Table of contents:
6 (perhaps surprising) stats that’ll have you confidently upping your content marketing budget - starting now.
Will you find your next customer, or will they find you?
That is the question.
If you don’t have a clearly defined inbound marketing strategy, then the answer to that will be simple: it’s on you.
If, on the other hand, you’ve got a content marketing game plan, you’ll be in the lovely position of having potential new customers come to you.
How?
Because consumers are saturated with ads and pushy sales tactics. More and more, they’re looking for brands they can build a relationship with. Brands they trust.
That said, creating and distributing amazing content comes with a price tag. Add to that the fact that it can take months to see results, many founders are understandable asking themselves,
“Is content marketing really worth it?”
We’ve pulled together 5 (perhaps surprising) stats, that’ll have you confidently upping your content marketing budget - starting now.
Content marketing gets 3x the leads per dollar spent vs paid search
The main objective of any marketing you do - paid or otherwise - is to drive quality traffic to your site. This means traffic that is likely to either become, or stay, your customers.
And for a long time, businesses have been investing in targeted ads across multiple channels to try and make that happen.
Turns out, when you compare content marketing against paid search - content marketing gets 3x the number of leads for every dollar you spend.
Yep...we did say 3x.
Better still, over time content marketing has a snowball effect. Unlike paid search, it’s creates a self-sustaining ecosystem to keep fuelling your site with quality relevant traffic.
Instead of buying media, you’re owning it.
Or, put otherwise, instead of renting an audience by way of paid ads, you’ll own your own. Once you’ve built your audience, you won’t have to pay again to keep accessing it. Paid, on the other hand, needs a constant stream of money if you are to keep getting results.
So not only are the costs significantly lower, but the long term effects of content marketing are likely to have an exponential benefit for your business.
The average company that blogs gets 55% more traffic than those that don’t
Yep, you read that right.
According to Hubspot, the average company that blogs has 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and a whopping 434% more indexed pages.
Why’s this important?
Well, quite simply: the more traffic you have to your site, the more people you have to fuel your funnel.
The benefits of having a blog increase exponentially the more posts you have. One study showed that once a site has over 300 indexed pages, traffic generation increases by an enormous 236%. (Source: Sigma Web Marketing)
Yearly growth in site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders vs. content marketing followers
Content marketing leaders are those who show others - consumers and businesses - how to meet their needs. Whether that’s how to do a specific task, or how to feel better about themselves - content marketing leaders pave the way to empowered people and businesses.
If you are one of these leaders, then according to research by Aberdeen, your year-on-year growth of unique site traffic will be almost 8x higher than that of your ‘follower’ competitors.
Pretty impressive, huh?
So how should you do this? Challenge yourself to create long-form content that is totally unique, and that actually has the ability to help your readers do, act and be their best selves.
Conversion rates are almost 6x higher for companies with a solid content marketing strategy than those without
A recent study found that companies who put content marketing front and centre of their marketing strategy increase conversion rates by almost 6x over those who don’t (with a 2.9% uplift).
Those with an ineffective content marketing strategy only saw marginal gains of 0.5%.
That’s a huge difference, and one that will have an astronomical impact on eventual sales and revenue.
When you have a limited pot of money to spend on marketing, finding the right balance of how and where you want to allocate it is key. But if you are going to invest in content marketing, the above stat shows just how important it is to do it right.
64% of B2B marketers saw gains from outsourcing their writing
(source: TopRank Marketing)
Done right, content marketing can and will have a huge impact on your inbound traffic. So doing it is surely a no-brainer….right?
Wrong. Not if you don’t have the resources to do it properly.
One of the key ways you can overcome this blocker is by outsourcing your writing to a partner you trust. If you’re thinking of outsourcing, here’s how to hire the perfect freelance writers. Or, alternatively, you can work with an on-demand service to take care of the whole process for you.
The bottom line?
Dollar for dollar, content marketing is one of the most effective strategies for growth. If you develop a consistent and solid approach that's based on a core understanding of your user’s needs, you’ll not only make your traffic soar, but you’ll increase conversions too.
If you need help fuelling your content marketing machine, contact Scribly.io to see how we can help you get started today.
