Content Marketing Is the Only Marketing Left: 8 Reasons Why

In 2008, Seth Godin, entrepreneur, author, and marketing mastermind said that “Content marketing is the only marketing left.”

Not only did Godin seemingly predict the future, 13 years later his idea rings true.

What did Godin mean?

He meant that instead of churning out traditional advertising techniques, marketers should be focusing on creating content that matters to target consumers.

Today, marketers are still taking Godin’s advice to heart. 70% of marketers are investing in content marketing, and 78% of all major companies have 1-3 content marketing specialists on their team.

Why You Should Care About Content Marketing

It’s no coincidence that content marketing is a $600 billion and growing industry. Content marketing isn’t anything new. It’s changed a lot since I started, around 10 years ago. Consumers are using ad blockers more and more, they expect content that’s actually useful, and so does Google.

Not to mention, content marketing is crucial when it comes to e-commerce. In the United States, in particular, e-commerce sales are expected to grow upwards of $908 billion in 2021. Content marketing for e-commerce is the secret to growing your brand without draining your budget.

If you’re still scratching your head over what the big deal is about content marketing, let’s get into 8 reasons why content marketing is the only marketing left (and the only one you should care about).

8 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is the Only Marketing Left

Content marketing is essential, no matter what you’re selling. Quality content marketing can drive sales, create solid relationships with your customers (and potential customers), and the fact is, consumers today read up to 5 blogs before they will even consider investing in a product.

If you let content marketing pass you and your business by, you’re bound to regret it. Below are the 8 most important reasons why.

1. Content Marketing Helps Build Trust

This may be the most important takeaway from using content marketing for your business. If you want to grow your business, reach more customers, and sell more products, you’re going to have to gain people’s trust.

What drives brand trust? Quality content.

Quality content is not only informative and useful for your readers (and potential customers) but it’s also profitable for you. My trick for making profitable content every time is something that I call the 3-bucket topic strategy.

Here’s how it works: every time I create a piece of content I make sure that it fits in at least one of three buckets:

Bucket #3 is especially important when building brand trust. This is “fun” and “viral” content that serves to entertain and inform your customers. In other words, it helps to build a relationship (and trust) with your audience.

Like any relationship, trust is the cornerstone — don’t underestimate its power.

2. Content Marketing Builds Authority, Which Turns into Consistent Traffic

One of the biggest problems with traditional advertising is once the ads stop, the traffic to your site stops. If you become a content house, you can then become an authority site — that is, a trusted site (yup, here’s that trust factor coming in again).

How do you know if you have a content house?

• You use your OWN website, not a third-party platform
• You’re focused on your audience, and cater your content to THEM
• Your content is original and SEO-optimized
• You’re constantly looking for ways to maintain and update existing content
• You have a clear budget – and consistently stick to it

Remember: Consistent site traffic means consistent conversions. Don’t overlook it!

3. Content Marketing Leads to Better SEO Results

If you’re reading this article, you likely already know how important search engine optimization (SEO) is for bringing more traffic to your site. 70% of all site traffic starts with a search on a search engine like Google. In other words, SEO tactics can make or break your business.

And, consistent content creation can lead to 434% more indexed pages than sites that neglect their content. More indexed pages mean better Google results. See what I’m getting at?

SEO is so much more than loading up your site with keywords. Your audience is smart, and they’re going to notice if you’re more concerned with keywords than with content. Be aware of this as you beef up your content marketing efforts. Keywords are important. Quality content is more important.

SEO drives much more traffic than organic social media. 1000% more. Google recognizes the importance of content and even goes so far as to include why in their SEO starter guide. Google likes high-quality content because the site’s goal is to provide its users with the best, most relevant results.

4. Content Marketing Can Help You Stand Out

There are 570 million blogs online in 2021. How do you stand out? With something that I call your “content differentiation factor,” or CDF.

Your CDF is what makes you unique, it’s your signature, your secret, the thing that keeps your audience coming back for more every. Single. Time. You need to articulate your specific CDF and inject it into every angle of your content marketing.

You can start figuring out what it is by asking yourself, what makes me different?

Once you’ve determined your special CDF, you can use content marketing to communicate it to your audience and potential customers. In fact, content marketing is the best way to do this. Build your CDF into every part of your content strategy and you can’t go wrong.

