Why is Content Marketing Important for Brand Success?
In the last few years, India has witnessed explosive growth in the online business segment. With a population of more than 1.38 billion people, most having access to increasing internet penetration and the latest smartphones daily, the online shopping market stood at $71.5 billion by the end of 2022! However, such a great opportunity also brings great competition. Furthermore, the cultural factors that influence the behavior of Indian consumers can make or break your success in the market. But there’s a solution that can help a brand stand out – content marketing. So, why is content marketing important for your brand’s success?
Heard of Koolkart & Mirai? And Myntra & Nykaa? Koolkart and Mirai found it challenging to stand out of the crowd while meeting consumer preferences, and it ultimately didn’t work out. On the other hand, Myntra and Nykaa are totally different. These companies didn’t suffer the same fate. Why?
Have a look at some of Myntra’s campaigns. How enticing?
And this is what Nykaa is doing.
With content and visuals as appealing as above, they have devised an unassailable content marketing strategy!
Still wondering why is content marketing important? Here’s all you need to know.
Why is Content Marketing Important for Companies?
Irrespective of what you’re offering, you need to connect with your audience. It is not just about the product/service, but why should they engage with your brand and not others? And these are just two of the many reasons you should focus on curating content.
Returning to why is content marketing important, marketing your brand with content is an excellent way to instill trust in potential customers, keep them engaged, and give them something to pass on to other potential customers.
Content marketing also brings in the following benefits.
1. More Organic Traffic to Your Website
It is vital to know that more than half (~ 53%) of your website traffic results from organic searches. Every other piece of content you post must be both easily found and accessible, in addition to meeting the highly specific needs of your intended audience. Put differently, it has to be “optimized” for searches.
With over 1.1 million visitors, Coca-Cola’s Journey, a digital magazine, has significantly gained organic traffic by focusing on effective content.
Source: Self
Evidently, publishing optimized content is the most efficient way to get visibility and quality organic traffic. Brands that consistently publish optimized content see 3.5x more traffic to their websites than those that don’t.
2. Increased Conversions
What happens to those who organically visit your website after coming across your content? Well, if it has been appropriately curated and optimized up to the mark, they convert. However, this happens only when you create a solid brand identity and carefully position relevant call-to-action buttons.
3. To Inform and Educate Customers
Specifically for brands or companies that offer complex products/services, content is THE best channel to make them aware. With nattily created content pieces, customers can learn more about it. Be it recipes, how-to videos, tutorials, eBooks, or infographics, content can help you be on top of the 3.5 billion daily searches on Google.
This way, your potential customers will feel more comfortable purchasing when they have all the information — how it works, its benefits, and how it stacks up against other competing products.
An excellent example of this is a YouTube broadcast channel called You Suck at Cooking; no prizes to guess what its content is about.
4. Better Brand Loyalty
A part of the answer to why is content marketing important is to build brand loyalty. As you know, building brand awareness and customer loyalty is imperative to brand success. By producing interesting, educational, and captivating content relevant to the interests of the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), brands can establish their brand as a thought leader in their industry and gain the target audience’s trust.
So be sure to have a robust content marketing strategy if you wish to see an increase in happy clients, favorable testimonials and recommendations, and, eventually, higher sales income for your business.
Let’s move on to see how to leverage content marketing so that you realize the benefits above.
Ways to Leverage Content Marketing for Your Business
Now that you know why is content marketing important and how you measure its ROI, let’s dive deeper into some promising ways to devise a complete strategy.
Video Content is Where It’s AT
Videos often hold a more esteemed value because your potential buyers like to see what they’re buying — in its realest form. A buyer can get a good idea of a product’s build and quality by watching a video or even by viewing a still image of it in use.
For this reason, many top marketers concentrate all their content marketing efforts on making excellent videos. Consider Sephora’s DIY YouTube video campaign of 2020. It was a unique video marketing attempt that educated viewers on how to do makeup at home.
