Inbound marketing wouldn’t be possible without relevant, engaging content to attract and help your audience with. Yet content creation it’s rarely given the time and dedication that it needs – mainly because companies are busy running the day-to-day business and don’t have time to sit down and think about content, let alone actually create it. But here’s why content is so important for your pipeline and if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, it’s worth investing in outsourcing it.
Google aims to provide its users with the search experiences that deliver what they’re looking for. The more high-quality content you have on your site that answers your buyer’s search queries, the more Google will favour you in search results. And the more you’re favoured in Google search results, the more visitors your website will attract!
Most of your customers won’t be ready to buy from you the first time they hear about your business because people go through a buying process before committing to a purchase.
Before making a purchase, people realise that they have a problem that needs solving (awareness). They then take time to research and better understand their problem (consideration). Finally, they make a decision on which solution is best for them (decision).
Content helps your potential customers during all 3 of these stages by answering questions around what they’re searching for, in turn, helping you:
Let’s say you sell… till systems. Someone on the hunt for a cheap one is likely to have done their research first, so by the time you call them, they’ve already made up their mind about what type of system they need!
However, what if you could talk to that person while they were researching till systems?
What if you could talk to them about the importance of paying a premium for quality before they made up their mind about how much they were going to spend? Controlling the conversation while your most-likely customers are educating themselves is so valuable. The same goes for everything from selling TVs to business software.
Now you’re selling a new data analytics tool and decide to write an informative article that ranks 1st on Google for ‘How to combine two databases’. Then, let’s say 40,000+ people search for that exact phrase on Google every month. You’ve now put your brand in front of 480,000 potential customers every year.
If you put time into making the article helpful to your readers, these people will now view your brand as a thought leader and credible information source. Many of those people will go on to become your customers over time or tell a friend about your website and turn their friend into a customer.
Something you wrote years ago could still be popping up in Google Search today! You just need to make sure all your well-performing articles stay up-to-date and relevant. To check which ones are your highest performing articles, use HubSpot‘s easy-to-use blog feature or connect your blog/site to Google Analytics.
The ROI of content is insane. Each additional piece of content you publish has the potential to significantly increase your qualified website visitors every month, making your job much, much easier. The reason content works so well is because you’re attracting people who are already interested in a service like yours, instead of coldly reaching out. We’ve found that more inbound leads convert into customers than outbound — to a certain extent they essentially qualify themselves!
You could also write content that answers FAQs by reaching out to your sales and customer service team members about the things they get asked on a daily basis. Then, before you know it your website becomes your first 24/7-working sales and service team member and your teams are freed up to concentrate on bigger tasks.
When each piece of content links to something further down the buyer journey (like a demo), your content is providing a gateway to your services and offers.
Your helpful content could end up being shared around the internet, providing you with free advertisement and helping you grow your audience and following. What’s more, each potential customer that finds valuable content on your site becomes a potential advocate for your brand.
Many of these readers will follow you on Facebook or Twitter so they can stay up to date on future articles that you write. They may also share your articles with their friends and family on social media, which helps to grow your following over time.