Q: Why is content marketing important for a business? How can you produce content for my business if you aren’t in my industry?
A: Content marketing is a must for your business!
These days, pleasing Google is half the battle.
Google likes fresh, relevant content. Ranking high on Google means you get noticed, and content marketing—which is day and night accessible for your prospects and customers—is the conduit to get visible.
There’s no better sales tool than content marketing. Your blogs, videos, email, case studies, white papers, social media, ads, and podcasts, even your infographics, satisfy consumers hungry for information. Consumers research carefully before they purchase and like to buy from knowledgeable people.
Your content:
- Showcases your thought leadership.
- Provides you with material for a steady stream of social posts. Social promotes ads on the backend and makes your campaign cohesive, increasing its value. For as little as $50 per post, the number of people who will see your follow-up ad increases exponentially, and your brand will get in front of more people on Facebook and LinkedIn even if they’re not actively searching.
- Leads to higher rankings on Google.
- Supplies boilerplate ideas and language that become tools for your sales team.
- Allows you to measure customer habits like the number of visits and bounce rates, letting you know how customers think.
Provide people with relevant content that addresses their problems and provides solutions, and you foster buying decisions. In fact, if your competitor promotes with content and you don’t, prospects will likely buy from them, even if their product or service is inferior to yours.
Done right, content marketing helps to develop your brand reputation, and you start gaining authority with search engines.
Done wrong, both your reputation and SEO will suffer.
Content marketing: high expectations and hard work
It takes:
- Strategy – Your strategy governs exactly what forms of content your content marketing campaign will take and, as you can see, there are many formats and channels (think Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram for starters).
- Consistency – You must commit to your content marketing campaign and publish regularly.
- Editing – With all creative endeavors, your first drafts typically need some tweaking.
- Research –You’re knowledgeable about your business. You must also be up to speed with the trends in your industry and what’s going on with your competition.
Agency professionals recommended
That’s why using an agency is helpful to a successful outcome. It takes a lot of time and effort to develop a strategy, brainstorm ideas, and create. If you’re a small or mid-sized business, you simply don’t have the time for it. We work with many clients who couldn’t keep the DIY pace, and their content marketing failed to achieve ROI.
We have a great writing team at Ballantine, a proven system for optimizing SEO, and a formula for plug-and-play that means your content ranks well. We know what makes a valuable blog, or other content, and we’re consistent in coming up with good topics. We’re also good researchers which enables us to intimately learn your industry through online research, interviews with you, and the interview transcriptions that let us hear and replicate your voice.
What’s more, we can manage technical content, industrial or manufacturing. Our regularly scheduled meetings with you give you the chance to evaluate ROI. And one last benefit: Your proprietary and competitive information are always vaulted.
Cost variables
The only thing we can’t promise here is exactly how much your content marketing efforts will cost. Like with all digital marketing, cost depends on complexity, the number of channels, frequency, and how much production is involved (including the accompanying design costs, social and ad count for promotion).
We’ll work with you to come up with a strategy and a plan that delivers on your goals and respects your budget.
If you believe in your brand, want to get visible, and have your brand message resonate, the agency route is a worthwhile investment. Give us a call to discuss your content marketing possibilities.
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
