Content is everywhere, from the dancing, flashing LED screens on the underground train network to the words you read on your favourite blog. Whether video, animation, images, infographics or just text, content has turned digital marketing on its head. It is now essential to have a content strategy as an integrated part of a wider digital marketing strategy. If you don’t have this, you are missing out on a huge source of lead generation – here’s how:
Supporting the customer’s journey
Every business has a sales funnel, with marketing involved in supporting this journey more than ever in the digital age when people can easily browse to find the best deal. If they are not finding the information they need and want at the stage that is relevant to them at this point, it is really easy to go and find this information elsewhere. Content that is tailored to the considerations at each level of the funnel reduces the likelihood that people will drop out of the process.
Delivering complete relevancy
If a customer clicks on an advert and then doesn’t see how the website they arrive at is relevant to the advert, you have instantly lost a potential lead. By having content in your marketing collateral both on and offline that supports your website, the customer is instantly aware that you have a cohesive message. This works well for content that is focused locally; for example, when the search is for web design in Teddington, consider what kind of content your local audience might benefit from.
It goes hand-in-hand with strong branding
There are some companies that have such strong branding that you can identify their content just by the use of colour or typography. Infographics are highly shareable images that deliver information in a visually appealing way. If you are thinking about overhauling your website and are looking for web design in Teddington, make it one of your priorities to ask about visual content and how this could be integrated into your site’s new design.
It ticks the right SEO boxes
SEO has come a long way since the days of short pages bursting to the seams with keywords and less-than-savoury backlinking practices. While effective in the short term, this ultimately caused the demise of many a website. SEO is now much more focused on quality of practice, with content a natural part of this. Websites that have new, relevant content added frequently are more likely to perform well in Google searches, with rich content increasingly a part of this. If you have customer feedback, for example, it is definitely worth including this in a visible place on your website. Not only will this act as a great trust signal to potential leads but it will also work well with search engines.
It is a cliché to say that content is king; however, the truth is that many marketers still abide by the adage, even if it is not always spoken aloud. Don’t ignore it.
