Content is created to share business information and build brand awareness. But, what are the benefits of content marketing? Why is content marketing considered such a powerful tool for B2B businesses, B2C businesses, and marketers alike?

The answer? Content marketing, in its many forms, has an abundance of business benefits. These range from improving SEO and website traffic all the way to boosting your business’s overall customer experience.

According to a study from the Content Marketing Institute, due to the benefits of content marketing, the percentage of marketers who successfully used content marketing to reach various goals has increased at a steady rate over the last three years.

Furthermore, Mary Shea of Forrester forecasts that, in the future, 80% or more of the sales cycle will happen in digital or remote settings. And with COVID-19 having further accelerated both the usage and the need for quality content marketing, these statistics are anticipated to rise over the next few years.

Let’s dive into what content marketing is and the many specific benefits of content marketing.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing approach that aims to provide potential and existing customers with relevant, helpful, and educational content. Alongside its myriad of other benefits, content marketing helps you attract your target audience and retain them as loyal customers.

Types of content marketing

It’s important to consider your audience and business goals when creating your content marketing strategy. Content comes in many forms, but the common uses are:

Blog articles. Blog articles, like the one you’re reading now, are a common source of evergreen content (i.e. content that is relevant for a long time, unlike timely content that references trends or current news) for B2B businesses, B2C businesses, and marketers. Blogs are a way to showcase your authority in your niche, rank in organic search for relevant keywords, and provide your customer base with upfront value.

E-books. As a purchasable form of content for consumers, e-books offer more in-depth topic coverage than blogs alone. They provide ongoing value that is often more exclusive than what is offered for free in blogs.

Guides. Often used as lead generation, guides (particularly downloadable e-guides) typically focus on a singular topic and provide consumers with a step-by-step walkthrough that they can reference whenever they want or need to. The content is gated, which means leads have to provide their email address in exchange for the downloadable PDF.

Email campaigns. Email campaigns are a type of content marketing used to send commercial messages to a large audience. Email campaigns are often segmented depending on which stage of the buying process a customer is at in order to better personalize its messaging. For example, a blog article can be distributed via an email campaign to expand its readership.

Social media posts. Social media posts on the most-used social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest are a form of content marketing that you can use to heighten your brand’s visibility. Social media posts are also valuable due to the ability to easily reuse their topics and assets for other forms of content marketing, like blogs or podcasts. And just like email campaigns, social media posts are a common distribution tool; blogs, podcasts, and other content types can be broken up into social media posts with links back to the source material to generate website traffic.

Podcasts. A podcast is a single or multi-episode digital file that a user can either stream to listen online or download to a personal device. It can include a visual and be uploaded to multiple streaming and downloading platforms for both listening and commercialization purposes.

Webinars. Web conferencing is an umbrella term that references webinars and other forms of recorded content, like web meetings and webcasts. Webinars are often pre-recorded, full-length talks hosted by a single person that go in depth on either a singular or multifaceted topic. They are often longer than podcasts and are more likely to have a visual aspect to them.

Product videos. Product videos are videos dedicated to showcasing the usage of a product. Versus podcasts and webinars, which are more conversational and educational, respectively, product videos are a form of content marketing that is almost exclusively promotional and provide product knowledge. Product videos can be added to ecommerce collection pages, product pages, or landing pages to provide visual explanations of products, like this “How to Wear” collection.

Landing pages. Also known as a “squeeze page”, “destination page”, or “lead capture page”, landing pages are single web pages that are designed to incite leads. Examples of landing pages include pop-ups, e-book download prompts, or a discount in exchange for a lead inputting their contact information.

Infographics. Most commonly used for educational purposes, infographics are a visual form of info, data, and/or knowledge. They’re often created alongside blog articles for those who prefer visually summarized content.

Why is content marketing important?

The return on investment (ROI) for content marketing can be considerably higher than paid search marketing strategies. With content marketing, your content continues working for you long after publishing it. On average, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates three times as many leads. This makes it reliable, impactful, and significantly more cost-effective than other forms of digital marketing.

For example, if you write a blog article for SEO, you likely won’t see results immediately, but in four to six months your impressions, ranking, and clicks should improve. By 12 months, it should grow even more. Of course, this depends on the keywords you’re targeting, how comprehensive your content is, and the competition.

