Why Does Content Work? Plus, 39 Reasons You Should Invest in Content
You’ve heard content being praised time and time again by marketers. (Myself included.) But, why does content work? In today’s shifting business world, they say, content marketing is the way to go. It beats paid ads and other forms of traditional marketing by a long shot. (90% of consumers find custom content useful. Compare this to Facebook ad ROA, which sits at .66x. What kind of content works? Educational, useful, blog content. 3 out of 4 of internet users read blogs regularly.) We know content works. And although you believe what the experts are saying, you wonder: why? Why does content work? What’s the science behind it? Should you start your own content marketing campaign? Let’s dig into the data to find out! Why Does Content Work? Plus, 39 Reasons You Should Invest in Content – Table of Contents What Kind of Content Works? 1. Content with a Strategy 2. High-Quality Content 3. Consistent Content Why Does Content Work? 40 Reasons to Invest in Content Marketing Does Content Work? How to Move Forward with Your Marketing Goals [bctt tweet=”Why does content work? What’s the science behind it? Should you start your own content marketing campaign? Dig into the data with @JuliaEMcCoy via the Write Blog ” username=”ExpWriters”] What Kind of Content Works? Before we dive into why content marketing works, it’s important to point out that not all content works. You can’t just get on your keyboard and type up a frenzy of random blogs to publish online. Doing this is a waste of time, energy, and even money. So, what kind of content should you be producing? Here are three things to aim for. 1. Content with a Strategy Approaching content marketing without content strategy is like going on a trip without a destination. No matter how many miles you travel, you’ll never reach your goal because you don’t know exactly what your goal is. To keep your content from going in circles, you need to develop a content strategy. This is your master plan and blueprint. It’ll guide you on what type of content to create, the target audience to create it for, where to publish it and how often, and all the details that’ll make your content unique, purposeful, and powerful. 2. High-Quality Content When publishing content, remember that quality trumps quantity every single time. And when I say quality, it’s not just making sure your blogs are free of grammatical errors. It’s superb content. Share-worthy content. Content that gets your audience hooked. So, if you’re tempted to click publish on the mediocre blog you wrote, just stop. Publishing a day or two late is better than damaging your online authority with low-quality content. 3. Consistent Content That being said, try your best to stick to a regular schedule. Your readers will lose interest if you publish content randomly and inconsistently. If you’re having trouble writing everything yourself, hiring an awesome content writer is a promising and profitable step. [bctt tweet=”What kind of content should you be producing? 3 things to aim for: 1) Content with a strategy 2) High-quality content 3) Consistent content ⌚” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Does Content Work? 40 Reasons to Invest in Content Marketing Let’s start with exactly why content works, then explore statistics that’ll get you excited about content marketing. 1. Why Does Content Work? Content works because of what the buyer’s journey is like today. Buyers nowadays can’t be bullied into an old-fashioned sales funnel. They don’t like feeling “sold,” or “closed.” Instead, they want to feel powerful. They want to be in control during every step they take towards the solution they’re looking for. So no, you can’t put your audience into a rigid, linear sales funnel. What you can do is offer them value. For instance, let’s say your potential client wants to feel attractive and confident with a flashy white smile. If you’re selling teeth whitening products, you can do two things: Bombard your prospect with paid ads, or Teach your prospect how to whiten his teeth through quality content. As you’ve guessed, your prospect will respond positively to your brand if you choose the second option. He’ll see you as an authority in your industry. He’ll trust you. He’ll consider your expert advice and feel attracted to your product. That’s how content marketing works. [bctt tweet=”Buyers nowadays can’t be bullied into an old-fashioned sales funnel. They don’t like feeling sold or closed. Instead, they want to feel powerful. ” username=”ExpWriters”] 2. Your Audience is Constantly Online In the U.S. alone, 81% of people go online on a daily basis. Of this number, 28% are online constantly, and 45% go online more than once a day. 3. The Number of Internet Users is Growing Each Year Today, there are 4.54 billion internet users worldwide. That’s more than half the total population of the world! 4. There Are Six Billion Searches on Google Per Day That’s 230 million searches every hour, and two trillion searches per year. 5. Google Is the Number One Place People Go When Searching for a New Product or Brand Every single day, hundreds of millions of people go to Google to perform shopping-related searches. 6. People Are Spending More and More Time on the Internet Source: thenextweb.com The Philippines leads the pack on total time spent on the internet with a whopping nine hours and forty-five minutes per day. Worldwide, it’s six hours and forty-three minutes per day (the same number with the U.S.). 7. 90% of B2B Marketers Use Content as Part of Their Strategy The brands using content for marketing aren’t all small. In fact, hugely successful brands like Toshiba, Cisco, and Marriott all take advantage of content marketing. 8. A Huge Chunk of Marketers are Investing in Content Marketing It’s not just B2B marketers, it’s B2C marketers as well. 70% of all marketers now invest in content marketing. 9. 3/4 of All People Who Use the Internet Read Blogs Regularly That’s 3.4 billion people who’d potentially be interested in reading … Read more