How Does Content Marketing Contribute To Revenue? (Six Ways)

Hello my fellow marketer,

It’s time for another episode of The Growth Report.

No exciting news this week from my end, so I share some random Twitter-sourced wisdom with you instead:

Life changing I know. ??

Speaking of life changing….

...Today's topics

?? Article: Content Strategy - How Does Content Marketing Contribute To Revenue? (Six Ways)

?? Tools of the Trade - Curated articles, tools and inspiration for marketers

?? Article: Reflections from the Trenches - The Dangers of Being Right

??Community hangout - Selection of new jobs, events and discussions

?? Article: Content Marketing

How Does Content Marketing Contribute To Revenue? (Six Ways)

The impact of content on the bottom line is hard to quantify. I get it.

A lot of the impact that content has on buying decisions are hidden to us marketers and business owners. The messy middle is hard to decode.

I had a bunch of conversations the past weeks with clients who want to give up on content and rather invest into paid channels. It's a mistake! If your potential customers read your competitors content to solve their problems, your competitor wins over the long run.

So I put together a list of ways that content contributes to revenue (even if you can't directly attribute it). Here we go.

1. Direct leads

The most straightforward one. People read an article, sign up and later buy the product or service.

2. Retention

Existing customers consume content and learn new ways to use your product. Educational content helps people realize the value of the product and stick around to keep using it. This means less churn (the silent killer!) and more recurring revenue.

3. Account expansions

If someone learns about a feature that’s not supported on their account tier they want to upgrade. There is no cheaper way to increase your revenue than to entice existing customers to spend more.

4. Word of Mouth

Your existing customers will teach their friends only if they themselves fully understand the platform and the problem your product or service is solving. Again, educational content helps them to just that. And btw., especially in B2B people will refer your brand just because they have read your content, even if they have never used your product ("yeah I heard about this great video marketing platform called Wistia, you should check it out").

5. Brand exposure

People prefer things they are familiar with. If you are constantly on their radar and top of mind, they will favor you when the moment comes to take a buying decision. And guess what, the reverse is also true. If they have never heard of you before, but have consumed your competitors content for years, guess who'll they purchase from?

6. Brand affinity and thought leadership

People want to use the best of the best. If you are positioned as the best, they want to use you. If you don't want to end up in a pricing race to the bottom with your competitors you need to elevate your brand to charge more. Associate yourself with the best brands in the industry. Get influential guests on your podcast. It works!

?? Takeaway

There are a hundred more nuanced ways how content helps to affect the bottom line. The takeaway is that if you are consistently helping your customers succeed through your content, they will trust you more, like you more and buy from you more.

?? Tools of the Trade

?? The Struggle of Our Times

"For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it."

by Peter Drucker

?? ?? Marketing & Leadership Education

• Counterintuitive Lessons on How to Get Better as You Scale - If your company is in the scale-up phase, this is a worthwhile article to read. It discusses the unique challenges and hurdles that come to marketing departments when they scale.

?? Products that caught my eye

• ?? Refind - Every day Refind picks 7 links from around the web for you, according to the interests you choose (from Web3 to Roman History). They apparently already have 50k+ users.?And it’s free!
• Compress Image - Lightning fast image compression for JPGs and PNGs. I use this all the time for website images and presentation graphics. No signup, no limits, just use it for free.
• Keywords in Sheets - If you do keyword research this tool will save you a ton of time. It offers Google Sheet scripts for otherwise tedious, manual tasks required for solid SEO work.

?? Interesting reads

• The Fun Scale - This article hypothesizes three kinds of fun we experience: Type 1 fun (fun while you are doing it), Type 2 fun (fun that's only fun in retrospect) and Type 3 fun (fun that isn't actually fun). A great way to check up on yourself how you are spending your off time.

?? Article: Reflections From the Trenches

The Dangers of Being Right

Being right, winning an argument feels good, doesn't it?

Most of us innately care about being right. Being right was something that we were taught was the ultimate pinnacle of knowledge. It's like an intellectual triumph over an adversary. We know better, we know more, and you, you just don't understand. Whether its a loved one, a client, or an employee, we must be right.

And even if we know we are wrong. We cannot have the other side score a win, no matter how small. Because if they are right, it means we are wrong. And now backed into a corner, it becomes a pride thing.

A good example is religion. How many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Name one religion that doesn’t think that its way is the right way. But again, if that one religion is the right way, all the others must be wrong ??

Being Right Prevents us From Being Generous

The real tragedy is, trying to be right all the time gets in the way of generosity. It's almost like a shield we are holding up. Do you know that feeling a couple of minutes after an argument you (thought you've) won? That bitter aftertaste once you bathed in your dominance over the other person?

Well, all you've really done is shut down a person who wanted to be heard.

And it's not like the other person now thinks: "Well I am so stupid, he is so right. How could I not have seen his brilliance and superior way of thinking?"

No, they think: "What an ass, he didn't even listen to what I said and now look at his arrogant smirk, thinking he is right. I'll show him!"

It's a Waste of Energy

Also, we waste so much energy and so much effort on being right. We plead, we convince, we argue, we debate, we re-phrase, we provide evidence all day long. And we only stop when the other person gives in. And if they don't, we end up quietly sulking like the two kids in the picture above.

What if we don't need to be right?

And you know what's crazy? The need to be right is actually preventing us from getting the things that will actually most serve us. So instead of trying to be right all the time, what if we take a different approach at least some of the time?

As so often in the past, James Clear has some wisdom for us:

"You're probably right' has become one of my favorite phrases.

Whenever someone disagrees with you on a small matter (read: most things), you can shrug, say 'you’re probably right' and move on. Not caring about winning trivial arguments saves so much time and energy."

Let's keep our needs to be right for the big things in life. When someone violates a deeply held value or a principle of ours we should absolutely stand up for ourselves.

As for everything else, "You're probably right" seems like the smarter and more generous way to go about things.

??Community Hangout

???Events

Here is a picture of our last in-person drinks in Zurich:

?? ?? Open Jobs

• Digital Growth Lead (80-100%) - at Imnoo
• Junior Marketing Manager - at WePractice
• Junior Growth Marketer (60-100%) - at Akenza
• Copywriter & Content creator (60-100%) - at MyBikePlan
• Digital Marketing Specialist (80-100 %) - at AMNIS

Get access to community

That's it for this week.

Talk soon,

Sandro