What Results Can I Expect From Content Marketing?

I have yet to meet an entrepreneur whose business doesn’t need any more customers, and with all the talk these days about content marketing, more companies than ever have begun to embrace this highly effective form of marketing as a means of customer attraction.

If you are considering embracing content marketing (plus some marketing automation) in your business and you are wondering what to expect in terms of results, this post is for you.

Managing Expectations

The very first thing you need to understand about content marketing is this: results do not happen over night. Identifying your target audience’s needs, wants, and desires takes time. Creating content takes time. Accumulating social proof and traffic take time.

In other words, success with content marketing takes time (though there are tactics you can employ to speed up your results).

To see what I mean (and properly set your expectations), please watch Rand Fishkin from Moz address some of the major misconceptions about content marketing.

While overnight success isn’t something you should expect, one thing you can expect – once the momentum begins to kick in – is this: high quality content produces traffic and leads for a very long time!

Should you decide to embrace content marketing, here’s just a few of the things that you should be aware of:

Content marketing requires resources (your time and/or someone else’s)
Content marketing requires expertise and new habits
Meaningful results are unlikely in the first 3-5 months
Sustained activity will produce steady long-term growth

Want proof that it works? Check out these 50 brands using content marketing.

Still not convinced? Here are some more statistics:

93% of B2B Marketers are using content marketing
42% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing efforts as effective
Only 44% of B2B Marketers have a documented content strategy
73% of B2B Marketers have someone in charge of content marketing strategy

(Content Marketing Institute / Marketing Profs Study)

We Walk Our Talk

Over the last 18 months, my personal blog, Bright Ideas has become a very successful business as a result of the steady increase in traffic to our website. As you can see below, traffic has, more or less, steadily increased since day one. As you might also expect, the volume of leads, customers, and revenue has also steadily increased.

Did it happen over night? No, it didn’t. Our success was the result of a sustained investment in content creation, and so long as we continue to produce content that is of value to our audience, it’s quite reasonable to expect that our traffic & revenue will also continue to increase.

Do we spend any money on advertising? Not really. We do spend a bit here and there to drive traffic to landing pages we want to test, but that is about it.

Do we engage in direct mail and employ a sales force? No, we don’t.

Instead, we invest heavily in content creation, and so should you.

How to Get Started With Content Marketing

Hopefully by now, you have realized that success with content marketing takes time and it requires a plan that is built on proven strategies.

If you are looking for just such a plan, we can help.

Step One: The Inbound Marketing Game Plan

The first step in working with us is to have us produce a Inbound Marketing Game Plan for you. The purpose of creating the game plan is to do a deep dive on your company’s current marketing assets & strategies so that we can produce a 90 day content marketing game-plan that you can use to help you get a positive ROI on your investment as soon as possible. (as opposed to endlessly writing blog posts that aren’t a part of an overall strategy)

Step Two: Execute the Plan, Track Data, and Adjust Where Needed

One of the best parts of digital marketing is that we can track everything that happens, and, as you might guess, all the data that is collected is incredibly valuable.

Here are just a few of the data points that we track:

Overall traffic
Where it’s coming from
Value of traffic from each source
Most popular calls to action
Which posts generate the most leads
Where the leads came from
Which emails the leads open
Which links the leads click
What social media interaction you’ve had with each lead
The overall performance (ROI) of each inbound campaign
And so much more…

If you are tired of not knowing where next month’s revenue is coming from and you are tired of not know which parts of your marketing are working, get in touch with us today.

Ready to Get Started?

Ready to get started? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute consultation now, or learn more about our process.

About
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Trent Dyrsmid

Founder at Groove Digital Marketing

Right after being a husband and father, and riding dirt bikes, Trent's next love is digital marketing. He is the author of the Digital Marketing Handbook and spends most of his time helping his clients succeed.