Understanding how content marketing drives sales is one of the most important foundations a business needs in order to grow.
As we delve into different ways content marketing can help drive sales, you will also see how this type of inbound marketing can be used to increase engagement, build your personal brand, and automate your sales funnels.
However, for conversions to happen, it’s not enough to just put out content randomly.
You need to have a clear-cut content marketing strategy in place so you can use each piece of content to its fullest potential.
With that said, if you use content marketing as a bridge between your audience and what you have to offer, it’s possible that you can make your content marketing campaign drive more sales to your business.
Content marketing strategies paired with an effective sales funnel can make a massive difference to your business, even when you’re just starting out.
How Content Marketing Drives Sales in Digital Marketing
Some ways content marketing drives sales include:
- Content marketing builds trust & trust converts
- Content marketing builds community
- Content marketing creates brand awareness
- Content marketing builds a revolving door of new leads.
- Content marketing can automate your sales funnel
- Content marketing helps you get found on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc…
- Content marketing acts as a 24/7 sales team
1. Content Marketing Builds Trust & Trust Converts
Content marketing has been shown to build trust faster than any other marketing method.
People are attracted to relatable and trustworthy brands, and the more you put yourself out there, the more people will begin to trust you.
And as a result, this element of trust is what will convert your readers into potential leads, thus driving sales.
This is the first approach to how content marketing drives sales.
Picking up on this element of trust is a crucial aspect of any content marketing strategy.
People are more likely to buy a product or service after reading a piece of content that they can relate to in some way.
After all, what you say through your content matters, and it’s important that your brand is authentic as well as relatable to your readers.
By educating and informing your audience about the product or service you provide, you’ll be able to engage them with your personal brand and ultimately convert them into leads for your business.
2. Content Marketing Builds Community
The second element of how content marketing drives sales is through the power of community.
When drafting your content strategy, do not forget to include your plan about building a community and engaging them through your content.
And if your readers trust you enough, they’ll become engaged and share that content with their friends – thus creating community and engagement around your brand.
This raises awareness about what you do; it shows that you are creating value for people who might not have the resources or would not think about buying a product or service from your company.
3. Content Marketing Creates Awareness
For a business to drive sales through content marketing, it’s essential to truly understand your audience and the problems they’re facing.
Writing high-quality content that addresses these problems, will immediately create an element of trust and intrigue for your readers.
Be sure to create engaging content that aligns with the needs of your audience.
The more you address their problems and concerns in your content, the more they’ll know you’re the person they want to buy from because you understand them.
Not only are you creating awareness of your brand and product, but you’re also building a bond with potential leads through personal stories, exposing them to who it is behind the business and why they do what they do.
So not only are you better able to engage your audience, but you’re able to create more trust in them, providing an even higher chance of converting them into leads and sales.
4. Content Marketing Builds a Revolving Door of New Leads.
Content marketing has the ability to build your brand, grow awareness of your business, and ultimately drive leads to your sales funnel – all through engaging with leads in the right way.
By creating valuable and high-quality content that keeps people reading, you’ll create awareness of who you are as a business, building trust and engagement with your audience.
Content marketing will open up the dialogue between you and your audience so that you can grow influence with your audience and build a relationship with them.
This is done through transparency and authenticity, which also builds trust.
Publishing quality content on a consistent basis with valuable information for your readers will keep them coming back for more, rather than encouraging them to bounce from site to site looking for answers elsewhere.
5. Content Marketing Can Automate Your Sales Funnel
You can absolutely use content marketing to help guide users through what they need to do next in their buyer’s journey – whether that’s signing up for a webinar, downloading a free ebook, etc.
This is an excellent strategy because it helps guide people into making a final decision about buying your product or service.
It also exposes them to what your business is all about and how you can help solve their problems.
By setting up an automated sales funnel through content marketing, you’ll be able to convert more readers into leads and ultimately help you drive more sales for your business.
