Did you know that Content Marketing was one of the most highly sought-after skills that companies were looking for in their next marketer? There's a good reason why. And in this article, we're going to dig into five of those reasons to help you better understand as an entrepreneur or a side hustler why you need to start using Content Marketing. Hey there, I'm Sonnie, and if you're new here, I hope that you'll consider subscribing and sharing this article. I'll teach you something in sales, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship every single week to take you from zero to self-starter as you level up your business skills.

Reason 1: Content Marketing Builds Trust

But without further ado, let's jump into things. The first reason why Content Marketing is so powerful is that it helps you build trust with your prospects.

There is really no better way to build trust today than sharing information publicly. Let's say, for example, you were looking for an accountant and you had the choice between a CPA that just has a website but no content on it and an accountant that has answered hundreds of questions about taxes and accounting. Nine times out of 10, you would choose the CPA that had those hundreds of answers over the one without. And the reason why is that information is powerful these days. And we are in a time in which we like to learn more before we engage somebody in services.

And so that's what Content Marketing can fill the gap of. Content Marketing is a great way for you to demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your prospects.

Really effective Content Marketing shows your prospects that you know what you're talking about. Nowadays, people that build in public and share their knowledge with others publicly reap the benefits of that trust factor as opposed to the people that keep that information behind a walled garden and don't necessarily openly share their industry secrets. It's for this exact reason that if you were to jump onto Twitter, you would find a ton of people that have built massive audiences because they've openly shared expertise that they might have previously not shared online.

Reason 2: Makes Sales Easier

The second reason why Content Marketing is so powerful is that it makes your sales process so much more collaborative. In the past, I found it super effective to create Content Marketing pieces that share some of the stories of some of our greatest customer wins.

And the reason why is that if we can share these stories about different ways that organizations of different sizes have seen success with our product, then that will make the prospect that we are talking to even more compelled to learn more about our product. It creates a situation in which by the time the buyer makes it further down in the buyer's journey and continues to engage with a sales rep, they naturally have more and more questions about our product and want to learn more about different ways that they could or couldn't use our product to solve their problems. Oftentimes, I have found that the more questions people ask along the way in getting to the point of being ready to be sold something, the more likely they are to also make that purchase.

The reason why is that these are informed buyers that feel really confident about the solution at hand as a result of having consumed all these different forms of Content Marketing as well as having some productive sales conversations. When you're able to pair an effective piece of Content Marketing with an engaged prospect, I have found it to be one of the best ways to increase the average client value or the deal size of your company.

Reason 3: Gives More Exposure

The third reason why I think Content Marketing is so powerful is that it helps meet your prospects in a different medium. What I mean by this is that in most sales conversations, you're either having an in-person meeting or you're jumping on some sort of a call. So, this means that when you have Content Marketing pieces that are in the form of a PDF or a printable or something else, you can have the prospect engage with your company and your brand in a different media. By meeting your prospect through a different medium, you're giving another exposure point to your brand or a company that doesn't require them to interface with somebody from your brand.

As a result, they have more power to form their own impression about your company or your brand, which allows them to feel more like an empowered consumer.

This mere exposure effect really starts to compound over time because it really establishes yourself as the person or the company that your prospect will think of the next time, they think about the thing that you solve. Back when I was a one-minute salesperson generating our first million dollars in sales, I had to use a combination of a lot of email marketing and Content Marketing in order to reach all of our prospects. Since we didn't have all that much bandwidth. And this Content Marketing definitely worked because even though not every prospect bought from me that year, they would be prospects that would pop back into my inbox a year or even two years later, responding to an email campaign or some sort of Content Marketing piece because they thought about our company and what we solve when they were ready to make a purchase.

Before we head into the fourth reason why Content Marketing is so powerful, hit that like button below if you are finding this article valuable.

Reason 4: Generates Qualified Leads

The fourth reason why Content Marketing is so powerful is that it helps you generate qualified leads. Each Content Marketing piece that you create becomes another asset that will compound into your Content Marketing machine. And as a result, give you another opportunity to get in front of the right sort of customer. If we think back to that earlier example of the CPA site, if we were to add a simple call-to-action at the end of every single one of our answers to those hundreds of accounting or taxes questions, we could have another few hundred opportunities to get in front of the right sort of customer and have them reach out to us if they had additional questions about their tax situation or some sort of question that they couldn't get answered from the Content Marketing piece.

By providing this sort of channel, we would be able to better identify a more qualified lead than just somebody that would have contacted us through the contact page on our website.

Reason 5: Helps SEO

The fifth reason why Content Marketing is so powerful is that it bolsters your business's SEO. SEO is a long game. So over time, each of your Content Marketing pieces will snowball and build a bigger and bigger asset for your business. Building up your Content Marketing is very similar to building up a YouTube channel.

And as a result, I am gradually snowballing the different Content Marketing pieces that could be applicable to whatever business endeavor I want to expand into in the future. I'll have some future articles that'll give you more information about the different ways to optimize your content for SEO. But trust me, when I say that it makes a big difference in building up your authority and trust in your space and as a result growing your brand or business. The reason why it's so important to build up your trust and authority with Google is that it's a major ranking factor in which if you are more trustworthy or more authoritative than your competitor, your website is more likely to be shown higher up in the search results on Google. As a result of that, the next time that somebody is looking for your product or service, they're more likely to end up on your website than your competitors.

Conclusion

There are two big takeaways from today's article. The first one is that Content Marketing helps you make your sales process way more efficient. If you can answer some of the questions that prospects are commonly asking you through your Content Marketing, you will make more sales because people are going to be more educated in their buyer's journey. The second big takeaway is that when done right, Content Marketing can create some powerful flywheel effects. In the past, I've built blogs that generate millions of pages every single month.

And as a result, tons of qualified leads simply because of a commitment to a multi-year effort around Content Marketing. Now it's your turn. Tell me in the comments below what your current Content Marketing strategy is. I love hearing from you, and I try to read and respond to every single comment. If you found this article helpful in better understanding why Content Marketing is so important, share this article to help others with their journey too.

And also, since you've made it so far in this article, I hope that you'll consider subscribing to get more content on sales, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship.

For help with your Content Marketing strategy, contact Sonfu Digital Solutions.

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