Whether you’re looking to grow your business, improve brand awareness or educate/entertain your audience, content marketing is absolutely essential.
No matter your industry, content marketing benefits all; it’s a crucial element of any digital marketing strategy, one that you can’t afford to ignore.
“But content takes too much time, and we don’t have the experience to write anything worth reading!”
Well, yes – content does take a great deal of time to write properly, but if you’re here, you probably already know that! This is exactly why content marketing services are so important for many businesses across the world.
In this blog, we’ll run through what content marketing services are, what’s included, and what benefits you should expect from your service.
What are content marketing services?
Content marketing services are used to attract new audiences, engage people in your content and retain an audience by delivering regular, relevant blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts and other forms of content.
In a nutshell, your content affects every part of your funnel, from bringing in new people to the top of your funnel, to nurturing them into warm leads, to helping them eventually convert.
Yes, it takes a little time, but almost every successful business on the planet makes great use of content marketing, and there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
So, in order to help you make a decision as to which type of content marketing is right for your business, we’ve put together a quick intro to the different types of content marketing.
An intro to the different types of content marketing
While it’s important to understand each type of content marketing, your content marketing service will often use most, if not all, types, creating a comprehensive marketing strategy to engage and delight your audience at all stages.
What is SEO content?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) content is the core of many a content strategy.
If you want your website to be found on Google and other search engines, then you need an SEO content strategy in place. The sooner you start, the better, as SEO can take months, even years to get properly established.
While this might be frustrating, the wait is worth it. Once you’ve got a regular stream of SEO-rich content being added to your website, you’ll be able to (slowly but surely) dominate search engines, making sure that potential customers are finding your website before competitors’.
A good content marketing service will offer both written skill and SEO expertise. For example, at Catalyst, our content and SEO teams work closely together to identify gaps in competitors’ SEO content that we can exploit. We’ll also look at what they’ve already produced and how we can do it better.
Google is always looking to promote the best content possible, so once we’ve written killer content and uploaded it to your website, Google will prefer promoting that over something lesser.
So, to summarise: SEO content is there to boost rankings and search engine visibility, helping drive top-of-the-funnel traffic to your website.
The importance of website content
Your website is, without a doubt, one of the most important assets your business owns.
Despite this, many businesses neglect their websites, leaving them out of date and stagnant for years and years; what a wasted opportunity!
Your website is a 24/7 salesperson, one who needs no breaks, and who spends all their time warming up leads and helping your business to grow.
In order for this to be successful, you need to set the right tone on your website with some fantastic website content.
Good website content:
- Addresses the reader’s pain points
- Demonstrates that you understand their needs
- Shows that you have the solution to their frustrations
- Backs up claims with case studies and evidence
- Features regular calls to action, designed to guide readers to getting in touch/taking a positive action
Good content marketing services will identify areas of your website where content can be improved. It’s really important that you get this right, as if you start driving lots of traffic to your website through your new content, but your website isn’t saying the right things, people will leave and you’ll lose out on opportunities.
Proposition writing & brand positioning
Your business’ proposition is there to summarise your business in as few words as possible, touching on customer pain points and introducing you as the solution.
Right now, have a look at your existing business proposition – are you happy with it? If you read it as a potential customer, would you be interested in learning more?
First impressions matter. If you’re not saying the right things at the right time, prospects will head elsewhere. This is why many businesses opt to work with a professional writer to help them form a great business proposition.
Many organisations that we talk to give us fantastic examples of how great they are at what they do, but their existing written proposition lacks any of this detail.
It’s our job to take what you’re saying, to reformat it and create something that’s truly going to deliver results.
Content for lead generation
Digital content marketing also covers a broad range of additional content, all designed to attract, nurture and convert new prospects.
This content can include:
- Automated email campaigns
- Social media management
- Case studies
- Videos
- Infographics
- Whitepapers
Your inbound marketing strategy relies on a broad-spectrum approach. Find the content type that resonates best with your audience and focus on building that content up.
You’ll also need some great sales collateral that you can use to help you close the deal. As content marketing specialists, we can help with that, too! This helps keep your buyer journey nice and consistent, from initial interaction through to final sign off.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
Generally speaking, content marketing is used to grow the public perception of your brand. After all, if people know nothing about you, they’re not going to buy from you, are they?
Great content marketing comes with myriad benefits, including:
- Building brand awareness – people who read your content will learn about who you are, which is the first step in any sale!
- Creating trust with your brand – if you’re answering a prospect’s questions and proving to be genuinely useful, who are they going to choose when a purchasing decision needs to be made? That’s right – you!
- Establishing your business as the go-to industry expert.
- Saving your salespeople time – great content answers the questions your salespeople have to answer day in, day out. If these questions have already been answered, your sales team can focus more time on closing the deal, not nurturing the lead.
Upgrade your content marketing today!
So, it’s clear that content marketing would be great for your business, but you’re not sure which style of content marketing is right? It’s time to speak to our specialist team.
At Catalyst, we focus on one thing – delivering commercially-focused results.
This means that, for all of our clients, we’re focused on helping them grow their business and bolster their revenue.
If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s no better way than creating and executing a great digital content marketing strategy. Fortunately, you’re in the perfect place!
Book a call with a content strategy agency by clicking the link below.