By setting up a system whereby people are automatically taken to certain pages and links, you’ll be able to capture more leads with every piece of quality content you publish.
This will allow you to create a revolving door of sales and leads.
6. Content Marketing Helps You Get Found on the Search Engines
We all know that the best place to get noticed by our target audience is on Page 1 of the search engines.
This is one factor why content marketing is so effective at driving leads.
Creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content on a regular basis can help you get found by searchers and drive them to your website for further desired actions.
And although it’s important that you have a great website in order to convert leads, you should focus on your SEO game in the first place to get noticed first and foremost.
Make sure your content follows all the best practices of search engine optimization such as:
By focusing on your SEO plan, you’ll help drive organic traffic to your website and hopefully capture more leads and do more sales.
So yes, content marketing can drive sales – it helps you gain more visibility online by getting found on search engines.
7. Content Marketing Acts as a Free 24/7 Sales Team
Using content marketing to speak and engage with your audience is like having a 24/7 sales team working for you.
However, your content needs to be of high quality. It’s the same as having a top-quality team of sales person who knows how to convince people to purchase your product.
Your content needs to speak on your behalf, on behalf of your brand or company, and convey the message to attract and convert those interested leads.
By putting out amazing content, you’re activating a free sales team that will work for you even when you’re sleeping or busy with something else.
Instead of paying for sales persons, you can invest in content marketing and let them act as your sales team!
8. Content Marketing Reduces Abandoned Carts
Content marketing gives you the ability to convert lost and potential customers into leads and sales by giving them a reason to stay on your website and read your content.
If your content is valuable, relevant, and useful enough, you’ll have readers clicking through from one blog post to another.
And if they love reading your blog content, they’ll stay on your site longer – which increases the chances of them making a purchase or becoming a lead for your business.
What Kind of Content Helps Increase Sales?
Now that we’ve seen what content can do for your business, let’s look at the best types of content that can help move your business forward.
1. Blog Posts/Articles
Blog posts are the best type of content to use if you’re looking for content that will engage leads and encourage them to click through to your sales page.
The way you write your blog posts is very important.
It will dictate how engaged your readers are, how much they like the information in the post, and whether they’ll eventually convert.
It will be in your best interest to create content that truly resonates with your audience, addresses their pain points, and finally provides a solution to their problems.
That’s one of the most simple ways you can go about converting a reader.
Fully-optimized articles for the search engines can help you get found and drive organic traffic to your website.
Articles give you the opportunity to expand on a specific topic as much as you want to help educate your audience.
There’s no limit to the number of blog posts you can create to reach your target audience.
However, make sure that you first build a content marketing strategy laying out everything pertaining to your future content marketing activities, be it content production, distribution, performance tracking, and so on.
2. Product Review Videos
I’ve said it and I’ll say it again: a video is worth 1,000 words.
Videos can provide your potential customers with a visual representation of what they’re getting with your products or services.
And if you do it right, they become even more interested in your product.
Your audience gets the opportunity to see the quality of the goods that you sell, as well as learn how to use them properly and get instant gratification because the video is illustrated through visuals and voice-over narration.
This is why it’s a great idea to use video content marketing as your main marketing tool.
3. Webinars: A Great Way To Directly Sell Your Products Or Services
A webinar is basically similar to an online meeting where you can speak to your audience about the benefits of your product or service and answer questions that they have about the same.
Of course, you do not want to sound pushy in your sales efforts by starting your webinar with “hey I have this amazing product bla bla bla”.
Just as in a blog post, you want to give your audience something of value in a webinar and make sure that they genuinely value the information you are sharing with them.
Always remember to build that element of trust when adopting a new type of content.
4. eBooks
When it comes to ebook creation, all you need is a laser focus on the content and your audience.
This is true for any kind of content marketing since you have to have a clear understanding of who your audience is and what they want from you.
Then, create content that provides them with value.
