Why is content marketing so important?

Articles, videos, photos or infographics. These and other elements are part of the so-called content marketing –⁠ a very effective advertising tool. Are you wondering what this form of promotion consists of and whether it has any real value? Let's find out.

The goal of the content marketing is to catch the attention of potential customers, mainly indirectly. If you publish an interesting article on your blog or create educational video from your field, people can find you even though they never heard about your company before. If you offer them beneficial content, they will like you and become your customers in the future, or even straight away.

Does content marketing really work?

According to the research of the HubSpot company 82% of marketing specialists are investing in the production of content for their brand. Therefore, it is safe to say that it is quite popular strategy. But why is that?

The big advantage of content marketing is that you basically don't need any advertising space. You can post all your posts on your own website or on a free platform (YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.). Content marketing brings in up to 3 times more leads compared to external ads, while costing 62% less on average. These are quite interesting numbers. 

The most common goals of content marketing are to increase sales, improve customer relationships and increase brand awareness. It's not about directly encouraging people to buy, but rather about improving your position with potential customers.

Popular forms of content marketing

An increasingly popular method of content marketing is, for example, a blog on your own website. There are several advantages to posting useful articles on a regular basis.

• Improving relationship with current customers – They can learn something new thanks to the articles, which is beneficial in acquiring their loyalty and good reviews, being it on the internet or between friends. 
• Attracting new customers – Imagine that you own a small e-shop selling tools and you publish a tutorial on how to replace a sink faucet on your blog. Thanks to the tutorial, people who need help with this problem but have never heard of you before may come to your website. Now they know you and if you give them good advice they may come back to you again when they encounter another problem. 
• Higher search engine rankings – Web search engine algorithms like Google and Seznam prefer more active sites. Adding new content on a regular basis will improve your SEO levels, bringing more people to your site through search - and it's completely free.

The most popular form of content marketing today is video. Up to 69% of customers prefer to get information about a company or product via a short audiovisual recording. This can be placed on your homepage or on your brand channel, where you can regularly add other informative videos - such as how-to videos or product demonstrations.

Other content marketing options include infographics, e-books or, in the case of services, case studies. Each brand is suited to a slightly different strategy. That's why content marketing needs to track the RoI (return on investment) from each form and then focus its efforts where it pays off the most. However, we definitely recommend not sticking to just one channel, but trying to use at least two or three different forms.

We hope we've helped you understand content marketing, its importance and its forms. If you haven't gotten into creating any original content for your brand, now is the time. If you don't know how to do it specifically, we're happy to help. At Blue System, we've helped hundreds of projects succeed over 19 years - and yours could be next.