Why Content Marketing Is Essential

Content is 78% of chief marketing officers’ primary marketing plan, and those with content marketing strategies see up to six times higher conversions than other marketing methods.

Content marketing is essential for businesses and can result in more leads, conversions, and sales.

In this article, I will explain the importance of content marketing and harnessing your business’s power with words.

Why Is Content Important?

Businesses that are serious about increasing traffic should invest in content marketing: A successful content marketing strategy leads to 7.8 times more traffic to a business's website.

The most common content for marketing campaigns are articles, blogs, and social media posts, but just under 50% of marketers see blogging as their top priority.

A successful content marketing strategy includes a strong written campaign. Structure and flow in your writing organizes your thoughts to captivate your audience. Well-written content engages readers and encourages them to share your work on their social networks.

Articles, blogs, and social media have great potential to establish your digital presence, so make sure your content is unique and thought-provoking.

Long Articles Lead to Better Engagement

Well-written articles tend to be filled with details and statistics, so having a low word count should not be your priority. In fact, longer articles tend to perform better than shorter articles.

Source: The Atlantic

Articles that are more than 5,000 words result in a longer amount of time that readers engage with the content, even when people are reading the article on a small screen.

Articles of 250 words or fewer resulted in 43 seconds of average reading time, while 5,000 words or more increased engagement to roughly 270 seconds, or 4.5 minutes.

This shows that the length of the content is important; businesses should focus on the quality of their content rather than the number of articles they publish. It’s much better to have occasional content that’s useful and well-written than frequently publishing short, uninformative content.

Why Is Copywriting Important?

Copywriting, as CopyBlogger defines it, is “the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that get people to take some form of action.”

Professional copywriters are sales, marketing, and advertising professionals who master a powerful craft. The right copywriting techniques are essential to your content marketing strategy so that you sympathize with your audience and stand out by exhibiting how simple it is to apply your solution.

Copywriters put time into perfecting a single post by asking a few basic questions: “What challenges do my readers face? What do their lives look like at this moment? What solutions do I have for them?”

Copywriting and editing is essential because 59% of consumers will avoid a business if it has obvious spelling and grammar errors.

Someone experienced in copywriting and editing should handle your company’s content. Otherwise, people could be deterred if they find content with poor writing.

Industry Methods That Peak Readers’ Interests

In your efforts to promote your products and attract new customers, it is vital to understand what it takes to publish content that is geared toward the interests and needs of your audience. The following factors make your efforts possible when attracting the interest of readers.

Create Catchy Headlines

Headlines sell — 80% of readers will read headline copy, but only 20% will read the rest of the content. You need your headlines to be interesting enough to encourage people to keep reading.

Successful blogs start with successful headlines. Headlines are meant to grab the attention of the reader which, in turn, makes them want to read more.

Headlines are also what your readers see on search engines, so they have a great deal of power when grabbing readers' attention and getting the conversions your agency needs.

With all the content available online, it is crucial to make yours stand out from the rest. Put yourself in the shoes of the reader and ask yourself, “Do I want to continue reading this article?”

Headlines are meant to provoke the emotions of your audience. Therefore, use numbers that break down the key takeaways, adjectives that describe the problem of the reader, and a promise to find a solution to that problem.

Industry-specific topics also catch the eye, such as "Top 5 Trends for Marketing Your Legal Practice," "Best Ways to Grow Your Dental Practice," "3 Must-Haves When Marketing your Startup," and "How to Successfully Advertise Your Flower Shop."

A great example of attention-grabbing headlines comes from Buzzfeed, such as “32 Smart Purchases That’ll Totally Pay Off In The Long Run.”

The headline attracts the reader through emotional adjectives and the number of products the article will list. Additionally, it does not give away too much, which is the key for a successful headline.

Now the reader is truly engaged and needs to find out what these "smart purchases" are.

A successful headline grabs a readers’ attention but leaves them intrigued enough to read more.

Discuss Your Readers’ Problems

Content pieces should connect with their audience. Words cannot be wasted during these moments. You appeal to your readers by knowing who they are and what they need. The solutions you provide must target a specific pain point or problem.

Speaking about various obstacles your target aucience faces will help connect with readers and give them the sense that you understand them. These professionals are great at doing what the industry calls “twisting the knife,” when you bring attention to their challenges without yet providing your solution. This keeps them intrigued and encourages them to keep reading.

Trinsic Technologies’ headline “The Heartbleed Bug: Change your passwords now (URGENT)” represents a copywriter “twisting the knife.”

The “Heartbleed Bug” may or may not be an issue the reader knows about, but now an emotion is induced, where the reader wants to fix this problem immediately.

This article influences the reader to find out more about how to avoid this digital problem, and Trinsic Technologies offers its services at the end to ensure that you are secure.

Keeping readers’ attention throughout the article will often require you to delay the solution until they’ve read enough to have committed to your brand.

Discussing the problem first without immediately giving away the solution will encourage consumers to keep reading.

Know the Difference Between Features and Benefits

You can begin the structure of your headlines by better understanding the difference between features and benefits.

Features are specific qualities of your product. These concepts are often measurable, such as when an engine has six cylinders, fuel injection, and 3.5-liter chambers.

Benefits, on the other hand, are why buyers invest in your product or service. Consumers would buy the above engine for transportation needs, such as taking children home from school, commuting to work, or running errands.

Professional copywriters begin their message with benefits to get the reader to daydream a little.

For example, Pinterest evokes the emotion of its audience to plan a dream vacation with the platform with a vague headline of others doing so.

Not only did this campaign present benefits and capture the attention of the audience, but it also placed a call-to-action right below to encourage people to register for Pinterest.

After content provides the emotional connection, writers then discuss the features and provide a call-to-action to get readers to justify a purchase.

The Best Format to Use for your Content

Eighty-one percent (81%) of consumers research products and read content before making a purchasing decision. Without great content, you’re likely losing out on consumers who want to learn more about your brand and products.

Consider these steps while you’re creating content:

1. Title: Use your title as the main headline, and remember that 80% of readers will decide if your content is worthy based on its headline alone.
2. Introduction: The introduction should consist of at least 100 words with your major topic and keywords. An introduction is meant to get the reader excited about what’s to come, so make sure you provide a quick overview of the article without giving away too much.
3. Subheads: Divide your content up with subheads, and use them to add more keywords. Subheads allow the article to separate according to topic, so it doesn’t feel like one long post. This lets the reader know when you are wrapping up one portion of your post and starting a new one.
4. Bulleted Lists: Space out your writing in a way that lets readers find what’s important to them.
5. Conclusion: A conclusion is your grand finale, so make it a good one. Wrapping up your content with a few sentences is important to remind the reader of the main takeaways and what to do next. The conclusion is where you offer a solution – your product or service – to the readers’ problem.

The Importance of Content Marketing

Content marketing is essential in a world where consumers increasingly rely on the internet and content to make a purchasing decision.

Business owners interested in optimizing their content marketing strategies can enhance their conversion rates significantly. This starts with understanding the importance of content marketing, creating well-written articles, and copywriting.

Start using these content marketing techniques so your organization can have a more effective content strategy.

About the Author

Arya Bina is the founder & CEO of Kobe Digital, a Los Angeles-based digital marketing agency that focuses on helping mid-size businesses reach their target audiences by leveraging the power of the internet.