One thing that ebooks can help you with is the fact that you can make money for as long as there is an audience for your content.
This was seen in an experiment by WordStream where a company generated revenue from their content marketing even after they stopped publishing new blog posts.
5. Video Content
Nowadays, content creation is not in written form only.
With video content creation, companies can now engage their prospects and customers with a better understanding of who they are, what they do, and how they can help solve problems.
Video is one of the best ways to communicate and relay an important message or point to your audience.
By using video you can reach a wider audience, increase retention rates, and quickly convey your message because people love videos.
And in some industries, video content is much more appreciated because it’s easier to digest and easier for the viewer to understand.
You will notice that all social media sites are changing their algorithm to focus more on video content.
This means that their algorithm is favoring video more than other types of content like static images.
For instance, Instagram is now giving more exposure to accounts that are posting reels (short-form videos).
It’s the same for Pinterest, which is supposed to be a visual search engine but is putting video content at the forefront.
So video content is a very effective way to create content that will attract your potential customers and convert them into leads and sales.
6. Infographics
Infographics are visually appealing visual representations of complex data or information that are easy to understand.
They are still considered a type of content since they aim at conveying information in an easy-to-read format.
Infographics are perfect for visual learners who would find it difficult to understand huge amounts of text.
And since infographics can be shared across social media platforms, they have the potential to reach a lot of people and spread your message.
If you’re an entrepreneur or marketer and you’ve never used an infographic in your content, you should definitely give it a try.
7. Podcasts
Podcasts are all the rage these days since they are a great way to generate leads and sales to your business.
I could actually say that podcasts are a great way to create content that will get you more followers on social media and drive leads with little to no work.
I mean, you’re essentially creating voice-over audio content for people who hate reading. Once it’s done, you can put it on your podcast software or platform and let it go.
That being said, the reason why podcasts are so effective is that they are easily digestible.
I mean, it’s not like watching a video where you have to be sitting in front of your laptop to consume the content.
You can go for a walk, run, do your workout in a gym, and still be consuming that podcast content.
And nowadays, more and more businesses are turning to podcasts to reach a new audience. If you haven’t tried using this content marketing strategy yet, you should really give it a shot.
8. Social Media Posts
Social media posts are very effective to drive sales to your business if you know what you’re doing on the platform.
Here also, you need content marketing strategies in order to get the most out of your content marketing efforts.
Social media posts can reach a whole new target audience who might not be reading your blog.
But the key to success with social media content is to provide value with every post that you publish.
This can be anything from a fun fact to a piece of information that will make your audience’s day better and brighter.
Social media is about engagement and interaction, so make sure that you are focusing on this element when creating content for social media platforms.
And as with blog posts, a social media post should also exist to provide valuable content. So, don’t just post for the sake of it, and don’t be a spammer.
Instead, come up with content that provides value to your target audience first and foremost.
You will see that when you do this, more and more visitors will come back to your social media pages because they know your content is genuine.
Wrap Up
I hope by now you have understood how content marketing drives sales and what you should do to ensure you get the most out of the strategy.
It’s definitely worth the effort and you should start right away – especially if your business needs a little boost right now.
Now that you know what content marketing can do for your business, it’s time to start creating some valuable content to drive sales and leads.
One of the most important things to remember is that you have to develop a content marketing strategy first + a content workflow.
After you have a clear vision of what you want to create, you should start mapping everything out.
Then look at the content that your competitors have created. Use their best ideas to create content that is even better than theirs.
As I mentioned before, content is not a one-time thing that you can produce once and forget about it.
Content marketing is a continuous process of creating new material to generate leads and sales for your business.
If you have any doubts at all or need any help with executing your content strategy, shoot me a message via the contact form on this website and I would be more than happy to help.
Remember: if real interest for your audience is not integrated into your overall content marketing strategy, then there won’t be enough value in your content.
This could lead current and potential customers to believe that you’re only after their money more than helping them solve a problem they have.