The Nine Functions of Content Marketing

Content marketing performs nine functions that help both B2B and B2C marketers generate more leads and ultimately close more sales. Let’s explore them:

1. Sets the specs. As discussed earlier, content marketing can educate prospects on what features, functions, and capabilities they should look for when buying a particular type of product/service. Because you’ve presented your criteria in a medium of your choice that looks like useful information and not a sales pitch, readers absorb and accept your guidelines. They then use the specifications you have set.

2. Makes the prospect beholden. This is the principle of reciprocity. When you give somebody something, they feel obligated to give you something in return. Giving a prospect free content doesn’t make them feel obligated to buy your product, but it does make them inclined to give you a little more of their time and attention than they otherwise might.

More than half of buyers strongly agree that if brands packaged relevant content together, it would help expedite the research phase of the buying cycle. Content marketing includes delivering personalized, segmented, and relevant content to your existing customers. By keeping your current customers engaged and updated with great content, you’ll improve your long-term customer retention rates.

3. Generates more inquiries. A lead-generating promotion with a free content offer can produce more than double the response as the same campaign without the free offer. Good content marketing is that effective. By publishing new and relevant content on your digital channels, and doing so often, you can increase the likelihood of new customers finding out about your business, its services, and the value you can bring them. Plus, prospects are more likely to return to your website when they know you frequently add fresh content.

4. Gets new customers. Many marketers acquire new customers through their blogs. Whether your content first caught a prospect’s eye on Google or a blog tipped them over the edge, content marketing plays an important role in the B2B purchase life cycle.

Typically, a B2B prospect searching for a product may work through 70 – 90% of the product search, research, and evaluation process before contacting the vendor. B2B vendor research happens online, and one thing that can help move the prospect down the pipeline is publishing valuable content on your website, email, search, and social channels.

For emails sent regularly to your opt-in list, half or more of the messages should be content, while fewer than half should be sales emails. If you send too many sales pitches and not enough good content, the unsubscribe rate will spike. So will your “mental” unsubscribe rate, meaning that although people won’t ask to be removed from your list, they just stop reading or even opening your emails.

5. Establishes you as the expert. Publishing content on your industry, niche, or area of specialization helps position you as a recognized authority in your field. And prospects would rather buy from knowledgeable experts than ordinary salespeople. Charging your organization with regularly creating new content fosters a culture of research, innovation, and thought leadership. In a rapidly changing industry, content marketing can help force your team to stay up-to-date on changes and trends, which can become invaluable in your product development efforts.

It should not be solely the marketing team’s job to generate all the material used in your content marketing efforts. Account managers, SMEs, and even long-term clients and site visitors can be engaged to help create great content.

6. Educates the market. Content marketing supports your sales efforts, but its first mission is to educate and inform, not make blatant product pitches. Nine out of ten of the top-performing content marketers put their audience’s informational needs ahead of their company’s sales message.

7. Drives sales. Content can be strategically disseminated at various steps in the buying cycle, helping to accelerate each step and ultimately increasing sales. The sales funnel takes most buyers through four stages:

a.?????getting their attention,

b.????gaining their interest,

c.?????creating desire for the product, and

d.?????asking for the order.

Each stage can use both selling (copy) and education (content).

8. Improves search engine ranking and discovery. Search engines love new, relevant, indexed content. When you host your content on your website – whether through blog posts, white papers, or web copy – you can improve your search engine ranking and the likelihood customers will find your website. According to research, a blog on your website will lead to 430% more indexed pages on Google and 97% more inbound links. By increasing your indexed pages and links, you’ll make your site more reputable in a search engine’s eyes. Higher search engine rankings mean interested prospects are more likely to discover your site when they search for relevant keywords.

9. Drives web traffic. Search engine discovery combined with social posts that point to your site can increase your web traffic considerably. According to HubSpot, if you’ve got 51 – 100 pages on your website (consider each blog post to be a unique page), you’ll generate 48% more traffic than if you had under 50. Increased traffic means increased engagement means increased revenue.