Lots of resources can be used to fuel inbound marketing, but none are quite so delicious and as satisfying as a good piece of content. Content is where brands and solutions get the time to flesh their ideas out, after all. No matter how great your brand vocabulary is on your website or how punchy your emails are, they could still be fairly indistinguishable from others — including your competitors — because there is only so much space and freedom to speak your message.
Content, on the other hand, is your brand’s chance to find its voice and let its ideas run free. Inbound website visitors spend more time on your site actually digging into the ideas and expertise that help your company run. In turn, these readers are much more likely to have brand recall down the road and six times more likely to turn into paying customers. Much like bacon, content is the tasty snack they cannot get enough of, and it goes with everything!
Companies with good content also grow the brand behind their outstanding product, helping them differentiate with competitors beyond nit-picking features and price. In the end, great content is what helps them stand out, earn new fans and put more food on the table.
Why B2B Inbound Marketing Needs Content
Despite the appeal and food-for-thought that well-written content can provide, many B2B companies still treat inbound lead generation as a form of outbound sales. Everything is a sales pitch, from the messages they share on their social media page to the way they word their meta descriptions to attract search users. All these messages do is scream “We have value!” while failing to acknowledge what their audience would actually define as value.
Content helps turn this approach around. Sure, you can turn every blog or infographic into a quasi-advertisement, but the more likely approach is that you end up thinking about how to write content that people actually want to read. What sort of topics drive clicks? What information do people actually find valuable? Eventually, you begin to connect with your audience on an equivalent level, talking to them as peers and addressing all the pain points you may share, including ones your solution may not address.
People take notice of this value. Whether or not they were currently in the market for your solution, they end up viewing your company as a resource that can provide them with answers. Your site feels like more than a landing page to them; it’s a portal to learn new things and improve their own work through your fresh ideas.
In short, inbound marketing without content is still just a hair away from regular ‘ole marketing. Audiences need something of value to latch onto, and once they find this value, they are more likely to remember a brand and consider using its services in the near future.
Content as the Anchor for Inbound Materials
Another benefit that content provides is that it helps anchor your approach to other inbound materials. A great article can just as easily be chopped up into an infographic, teased on social media, broken down into a digest email or even used as the basis of a display ad. Essentially, investing in content helps your other marketing materials go further. It also lubricates the steps in-between awareness and consideration, giving leads more substantial materials to sift through as they weigh their choices between similar solutions.
Essentially, content is what helps keep people snacking, and it also spices up the quality of other materials to make them more tempting for “just one more click.” And, unlike bacon, content is low in cholesterol, so you should feel no shame in sprinkling it wherever you like in order to earn audience’s attention and generate affinity for your brand!
You can learn more about the benefits of well-written content and how a content strategy fits in within your marketing goals by viewing our B2B content marketing services and then contacting us today.