We’ve Said it Before, We’ll Say it Again – Focus on SEO
“Why is content marketing important?” From an SEO point of view. With a focus on visually attractive content, many brands subconsciously pass on traditional text-focused content marketing. Creating blogs, product descriptions, and optimizing website content often take a backseat. But that’s where your content marketing strategy might lag.
As per Aaron Orendorff, the Head of Marketing at Recart, technical SEO is often “poorly implemented.” If you want to make the most out of it, focus on the technical aspect of SEO in addition to creating blogs and other content. Look for optimized SEO aspects, like header depth, metadata, URL structures, slugs, site speeds, indexation, etc.
You can also use clustering. Grouping relevant blogs and content based on themes/keywords can improve your visibility and attract direct traffic to your website. Long story short, SEO should be a high-priority point in your content marketing strategy.
Make Your Content Shareable
Suppose you’ve composed a detailed user guide on one of your products. Now, how do you get more potential customers to read it and ultimately be convinced to buy it?
First and foremost, you must ensure that the material you produce can be shared. If it is, you won’t have to do much convincing to get others to share it. Sharing not only increases awareness of your brand and its offerings but can also assist you in obtaining pertinent backlinks to these pages.
Why is backlinking important? Per a 13-month Semrush study, over 92.3% of the top 100 ranking domains had backlinks, and nearly 50% of those that didn’t have one never qualified for the first SERP.
Be Open to Influencer Marketing
This may not come off as a vital content marketing hack, but it sure is. Especially when marketing content as a brand, people must be at the core of your marketing efforts. When potential customers see famous people engaging with your brand and having a positive response after using your product/service, it leaves an impression. This practice has become so common that as of 2022, the Indian influencer marketing industry was valued at ₹12 billion and is estimated to be a ₹28 billion industry by 2026!
You must have heard of mCaffeine. It’s one of India’s first personal care brands and is known to work closely with Alia Bhatt and Radhika Apte to increase brand recall and drive sales.
Be Attentive to Marketplaces
As an online brand, your primary attention should be on best-performing marketplaces, including Amazon, Flipkart, Walmart, eBay, and a few others. These marketplaces work as virtual brick-and-mortar stores and can drive your sales significantly.
India is the 7th largest hub for online businesses, with a predicted revenue of $87,515 million by the end of this year. To tap into this pool of opportunities, you must build an online community on numerous marketplaces, especially Amazon.
Amazon is often the first place consumers look for specific products to buy, rather than using search engines like Google. Because of this, brands must make sure that every piece of content that appears alongside their products on Amazon closely matches their website and brand as a whole.
Build Product Pages
Product pages are the most fundamental element of every brand website. These pages are the first place where potential customers are introduced to your brand, products, and services. Primarily, they consist of content and images (or videos), allowing people to view all the details and decide whether to buy.
You must focus on perfecting your product pages because more than 85% of online shoppers agree that product information and pictures are necessary to decide whether they want to buy from a particular website.
To make it happen, you want to write on these pages in a way that speaks to the consumer’s vocabulary. Steer clear of using words and phrases that customers won’t understand. Using complicated words and phrases might alienate them instead of encouraging them to purchase.
Bank on Infographics and Visual Content
To your surprise, infographics are 30X likelier to be read, making them an excellent content marketing tactic for your E-commerce brand. Especially when you have some complex yet vital information to pass on, presenting it visually makes it much easier for people to understand. You can use vibrant colors and eye-catching graphics to make them more appealing.
For instance, Walmart, a trendy marketplace, is always on top of its infographics game. They make stunning, brand-specific infographics that explain their products and current promotions and effectively direct viewers to their website.
See the image below to understand better what we’re saying.
The above infographics convey all necessary information without banking on extra words.
Gauge on Customer Testimonials and Reviews
When people shop online, they cannot check the quality before making a purchase. And for that reason alone, many customers don’t always feel at ease making their first purchases from online websites. On the other hand, visitors’ apprehension will be lessened if they see that other customers have had positive experiences purchasing from your website.
