Five Key Benefits of Content Marketing for SMBs

In October 2020, 4.66 billion people were using the internet — that’s a whopping 59% of the global population. Whether you’re planning for it or not, your customers and potential customers are looking for your business online. 78% of marketers say they have achieved success as the result of investing in content marketing and believe it has built credibility with their potential customers.  

Content marketing is geared toward lead generation and brand awareness, and its main objectives are to educate and inform, as well as establish connections and improve brand reputation through building trust with target audiences. 

Here are five ways content marketing can set the foundation to help your business grow online. 

Growing Your Online Reach

Establishing your online presence is essential, and you should start by having a website, claiming social profiles, and optimising your Google My Business listings. These steps allow you to be present when anyone searches for information about your business and give you the platforms to publish and share your content. What’s great about content marketing is it allows you to tap into audiences that aren’t looking specifically for your business by expanding your reach. 

By creating content that targets keywords related to your business you can start to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, if you run a landscaping company, you might target keyword phrases like “lawn care tips for beginners” or “best seasonal flowers.” People searching for these terms are interested in landscaping, even if they might not be looking to book a service right away. 

A HubSpot study found that companies who actively write and publish blog posts get 55% more visitors to their websites. 

Establishing Your Authority

One big way to establish your authority and prove your credibility as a business or service provider is through content marketing. For small businesses online, it’s important that your website is authoritative and credible. Include trust signals, like logos and user reviews, to show your visitors that your business is not only real but effective for real people. 

The Nielsen Norman Research group found that users appreciate sites that contain a large amount of relevant content because it shows that the organisation is well informed and committed to helping its customers. 

Attaining Competitive Edge Against Your Competitors

When your brand isn’t represented where your competitor is, you are missing out on winning business because you’re not even in the game. 

Someone searching for “emergency plumbing tips” isn’t necessarily looking to book a service, but they are looking for information. In the example above, we see three plumbing companies appear at the top of the search results. Competing plumbers without a content marketing strategy in place don’t rank highly for this query and could thereby miss out on valuable business. 

Educating Your Audience

With content marketing, you can use blog posts, videos, webinars and more to educate your audience about not only your offering, but the larger context of the industry you’re serving. 

You can foster connections and trust as industry experts by providing meaningful, helpful tips for your audience. In fact, this commitment to understanding your audience and connecting with them is often what makes a content marketing strategy so successful. 

In a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, 50% of respondents ranked this the most important factor for success:

With a content marketing strategy dedicated to educating and connecting with your audience, you can reach more people and build brand awareness. 

Generating Leads for Your Business

Content marketing is shown to generate three times as many leads per dollar as traditional marketing and it costs 62% less. 

There are many ways you can generate leads through content. For example, if you’re writing blog posts, you can prompt users to sign up for a monthly newsletter and add them to your email marketing lists. 

You can also use in-text CTAs to offer a content download. In exchange for the content resource, you can require users to submit information like their email address, mobile number and name, so that you can reach out to them with marketing offers. 

If you’re hosting a webinar or event, you can post your event on social media and require the same information to register. Consider running a paid Social Ad campaign to reach even more users. 

The key here is to create high-quality content that your users are interested in so that you can generate leads and grow your business. 

The benefits of content marketing for small businesses are clear — from making more people aware of your business and offering, to creating meaningful connections with your audience, and getting more leads. These are important steps for growing your business, so what are you waiting for? Time to get started! Don’t hesitate to reach out to our marketing experts and brainstorm ideas with us!