The best marketing investment you’ll ever make

The UAE is finally catching wind of digital domination (and it’s about time!). Local businesses are planning to increase their digital investment by 25% year-on-year with 66% doing so over the next 12 months (Omobono Middle East’s What Works Where’ (WWW) study). This comes as no surprise given that 78% of the population own at least one smartphone, with penetration for UAE nationals rising to 85%. Compare this with the EU for example, where smartphone penetration is not expected to reach 68% until 2018! (Nielsen).

Yet, with so many digital marketing channels to explore (SEO, display advertising, SMS marketing, website and app development, PPC, email marketing and social media to name but a few), how do you determine which is the best one to invest in?

Our answer: Content Marketing. Not what you were expecting, hey? Let us explain.

What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is an approach focused on attracting customers to your website through online content and interactions that are relevant and helpful, not interruptive.

It focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your brand, where they naturally want to be. By creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, Content Marketing attracts qualified prospects and builds trust and credibility for your business. Get Content Marketing right and your customers will come to you, time and time again.

What’s more, after attracting and engaging this inbound traffic, Content Marketing can help to encapsulate leads and guide them down the sales funnel to convert them into loyal customers and even brand advocates over time.

In summary, Content Marketing:

• Drives brand awareness amongst your target audiences
• Positions you as experts in your industry
• Builds trust and credibility in your brand
• Improves organic Google ranking
• Increases web traffic
• Attracts qualified prospects to your website
• Creates a database of warm leads for your sales team
• Nurtures relationships to create loyal customers and brand advocates

For some more detail on Content Marketing, check out Hubspot’s blog or read our step-by-step guide.

Sounds great! What exactly does it entail?

Content Marketing involves the research and creation of core content, such as:

• Blogs
• Whitepapers and ebooks
• Videos and webinars
• Case studies
• Surveys and market research
• Free online tools
• How to guides
• Infographics
• PR (traditional, online and broadcast)

…re-tasking and publishing it via a number of digital communication platforms, including:

• Social media channels
• Email marketing
• SEO
• PPC
• Native advertising

…which will drive a stream of regular traffic to your website, which will be optimised to capture data using:

• Landing pages
• Call-to-actions
• Contact forms

…to create a database of engaged leads!

But with so many channels involved, how is Content Marketing a better investment than standalone tools?

Digital is constantly evolving. For instance, display advertising used to be a key player in digital strategies but is nowadays suffering from the growth of mobile. Mobile technology has shrunk the digital advertising space and Ad block technology has made it easier to expel intrusive advertising from screens. Not only this, but consumers demand more than just digital ad or social media post to trust and believe in your brand (and rightly so!).

Online research and communication has become an integral part of the buying process and UAE audiences (more than ever) are being influenced by digital relationships and interactions, rather than first-hand experiences. So, over time, search engines have gradually become better at understanding their users’ intent and now place emphasis on providing high quality answers that meets the needs of the people searching. It delivers useful and valuable responses rather than just facts. How? With content of course!

High quality and varied content, as well as generating awareness for your brand, helps to educate your target audiences and position you as experts within your industry, bringing long term credibility and loyalty to your brand.

Not only that, but it’s also is a reliable and cost-effective source of website traffic and lead generation. Think about it, one blog post or whitepaper that gets a steady amount of organic traffic will continue to generate leads for weeks, months or even years! A digital advert can’t compete with that.

If you need any more convincing, check out:

• A step-by-step guide to smashing SEO: How to conquer Google and turn content into converts
• 5 ways to build your brand and win customers with Content Marketing

Don’t know where to start? Don’t worry.

Talk to us! We can take you through an analysis and planning process to help you create and execute a solid Content Marketing strategy.

Get in touch today. Call me on 0527443374 or email [email protected].