Most businesses invest a significant amount of their time, resources, and budget into their marketing initiatives. However, if you aren’t leveraging high-quality content as the basis for your marketing initiatives, you may not be getting the brand exposure, authority, or even leads that you could be. High-quality content is critical for your marketing strategy.
Why High-Quality Content is Critical
High-quality content is critical for your marketing strategy because it is one of the most effective ways to build trust and establish authority with your target audience. When you present thoughtful content that has deep subject-matter expertise, you are establishing trust with your audience because you are proving you know what you’re talking about. This further builds the relationship with your audience and proves that you are a guide that can help them find valuable solutions to their problems. And that is the basis of a solid marketing strategy.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the art of creating digital content that tells a story to reach a target audience, boost brand awareness, drive sales, and increase customer loyalty.
The Three E's of Content Marketing
Content marketing’s goal is much different than traditional advertising. While traditional advertising is purely about promoting a brand, business, or product – its benefits, reasons you should buy, etc – content marketing’s goal is much different. Content marketing’s goal isn’t to promote your brand outright in the same way as traditional advertising. Its purpose is much different than traditional marketing or advertising in this way.
We refer to the goal of content marketing as the Three E’s:
- Education
- Engagement
- Entertainment
Each of these provides value in a specific way to the audience while stimulating interest in your product/service in a roundabout way. Depending on your brand, target audience, and place in the market, you’ll focus on 1 or even all 3 of these types of value-based content.
Let's Look at Examples of the Three E's
Education
An educational-oriented content marketing approach can include everything from quick tips to in-depth blog posts on a subject in your industry to how-to videos, podcast episodes interviewing experts in a specific area of your industry, and much more. It can be as simple as a carousel social media post like the one you see below or as complex as an in-depth, full-length YouTube video.
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Engagement
The engagement goal is predicated on building a real relationship with your audience. This can be done through a number of different types of content including Lives, daily stories, Q+A sessions, just to name a few. While many marketing tactics aim to build an ongoing relationship with a target audience, when using content marketing you won’t ever do this by promoting your brand. You’ll do this by engaging them, getting their ideas, understanding their problem points, and providing a guide to solutions and valuable answers.
You can see an example of this below. Our target audience for this post was other content creators and writers. We wanted to engage them and get their perspectives on a trend we were seeing. This is an excellent way to engage/bring in your audience without ever talking about your brand or business.
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Entertainment
The last “E” to incorporate into your content marketing goals is entertainment. This can be content that is funny, trending, inspirational, motivational, or even just silly if that aligns with your brand. Entertainment can provide just as much value – if not more – than educational content on social media as long as it is consistent with your brand. You can even combine a small educational component or a nod to your industry/offering with an entertaining piece of content. See an example of this below.
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What Content Marketing Can Look Like
Content marketing can take place on many different digital platforms such as websites, social media, email, podcasts, videos, apps, and more. Traditional formats like print publications and press releases can also be used in content marketing.
A content marketing strategy is the key to building strong brand recognition, and awareness, establishing credibility and showing authority in your industry.
Why the Quality of Your Content Matters
The quality of the content that you put out into the world is a direct reflection of your company’s reputation and brand. It’s essential that you invest in quality design, videos, writing, and strategy so that the content you publish is perceived with authority and credibility.
You won’t be able to establish your brand as a leading voice or thought leader if the look, feel, and perception of your content is not of the highest quality. The ROI of high-quality content cannot be overstated.
5 Reasons Why High-Quality Content is Critical for Your Marketing Strategy
Builds Credibility and Trust
High-quality content helps you establish your expertise in your industry or niche. It can show your audience that you have a deep understanding of the problems they face and can guide them to solutions for those challenges. This builds credibility and trust with your audience, which is crucial for attracting and retaining customers.
Drives Traffic to Your Website
Creating high-quality content can help you drive traffic to your website. When people find your content valuable, they are more likely to share it with others, link to it from their own website or social media profiles, and even refer others to your business. This can help you reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website.
Boosts Search Engine Rankings
Search engines reward websites that consistently produce high-quality content by ranking them higher in search results. This can help you attract more organic traffic to your website and reach people who are actively looking for solutions to their problems. Google no longer just crawls for the right keywords but searches the quality of the content as well to see if it is something that will actually provide value to the audience.
Encourages Engagement
High-quality content encourages engagement from your audience. When people find your content helpful, they are more likely to leave comments, ask questions, and share their own experiences. This can help you build a sense of community around your brand and foster deeper relationships with your customers.
Establishes Your Brand Identity
Finally, high-quality content can help you establish your brand identity. By consistently producing content that reflects your values, personality, and unique perspective, you can differentiate yourself from your competitors and build a loyal following of customers who resonate with your brand.
Invest in High-Quality Content Marketing with Your Own Content Marketing Team
High-quality content is critical for your marketing strategy. By creating valuable, informative, and engaging content, you can establish your expertise, build trust with your audience, drive traffic to your website, boost your search engine rankings, encourage engagement, and establish your brand identity.
All of this takes a ton of work and get how it can easily fall by the wayside for small businesses and startups.
With Breezy, you can have an instant content marketing team without bringing on a big agency. We offer flexible plans to fit your budget and needs. Take a look at our plans or schedule a time to see how we can help your small business!
