Content marketing is crucial to the success of your brand and, when you use it correctly, you can achieve business success in ways you could never imagine.
Because content earns your business long-term profit. It does this by engaging both new audiences and engaging your existing ones. What’s more is that content that is already working to achieve these objectives, will always do so, unless you decide to take them down.
Arguably, content is the foundation of all information you see on social media and websites, alike. So when you have a good content management process and system, the returns are of tremendous quality and volume. On the other hand, being unable to manage it can spell more losses than gains for your business.
What is content marketing in the first place?
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines content marketing as a strategic approach that encompasses various communication formats. The process involves creating and sharing relevant and valuable content to attract, engage, convert potential customers, and to nurture existing ones.
To the bare bones of it, content marketing is marketing your products through the use of content. But the craft is defined by one’s ability to communicate brand and product value without directly selling to audiences.
In that: You provide a non-intrusive marketing experience by providing content that educates, entertains, and entices audiences – all to learn more about your brand. And the essence of this strategy is the principle that we, as businesses, deliver reliable and constant information.
The end-goal of content marketing is to foster loyalty among your audiences. It is leveraged by some of the biggest companies today including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, etc. But it’s also done, and expanded by small businesses who are looking to get their businesses off the ground.
Disadvantages of content marketing
With all that’s been said, content marketing can begin to sound like an enticing endeavor for you to take on. But every strategy has its own pitfalls; and even content marketing has major ones that you need to consider before deciding to go for it.
These are discussed below.
1. It can be a coslty investment.
Starting anything new can be costly, and investing in content creation is no exception. When you’re taking your first steps into this facet of the digital marketing field, you should already know that you’ll be investing real time, money, and resources into creating quality articles, blogs, and the like for your brand.
Don’t hesitate to ask for expert help when setting up these content management strategies for your business. Experts can help you build on the skills, experience, and knowledge that you need to develop that world-class creativity for your brand today.
2. Content must be updated constantly.
As a digital marketer, you already know that the online landscape is disruptive, fickle, and constantly evolving. Given that reality, you need to know that you’ll have to keep up with the ever-changing landscape by updating your digital marketing strategies constantly, too.
You need to be fluid and adaptable when it comes to managing your production and promotion online. If you can’t do that, then your business will most likely struggle to stay relevant in the eyes of your potential customers and online users.
3. Results might take time.
The last thing you need to remember is that content marketing takes a lot of time. Ideation, production, and promotion are never quick processes, and these can drain your resources faster than you can gain them back through conversions and online sales.
However, if you patiently plan your strategies ahead of time, then you’re ensuring your own success in the long run. By building your promotion and management strategies over a well-planned period of time, you will gain steady results such as consistent traffic, and a continuous flow of leads and revenue.
Advantages of content marketing
Now that you’re aware of the disadvantages, let’s balance the perspective with the advantages of content marketing. Advantages that, you’ll find in the long-run, one of the most durable results you’ll enjoy given the resources you’ve invested in it.
1. Marketing is impossible without content.
Let’s start with the basic advantage of this digital strategy: when you don’t have content, then you have nothing to promote your brand with online. It’s as simple as that. As such, marketing is impossible without this basic building block of digital – which is why you need content marketing to find success for your business in a disruptive online landscape.
Great marketing and management strategies will ensure that online users will stop to read, think, and act on your brand’s messaging. This form of marketing is the simplest and most effective way to help customers make product and service decisions that benefit both your brand and their lives at the same time.
2. Content generates traffic.
The next entry in this list of advantages is that this digital practice helps to drive traffic for your brand’s products and services, in ways that are incredibly beneficial to your business’ overall success.
Are you wanting to drive user traffic on your brand’s websites, landing pages, or social media accounts? Then you need creation and management that can attract customers to your digital platforms. With great content comes greater interest in your brand and, subsequently, higher traffic and exposure for your online business today.
3. Content builds authority and influence.
When you invest in good creation and management, you’re not just reaping the benefits of brand promotion and traffic generation. You’re also building authority and influence for yourself, both of which are crucial to your sustainable success as a company online.
Good writing, ideation, and promotion produces more than just piles of digital ads for the internet. When done correctly, your custom-built creations can inspire brand loyalty in online users, making them more likely to come back to your brand over and over again.
When you create good content like articles or blogs, you build authority, influence, and trust in your company, ensuring surefire wins for your business in the long run. This is why content marketing can be so advantageous for you and your brand – when executed correctly, of course.
Content management tips to maximize its advantages
As we’ve established earlier, your success in content marketing will rely heavily on how you manage it.
How are you managing production in a way that makes publishing streamlined? And what are your quality assurance measures to ensure that your content is unique and enriching for your audiences?
The answers to both may depend on the content marketing strategy you already have in place, but for some additional help, we suggest that you also make sure to:
1. Build a bank of ideas. Whether you’re just getting started, building a bank of ideas will help you scale your content production efficiently. Create a “swipe file” for concepts you might see online or offline, so you can refer back to it come ideation time.
2. Work smart with automated tools. Content management can be dizzying, so it’s critical to invest in tools that will help you automate certain parts of the process. Revisit your stack of content marketing tools and assess which their business value – can they redirect man-hours from elbow work to thinking work? Or can they help double up production for a reasonable cost?
3. Balance keyword research with writing for the audience. Always remember that there’s a real person who’s reading your work, behind every digital screen. So while you create blogs and articles to boost your brand, remember to balance things out and write for your genuine captive audience as well.
4. Quality is better than quantity. Good quality ideation and creation inspires loyalty in users, making them more likely to return to your brand over and over again. When you quality things like articles and blogs, you build authority, influence, and trust for your company, ensuring surefire wins for your brand in the long run.
5. Be open to guest posts. Guest posting is the practice of writing articles and blogs for another company’s website. Through this technique, you’ll get to establish your brand’s authority and network within your industry – solidifying not just your authority with audiences but with peers, too.
Key takeaways
Content is crucial for visibility, engagement, and overall business success today. So if you’re looking to jump into the world of marketing and managing your brand’s content, remember to hold onto these key takeaways to ensure your business’ success:
- Marketing is impossible without content. So if you haven’t gotten into content marketing for your brand yet, this is your sign to get into it right away today.
- Good content takes time. By patiently planning your strategies for production, you’ll reap the benefits of good ideation with a great return on investment as well.
- Be open to new things all the time. Whether that comes in the form of new challenges, ideas, or modes of creation, you should always be open and adaptable so that you can survive brand marketing in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Looking for more expert tips to succeed at content management for your brand? Drop us a line at Propelrr and subscribe to our newsletter for more content-related advice today.