Businesses Look to Content Marketing to Boost Their Appeal

Businesses Look to Content Marketing to Boost Their Appeal

Businesses are increasingly turning to content marketing in order to boost their reputation, as advertising continues to evolve to keep pace with the digital age.

Still a relatively young industry, content marketing involves companies creating written articles, videos, infographics and interactive content in a bid to build a loyal audience of customers online – ensuring that a brand ranks highly on Google searches.

The idea of content marketing might be alien to some business who are still used to paying for space in print publications or radio commercials, but it’s growing at a rapid rate – especially given that 81% of customers conduct online research before they buy anything.

As the way in which customers consume content changes – moving away from magazines, newspapers and live television – it’s vital that businesses reach out to their target audience on the sort of platforms that are more likely to grab their attention.

In a recent study – called the State of Content Marketing 2017 – Zazzle Media found that 70% of decision makers are planning to up their spend on content marketing this year. Not one of the people they asked planned cut the amount of money allocated for this.

A whopping 79% of respondents felt that content marketing was either very or quite effective. As a matter of fact, content marketing now accounts for almost a quarter of all marketing spend – a percentage that is only expected to rise.

These sorts of statistics show that this form of promotion has firmly established itself in the eyes of businesses who need to move with the times and change the way they interact with their customers.

Yet the same study also shows the challenges that businesses face when trying their hand at content marketing. Zazzle found that 60% of its respondents struggle to create content consistently and 65% find it tough to produce material that is engaging.

That’s perhaps no surprise for businesses who are now having to adapt to the new world. Rather than pay to use publishers to promote their adverts, they are now having to become mini publishers in their own right to stand out from the crowd. It’s one thing to produce written articles or visual content, but it’s quite another to do it well.

That all means that businesses need to invest in the right people, people with the skills to succeed. If it’s not possible to accommodate for this in house – and for many it’s not – it means finding the right agency with the right skills (as Inc points out here).

Content marketing offers an exciting opportunity for businesses, but it also presents a big challenge. As companies continue to move across from the “old world” to the new, it’s important that they identify these challenges and address them as they go.

source http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2017/05/03/businesses-look-content-marketing-boost-appeal/