5. Content Marketing Will Grow Your E-commerce Brand Without Funding

Many e-commerce startups don’t have massive budgets for marketing like the bigger brands that they’re running up against. You may have a unique idea, awesome products, and a signature CDF. But you probably don’t have a six or seven-figure advertising department backing you up.

Should you give up? HECK NO.

There’s a way you can grow your e-commerce brand without hundreds of thousands of dollars. Spoiler alert: It’s with content marketing! As you’ve probably realized, content marketing is all about providing value before making a sale.

Yes, this has to do with brand trust (obviously). The good news is, you can build brand trust with next to nothing, funding-wise. I started my own content marketing strategy with $75. You read that right.

The good news for you is people are now avoiding ads, and the use of ad blockers is at an all-time high.

Good thing you’re not putting out ads. You’re putting out high-quality and relevant content.

6. Content Marketing Works Hand in Hand with Social Media Marketing

Having interesting content on your blog will bring your audience to your social channels. Makes sense, right? You can then circle back to your channels and ask your people what they want to see on your blog. This will make you even more trustworthy as a brand, which will help drive your sales. It’s a beautiful process, isn’t it?

Your social media channels are great ways to drive traffic to your site especially if you make use of relevant industry hashtags. You can curate relationships with your customers by connecting with them directly via comments. You can even begin to create a list of blog topics based on what your audience is talking about and asking questions about. Don’t underestimate the gold mine of information you can find via your social channels.

That said, you should always focus on what you post on your own site. This goes back to building and maintaining your content house. You can think of social media as one of the paths that will lead back to your house.

7. Content Marketing Provides Different Ways of Connecting with Your Audience

Content marking sounds like a miracle solution so far, right? If you do it correctly, it can be. Unfortunately (or fortunately for those who know how to do it right), a lot of people go into content marketing without a plan. In marketing speak, that plan is called a strategy.

There are several different ways of connecting with your audience. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need a content marketing strategy, or plan that will guide the execution of your content. Below are just a few ideas of how you can connect to your audience through content marketing:

• SEO Blogging: SEO brings 1000% more traffic than social media (BrightEdge). Google picks and chooses which websites to rank based on a lot of different factors — one of them is how often you’re updating your site. The best way to do this is through consistent blogging. Don’t neglect old content either. Republish and update your old blogs with new information or images and you could increase organic traffic by 106%.
• Video: The most common form of content marketing out there. 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment (ROI) than a static image. Those numbers don’t lie. Keep in mind there are different types of videos you could be putting out there, from pre-recorded (best for YouTube) to live streams (Instagram and Facebook) and real-time (TikTok and Instagram).
• Email: Don’t underestimate the power of an email newsletter. Just make sure you’re bringing your CDF to your emails (as you should be in ALL your content) so that your audience actually opens and reads them. You want to watch out for sending too many emails as well. Email newsletters have a stellar ROI – $42 on every $1 spent.

No matter what avenue you choose (you should really take advantage of all of them), remember your strategy. It will lead you on a direct path to growth.

8. Content Marketing Will Increase Leads

Content marketing acts as an excellent lead generator. Studies show it brings in three times more leads than traditional, paid searches. The same study shows it also costs 62% less.

Content marketing is the perfect solution for your business if you cringe at the thought of being “salesy.” This type of marketing uses a completely different approach to selling: one that feels good because it adds value to your audience’s lives.

Selling your product or service should never be about convincing someone to make a purchase. You’re not here to beg, right? Your ideal customer already needs what you’re selling. They will fall in love with your CDF and naturally want to learn from you and buy your product or service. Here are just a few ideas of how to increase leads through your content:

• Figure out your customer’s questions, and create content around answering them
• Tailor your content to your ideal customer. What would they want to see?
• Nurture your relationship with your customers through your content and social channels to build trust
• Use content marketing tools like BrandWell, Canva, Yoast SEO, and ConvertKit

Conclusion

In today’s fast-paced world, traditional marketing just doesn’t cut it like it used to. Content marketing has become the real game-changer, and for good reason. It’s all about creating value, building trust, and genuinely connecting with your audience.

As consumers are bombarded with endless ads and promotions, content marketing helps you stand out by offering something they actually want to engage with.

So, if you’re looking to make a real impact and build lasting relationships with your audience, content marketing is where it’s at.