📚 Further reading: Mastering Ecommerce SEO: How to Increase Online Store Traffic →

16 benefits of content marketing

To further illustrate the benefits of content marketing, there are 16 specific ones that I will be diving into today.

1. Improves SEO and website traffic

As mentioned above, one of content marketing’s many benefits is raising your organic SEO rankings and website traffic.

Search engine optimization (more commonly referred to as SEO) is the process of improving the quantity and quality of website traffic through search engines. It does this through a combination of on-page SEO (like the implementation of relevant keywords) and off-page SEO (like guest blogging for other businesses or marketers, and getting backlinks from websites with a high domain score.)

70% of online marketers say SEO is better than PPC for generating sales. This is because of its emphasis on brand consistency, steady thought leadership output, and its ability to build a loyal online community. Through content marketing, this improvement in SEO and website traffic is most often achieved via blog articles and landing pages. E-books, guides, podcasts, webinars, and infographics can also help support your SEO strategy and contribute to website traffic.

2. Helps you establish E-A-T

E-A-T is defined as Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

The term comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines and became known to the mainstream via Google’s 2018 Medic Update, in which Google reiterated the importance of businesses and marketers “building great content” on their webpages.

Having your website showcase your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness soon became proven hallmarks of ranking well on search engines. Because of this, many B2B businesses, B2C businesses, and marketers began putting more of a focus on quality content marketing, as that became the most reliable way to achieve organic results post-update.

3. Allows you to reach customers at every stage of the buying funnel

The average customer engages with 3-5 pieces of content before talking to a sales rep, making it so having quality content marketing for each stage of your buying process is more crucial than ever before.

To better leverage this process, you can simplify the way you look at the customer journey in four stages: awareness, research, consideration, and purchase.

I generally turn to the AAARRR Pirate Metrics. It’s used more for SaaS companies, but ecommerce businesses can also benefit from this framework. You can adapt it to your business.

It goes like this:

Awareness. This is the number of people you reach. Measure awareness through website visits, impressions, click-through rate, and your reach on social media.
Acquisition. This is the number of people who converted from a visitor to a lead. Measure acquisition through email signups, leads generated, or content engagement on social media.
Activation. This is the number of people who subscribe to or buy your products. You can also refer to activation as your conversion rate. Measure activation through sales, subscriptions, and how long it took qualified leads to convert.
Retention. This is the number of repeat customers. Measure retention by looking at the customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV is the amount of money a customer spends throughout their entire time as a paying customer.
Revenue. This is the number of people who are paying customers. In this stage, SaaS companies look at monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and annual recurring revenue (ARR). This is the amount of revenue you can expect to earn on a monthly and yearly basis from new and repeat business. In ecommerce, this is particularly important with subscription business models.
Referral. This is the number of people who become brand evangelists and tell their friends and family about your business. Measure referrals via review rates, social shares, a referral program, and customer satisfaction.

Here’s how content marketing works in each stage of the buying process:

Let’s say you offer online fitness classes to busy women who work full-time and have at least one kid. You could create a blog article that talks about how to make time in your busy schedule for a quick 30-minute workout.

Then you can share the article via social media to build awareness.

Some people will click on the link in your bio and land on your website to read the article.

Create a pop-up form to capture leads and offer 10% off their first class if they give you their email address — you've acquired another lead.

They didn’t buy any workouts on their first visit, but then you send an email campaign, and the lead clicks on a link in your email and buys their first workout. You’ve activated the lead.

Your new customer enjoyed their first class, you sent them a thank you email and included a link to a blog article about the benefits of exercising regularly — they bought three more classes. Now they’re a repeat user and your customer retention rate goes up.

Repeat this process with more customers and your revenue will increase.

Continue sharing helpful content like blog articles and social media posts to boost customer satisfaction. Your happy customers will refer their friends and family to your business.

A consistent approach to quality content marketing will allow you to effectively reach customers at every stage of the buying funnel.

4. Content marketing builds brand awareness

To expand on content marketing’s positive impact on the buying process, let’s start with one of content marketing’s primary benefits: building brand awareness.

