Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing engaging and informative content freely so that your company can attract prospects and turn them into long lasting customers.
The idea behind content marketing is that by distributing content in the form of blog posts, news releases, e-mails, white papers, case studies, e-books, infographics, and video, you come to be known by your prospects as the go-to expert in your sector. Your prospects also come to know and trust you (hence helping them become life-long customers).
But does content marketing really work?
Read below for some statistics about the effectiveness of content marketing:
Content marketing costs less than traditional marketing (62 percent less) and provides about three times as many leads (source).
In fact, using this type of inbound marketing is reported to save up to 13 percent in the overall cost per lead (source).
Of marketers surveyed in 2011 (source), 72 percent of them said they believed branded content to be more successful in delivering customers than magazine ads. Nearly 70 percent said content marketing is also better than direct mail and – gulp! – Public relations.
Prospects who became customers after reading or seeing branded content tend to make purchases that are 47 percent larger than so-called “non-nurtured” leads (source).
Prospects and current customers who receive e-mail marketing messages spend 83 percent more when they buy (source).
In fact, 60 percent of marketers say they receive a good return on their e-mail marketing investment (source).
Companies and brands that include infographics in their content marketing reportedly (source) receive 12 percent more traffic than companies/brands that don’t.
A high percentage of all marketers use content marketing: 91 percent of business-to-business marketers use content marketing (source), while 86 percent of business-to-consumer marketers do so (source).
Finally, nine out of 10 organizations say they engage in content marketing (source).
Be wary, though: More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed said they become irritated (source) when they go to a website with content that has nothing do with why they came to the website (the content isn’t about the business’ offerings).
58 percent of consumers surveyed (source) said they trust editorial-like content.
The takeaway: If you’re using more traditional ways of marketing and not using content marketing to attract customers and turn them into repeat buyers of your products and services, you’re a) spending too much and b) at risk of losing clients to those competitors who are.
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