This answers why is content marketing important— to let you observe what people say about your brand, asking for feedback, and product reviews can work wonders for your business.
Wondering if all these efforts result in better engagement and more conversions? Check out the marketing strategies detailed below and see for yourself.
Successful Content Marketing Case Studies
Now that you know why a content marketing strategy is needed, let’s see a few successful campaigns that have
Case Study 1: Lenovo’s “Goodweird Campaign”
Even if you’re not a tech brand or company, you must have seen Lenovo’s Goodweird campaign. The #Goodweird campaign demonstrates how Lenovo’s YOGA convertibles (the Horizon PC or the YOGA tablet) embrace unconventional design and functionality. The design may be peculiar, but it’s beneficial because of the incredible things these products allow people to accomplish.
When you see the ad, notice how being “weird” yet “good” has resulted in a d. Focus on how compelling the words and narration are, intriguing the viewer to explore more about Lenovo’s Goodweird range of products. That’s the power of content.
It doesn’t end here. The content team at Lenovo produced a dance-off video with three influencers, combining the efficacy of influencer marketing with video content.
Combining the popularity of music videos among their target audience with the reach of influencers, Lenovo rocked the launch of the Goodweird range. The ad garnered more than 34.1 million views and resulted in 11% more traffic and 10% more awareness, per company analytics.
Case Study 2: Warby Parker’s Content Marketing
Warby Parker is a renowned eyewear brand. But that’s not all that it’s famous for. The brand has a potent content hub and leverages visually appealing marketing tactics throughout a customer’s journey. Below is how the brand uses visuals to attract more customers.
What can be cuter than dogs posing with fashionable sunglasses?! This marketing tugged the heartstrings of thousands of people.
Besides working with dog models, the brand has also been on its A-game in email marketing. You’d be surprised that the snippet above is part of Warby Parker’s promotional emails. When you think about it, email is a crucial medium for a company like theirs to interact with its customers. This is because a majority of their sales are now made online. This is why, they’ve generated a top-notch welcome email for all those who sign up.
Their welcome email marketing efforts alone have increased sales by over 3%!
It doesn’t end here.
Warby Parker is the curator of one of the best-performing quiz funnels for lead generation. Quiz funnels work wonders if you can teach your audience something they’ve wanted to know— about yourself or your product.
When you click on that, they will ask you questions about your preferred frame type, glasses style, and even your facial shape.
Case Study 3: Horizon Tech’s Inboung Content Marketing
Horizon technology, a niche manufacturer in powder metallurgy, had very little traffic to its website—just a few dozen views per month—and had almost no lead generation strategy in place to make money. The issue was that no one could locate its website, not even Google rankings crawlers.
The company contracted with a B2B marketing agency to turn its website over visually. What the agency did was:
- Blogging: they blogged to address the customers’ pain points and continued providing solutions.
- Newer Webpages: a distinct RFQ page was added to the website. In order to clarify exactly what Horizon does and what kinds of customers are a good fit, a Services page was also created.
- Premium Content with CTAs: they lured users in with comprehensive “gated” content, such as e-books, in exchange for their contact information.
All the practices and experts-guided conversion maximization turned just a few views into 15000 website views per month. Further, the agency also helped Horizon grow its LinkedIn followers. From 0 followers in mid-2018, the company had over 269 within a few months. Even their click rates improved. Here’s a snippet.
Final Thoughts
As you’ve read above, a well-planned content marketing strategy for businesses brings a myriad of benefits— more conversions, increased loyalty & brand awareness, more organic traffic to your website, and ultimately, more sales. However, crafting a successful strategy is a multifaceted endeavor. It requires a deep understanding of your customers, thoughtfulness, creativity, and data-based insights. It sounds a little intimidating, but you’ll get there with thorough research, planning, and consistent efforts. If you still wonder why content marketing is important, you can always seek help from a content marketing agency. After all, the goal is to make your customers aware and happy.
Know what your customers want and what your company does best, and focus on where those two meet.