and re-purposing content. If you already invest the time into it, your business blog can serve as an ideal hub for housing, showcasing and linking to your content in a way that gains traction.
Your Brand Messaging Is Inconsistent
If your various marketing techniques aren’t aligned, the irregularity can hurt your overall marketing performance and brand consistency. One solution to combat this disconnect is content marketing, which serves as the glue to align all other efforts like sales, SEO and SEM and social media and public relations. A great way to make sure these tactics are congruent is by creating informative, relevant content that supports one voice and message and incorporating campaign pieces and themes in all of your marketing efforts. People need to hear a message seven times before they really hear it for the first time, according to Gino Wickman, author of Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. So, ensuring your brand messaging is consistent across all channels will have a greater influence on your audience.
You’re Outranked by Competitors
If your competitors are outranking you on the web, it’s likely that they use content marketing to boost their SEO. Your competition will appear before you on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) if they produce regular content marketing campaigns that utilize long-tail keywords and explain their products and services thoroughly. Google rewards websites that publish informative content by ranking them higher than those that don’t. An easy and efficient way to start moving up the web rankings it to update the content you already have on your website. Make sure the information on all pages is up-to-date and keyword-rich. From there you can continue to create useful whitepapers, eBooks and more to ensure you’re steadily producing content that prospective customers need to read and want to see.
Your Leads are Consistently Unqualified
If the content you share with prospective customers frequently brings in people who aren’t the perfect match for purchasing your products and services, you’re dealing with unqualified leads. Oftentimes an unqualified lead is someone who’s looking for services you simply don’t sell. But according to SiriusDecisions, inbound efforts are critical to success at all stages of the Buyer’s Journey,1, therefore, publishing educational information about your offering for leads to find during their research process is critical to attracting qualified leads. Ensure your buyers are ready to commit by providing them with detailed information about your offerings through a targeted content marketing campaign. Using this method also gives you the opportunity to drill down on specific personas you want to target so you don’t waste effort on creating content that doesn’t cater to their needs.
Your Engagement and Traffic Have Plateaued
Low website traffic and online engagement may be signs that it’s time to invest in content marketing. Fresh, optimized content associated with your company will attract prospects to your website if produced regularly. Creating a blog featuring industry news, an eBook describing your products or a tip sheet offering insightful guidelines can significantly improve your engagement efforts. Because SEO is contingent upon quality content, generating these pieces can improve your traffic and engagement by giving prospects a better chance of finding your business on the SERP.
In almost every scenario, content marketing can significantly improve your entire marketing program and pipeline. If any of these signs apply to your company, it’s time to add content marketing to the mix.
For more information on content marketing, download our latest whitepaper: What Is Content Marketing and Why Do Technology Companies Need It?
Are you interested in B2B content marketing services? Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group today.
1. SiriusDecisions, Three Myths of the “67 Percent” Statistic