Brand awareness is more than people simply recognizing your logo, business name, and/or offerings: it reflects how aware your target audience is of your specific brand and what it represents.

Now more than ever, consumers are choosing to do business with only brands that they trust. SEO blog articles, landing pages, social media posts, and podcasts are all effective methods of content marketing that drive brand awareness.

5. Content marketing attracts and acquires new customers

87% of shoppers now begin their search on digital channels. This means, in your industry’s competitive market, being visible on multiple channels is key for attracting and acquiring new customers.

As mentioned in my outline of how content marketing works during every part of your buying funnel, one of its primary benefits is attracting and acquiring new customers. This is called lead generation and frequently comes in the form of pop-ups, webinars, lead forms, and guides, all of which prompt your potential new customer to exchange their email address for an incentive.

These incentives range from exclusive downloadable content to discounts on your products or services. .

6. Content marketing works to retain existing customers

Marketing doesn’t stop once you’ve acquired new customers.

In fact, it can be argued that the bulk of marketing is geared towards retaining existing customers. This is because of the affordability and ROI that come with retaining customers. It’s 5x more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing customers and a 5% increase in customer retention can increase your revenue by 25%-95%.

Email marketing is one of the most common types of content marketing used to achieve customer retention. While also used for first-time sales, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email campaigns distribute value to a targeted online audience. For first-time buyers, this often includes abandoned cart prompts and sign-up discounts; for existing customers, this can include birthday messages, periodic discounts, exclusive news or updates, and/or freebies to reward referrals or repeat purchasing behavior.

7. Content marketing increases both community engagement and trust

Providing value upfront is one of the primary reasons why and how content marketing works so effectively.

It does so by giving you a conduit through which to resolve customers’ pain points. Facebook Lives, written how-to’s, infographics, and Instagram Reels are all popular ways to foster community engagement and trust through content marketing.

Think of it this way: when typing their common pain points into a search engine or social media search bar, if the content of yours that is shown to them is informative, trustworthy, and consistent, then they will soon associate your brand with being able to solve their problems. This encourages customer acquisition, retention, and referrals.

8. Content marketing provides the opportunity to define brand personality

Let’s say your brand and a competing brand offer the same services in the same area for a similar price point.

What will potential customers base their decision on? Brand personality, most likely.

Brand personality encompasses your brand’s values, target audience, mission statement, and reason for operation. It also extends to the type of language used (formal vs. informal, for example.)

The benefits of content marketing are myriad, but the opportunity to define your brand personality across multiple channels is particularly golden. In fact, 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support.

Because of this, being conscious about inserting your brand’s unique language, mission, and general personality into your content marketing is key.

9. Content marketing enhances accessibility to a general audience

Not every potential or existing customer will be on every platform. That’s why marketing your content across many channels is important to enhance your business’s general online accessibility.

If you have a webinar embedded on your website, for example, a way to enhance accessibility for your target audience would be to cross-post it to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and your other existing social media channels.

That same webinar’s topic could then be further expanded into accompanying email campaign topics, blog articles, and infographics.

10. Content marketing bolsters conversion rates

Another one of the many benefits of content marketing is its ability to bolster conversion rates.

According to a report by Aberdeen, conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%.) This is due to the fact that every time you create a piece of content for your business, it renews your ability to draw in new and old leads alike.

By being consistent in creating new content across multiple platforms, you keep increasing your business’s likelihood of drawing in new and repeat business.

11. Content marketing works to automate ROI (and put sales on autopilot)

IT service management company Gartner found that companies that automate lead management produce a 10% increase in revenue in six to nine months, while the Annuitas Group similarly reported that businesses and marketers using marketing automation for lead nurturing experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.

This is due to the fact that publishing and distributing content once it’s created is something you can easily automate.

This is particularly true for social media posts and email marketing, which can be batch-created and scheduled to auto-publish for months (and even years) to come. The publishing of guides, infographics, podcasts, and blogs can also be automated, but you or a hired professional would still be required to manually create the content.

Ways to automate your content marketing include: repurposing social media content across multiple social media platforms using schedulers like Hootsuite and Buffer; mass-scheduling email campaigns using a program like Mailchimp and Klaviyo; and connecting your content marketing tools and platforms using a tool like Zapier.

