Content Marketing: How to Get More Customers

Content marketing is a gigantic gamer in the world of marketing, we touch on it in our complete guide to digital marketing and we've spoken about it before in regards to inbound marketing. Today, creating and sharing out actual content has become so valuable that denying its importance would only be a huge loss to us marketers.

Fun fact, people bloody love stuff. Contacts are thirsty for content in almost any form, so every marketer worth their salt is jumping aboard and creating as much content as possible to keep their customers keen. Content marketing is no longer just a luxury but is rapidly approaching ‘absolute must-have’ level. It’s no longer what we’re talking about, it’s how we are talking entirely. 

Content Marketing comes in many forms, from blog posts and videos to e-books and white-papers, there really is no shortage of options. What's important is how you use each piece of content to connect with your target audience and the types of content that help build your audience. Content creation is absolutely vital and we've touched on the value of quality content before, but I'm going to take the opportunity now to get a little deeper. 

The trick to all this is the relationship your content creates with your consumers. A strong content marketing strategy will have the consumer front of mind at all times. Let’s discuss exactly how content marketing guides these relationships, even in the digital space.

Content Engages People

Content Marketing exists to engage with people. It is written to be read and to have an impact on someone, somewhere. Aim to answer peoples questions, to provide them with solutions or teach them something; if you create content that is valuable, relevant and consistent, it will be used. Useful content gives you value, and your readers a reason to trust you, to come to you the next time they have a question that needs answering, and this leads to a relationship.

Content Builds Trust

With trust come long-term relationships and long-term relationships with customers are exactly what you’re looking for. To reach this level of seriousness in your budding relationship, you need to show people that you know what you're on about and the only way to do that is through robust content. If you pass, you win new customers, who come to you consistently for your wise and valuable content. Loyal customers stand by you over time, but also eventually evolve in to promoters, sharing your content to their own networks, increasing your reach. Credibility is what you're getting for your hard work, an important factor in building trust.

Consumers are Human Too

You might be dealing with a B2B or B2C company, but the customer is always human (fingers crossed). Although digital communication has taken over the world, the power of a smile and face-to-face connection is still the best way to make a connection, whether it’s in business, romance or something less-fun. Content Marketing is a way of building up rapport with a someone so that you can one day make an attempt at a more personal, face-to-face connection. One way you can achieve this is to connect with folks emotionally; often they’ll respond by giving you the time of day. Just be sure not to get too emotional; is ‘business-emotional’ a thing? It should be; try and be ‘business-emotional’.

The consumers of today have a voracious appetite for excellent content nowadays. Whether it’s in the form of social media updates or case studies, anything published across the internet is consumed avidly. In a world where almost everyone is stuck to their computer screens 24/7, the best place for you to be is the one giving them something to look at, so now’s as good a time as any to jump on the Content Marketing train.