What is Content Marketing and Its Role in Revenue Growth

What is Content Marketing?

If digital marketing is dominant today, content marketing has been its biggest driver. Content marketing, in its various manifestations, has laid the foundation of the digital revolution. In marketing parlance, "content marketing" is a strategic marketing approach, focused on the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, creative, and consistent content in order to attract the targeted audience. The words "relevant" and "creative" have been associated with content marketing.

Content Marketing has substantially grown over the years. It has become an integral part of brand marketing strategy. With the accelerated expansion of digital marketing and the rise of social media, there is ever increasing demand for quality content.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have fueled the growth of content marketing. Advertisers, in addition to traditional advertising methods, are constantly exploring digital platforms to market their products and services.

Relevance of Content Marketing

The content, until and unless fresh and relevant, might not leave a desirable impact on the targeted customer segment. Another aspect of content marketing is the use of the appropriate channel to reach the right audience. No matter how powerful the content might be, if it does not reach the desired audience, it loses its significance.

Content marketing starts with the identification of customer needs. The need can be in any form. It can be in the form of an object. It can be emotional or intellectual. Digital marketers require a research-oriented approach to find out which content works for the targeted audience.

They need to look beyond the marketing data analytics and develop an eye to spot future trends and changing customer preferences, needs, interests, and behaviors. Content should not only be relevant but engaging too.

Content Marketing Formats and Distribution Platforms

Content marketing has transformed over the last decade or so with the advent of various mediums. Let us understand content marketing in its various avatars.

To know what is content marketing, we can broadly categorize content marketing into seven types or formats. These are videos, blogs, podcasts, infographics, e-mail marketing, visual content, and e-books. Each category has its own benefits. This content can be distributed on multiple platforms, including social media. Each piece of content has its own distribution channel.

Once the content is ready, promotion of the content through various digital marketing channels is planned and implemented. Besides creating relevant and quality content, distribution through the right medium is equally important.

In an increasingly competitive marketing landscape, where digitalization is playing a dominant role, a pertinent content marketing strategy and distribution are absolutely necessary for an organization to be successful.

How Content Marketing Helps Organizations

Mere knowing what is content marketing is not enough, we need to understand how it can be helpful for us. Let’s now understand the role of content marketing and how it contributes to generating revenues for the organization. Content marketing can be used to achieve many organizational goals, with the end goal of generating higher revenues and increasing profitability.

Content marketing can be used to create brand awareness and brand loyalty for the organization, using short-term marketing campaigns. It can be used to attract new customers and retain existing ones. If it reaches the right audience and targets the right customers, it can increase traffic to the website, resulting in sales. It has been proven that if the content is consistently shared with the targeted audience, it not only generates sales but also translates into customer loyalty.

A consistent flow of information is pivotal for a long-term content marketing strategy and customer-centricity. Moreover, if the information shared is accurate, sound, and has a lot of value, it ultimately leads to a call-to-action (CTA).

The digital marketing team of an organization should always focus on creating high-quality content. In a few studies involving successful organizations, it has been found that high-quality content connects with the audience and is instrumental in generating genuine leads.

Research conducted in 2022 found that 47% of buyers view or absorb between 3 and 5 instances of content (audio/video/visual/blogs) before deciding to buy. Close rates for inbound marketing are eight to ten times higher than for outbound marketing. Companies that are consistent with their blogs are able to generate almost 70% more leads than those with little focus.

The Way Forward

Overall, content drives growth. Organizations, that have a focused strategy have a 25% higher growth rate. They know what is content marketing, and with an effective marketing strategy, they not only do well on the growth front but are also able to retain customers. Their customer retention rate is 8–10% better. These are significant numbers. The data suggests that content marketing works well if it is intelligently combined with a well-defined strategy, quality benchmarks, and a clear target customer segment.

While content marketing is primarily associated with generating leads and revenues, the acquisition cost involved in content marketing is significantly lower than paid acquisition.

Creating exceptional content is a difficult task. It is a tough business, given the competitive nature of the content and the saturation level of content distribution channels. Organizations that focus on building distinctive content and differentiation, are able to outcompete their rivals, apart from generating greater leads and revenues. Digital Marketing is evolving each year. In this context, Content marketing will also continue to change and grow.