What does the term content marketing mean to you? Do big brands come to your mind? Having a team of strategists, content writers, designers and social media account managers spending hefty budgets? The reality is that it doesn’t matter whether you are a solopreneur or a freelancer. Spending time in creating quality content would be the best investment that you can make for your business to attract high-quality clients!

Being a single person business owner or having a small team can be hectic. There are 101 things to be done for your business, but if you want to build a successful brand, content marketing should be one of your top priorities.

So let’s cover the benefits content marketing can provide to your small business:

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The Two Magic Words of Success - Trust and Authority

The question to ponder upon is, who will buy from you and why? How do people decide upon which service provider to hire? If you are the customer, will you be hiring someone you trust, has credibility and authority in that domain or will you be hiring a random service provider?

The answer is obvious and so is the advantage of content marketing. People must get to know your brand, and like it, before they can make a decision of trusting you and your brand. If your content is  educational, valuable and engaging, your audience will form a positive opinion about your business. This also helps in positioning yourself as an expert and authority in your field. People only want to trust and hire experts to solve problems, and publishing valuable content would build that required trust.
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It’s Essential For (Long-Term) Lead Generation

Building trust and establishing yourself as an authority comes with its own rewards. When done right, your content will engage potential clients and help your business bring in new leads. We all know how important lead generation is for small businesses. We don’t have hefty budgets for running ads all the time. Instead, the best marketing tactic for a small business is one with the greatest ROI. According to Demand Metric, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing tactics and generates 3 times as many leads. 

Unlike ad campaigns, the content you post on your website or social media, is there to stay long after you publish it. In fact, according to Social Media Examiner, more than 81% of marketers found that they experienced increased traffic by investing as little as 6 hours per week in their social media content. Imagine the long term rewards valuable content will bring to your business.
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Great content helps influence conversions

So content marketing helps in building trust, generate leads but can it help influence customers to convert?
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You guessed it… Totally! To make you believe, let me share few statistics showcasing the importance of content marketing in conversions:
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1. According to ABG Essentials, content marketing conversion rates are 6 times higher than other digital marketing methods.
   
   
2. According to Content Marketing Institute, 61% of consumers decided to make a purchase after going through recommendations on a blog.
   
   
3. According to HubSpot, due to content marketing efforts, inbound marketers are able to increase conversion rate from 6% to 12%.

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Creating valuable content helps you improve conversions because you are educating your audience about the information they need to make an educated purchasing decision. But be sure to include CTA’s in your content, so you inform your audience about the next step to be taken. Making the customer figure out the journey on their own is not a good strategy and you might be losing customers this way.

Similarly, if your content is taking the customer to your website, and the website is not optimized for conversions, it may be affecting your sales! To read about how to optimize your website to make it easy for a customer to do business with you read my other blog.

Start your content marketing journey now

I know it can be hard to write blog posts, create videos, guides or other content. Procrastination takes over and you are left with a blank page. But no one ever said building a brand would be easy. Success associated with content marketing comes slowly and gradually. You have to be consistent. But you would surely be happy that you took the right step at the right time! 

Last but not the least, the content you post has to be relatable to your target audience. If you haven’t discovered who your target audience is, then do that first. You should never create content for the sake of creating content. Focus on the needs, problems, pains, solutions within your area of focus and target audience and be consistent!