12. Adheres to customer preferred marketing tactics

96% of consumers don’t trust paid advertising. That’s why it’s crucial to incorporate content marketing into your strategy. It’s an organic form of online marketing that provides your target audience with value and lets them discover your business in a more natural way versus being bombarded with offensive ads.

Let’s take a look at a real-life example. My client, JULAHAS, sells kimonos for women. After conducting keyword research, we learned that targeting the keyword phrase “how to wear a kimono with jeans” is worthwhile as it has search volume and is related to the products JULAHAS sells.

By creating content to target this keyword phrase, it will help consumers discover the brand organically via Google Search. We published a blog article titled 6 Chic Ways to Wear a Kimono with Jeans, and implemented on-page SEO techniques to help it rank for the target keyword phrase. Now, when prospective customers search “how to wear a kimono with jeans” or versions of this phrase, the blog article surfaces in search results and helps shoppers discover JULAHAS organically (when their intent is to find more information) instead of through paid ads (when they’re not actively looking for more information).

13. Answers your audience’s most frequently asked questions

Although having a frequently-asked-questions section on your website is a staple for many, the majority of potential customers won’t get that far before deciding to leave with their questions unanswered.

Producing quality content across multiple marketing channels is a natural and effective way of answering those questions. Whether it be compiling your FAQs in a social media post, interjecting a FAQ into your webinar, including a direct link to your FAQ section in the footer of your email campaigns, creating support articles, or dedicating a blog or landing page to FAQs, providing your audience with ample opportunity to get their questions answered without having to talk with a representative will go a long way in earning both first-time and repeat business.

14. Incentivizes email subscribers

Email marketing is a key part of any business owner’s or marketer’s inbound marketing process, in which brands meet buyers at whichever stage of the buying process they are currently at.

It’s a valuable form of content marketing because you can segment campaigns based on customer behavior. While you might send first-time customers a one-use discount code to say thanks for signing up, you could send repeat customers a customized birthday email or exclusive news on an upcoming promotion.

Another primary benefit of building an email list is that once a person subscribes, you own their contact information. Email marketing lets you have a direct relationship with customers versus relying on another channel (such as social media) and hoping people scroll through your content again. This way, you can consistently send personalized, educational, and promotional content straight to your audience’s inboxes.

As such, having valuable and segmented content marketing materials on hand to incentivize email subscribers is important. Examples of email marketing campaigns include writing copy that is suited to the specific leg of their journey, putting yourself in the buyer’s persona in order to provide them with the most value, and reusing materials when warranted (such as linking to new blog articles or landing pages).

15. Saves your marketing team time thanks to multi-purpose assets

As I mentioned already in my overview of the benefits of content marketing, a significant benefit of investing in content marketing is its opportunity to use and reuse assets.

Whether it be tailoring the same photo and accompanying caption across multiple social media platforms, optimizing a blog from years ago with updated information so that it stays relevant in search engines, sharing a webinar across both YouTube and podcast-uploading sites, or turning an infographic into a full-fledged e-book, the opportunities to make assets multi-purpose and save your marketing team time is seemingly endless.

16. Content marketing boosts the overall customer experience

Lastly, the combined impact of these benefits of content marketing boosts the overall customer experience.

Content marketing makes both potential and existing customers feel heard; it provides them with ample opportunity to learn about your brand, have their questions and concerns answered in a timely and engaging way, and encourages them to continue purchasing your products or services.
Content marketing enhances the buying funnel at every step by providing value, personalization, brand-specific information, and incentives.

Start enjoying the benefits of content marketing

The key to great content marketing is to add value. Do this by creating and distributing content your audience wants to read, watch, and/or listen to.

Now that you know the important benefits of content marketing, it’s time to put content marketing into action so you can attract, convert, and retain more customers.

If you’re not sure what type of content will add value, ask your customers what would have been helpful when they were looking for your product or service. Or what they wish you’d share more about now that they’ve become a customer.

Want to begin seeing the benefits of content marketing — in the form of blog articles and landing pages that drive organic traffic? Here are six free keyword research tools to help you get started. Or get in touch to see how we can help.