Content marketing is something that is talked about more and more these days, and it is easy to see why. It is getting bigger and bigger, and it really proving that it has a place in marketing today. It is showing how effective it can be in getting your brand and message out there, as well as helping to generate leads, and generally build more awareness of your brand. To show the proof, it has been found that when companies use content marketing, it has helped their website traffic by nearly eight times as much compared to those that aren’t implementing this as part of their content strategy.
Even with all of this being said, there are still plenty of businesses that aren’t utilizing content marketing to their advantage. Could it be that they simply don’t understand what it is all about? Or perhaps they have heard some misinformation about it and they haven’t heard all of the marketing facts? Here are some of the common myths surrounding content marketing, to help you to decide for yourself if this is something you need to make as part of your marketing plan.
“Only certain businesses will benefit”
One of the most common myths around content marketing is that only some businesses should use it, and that it won’t work for others. But in fact, that is not true at all. Any business can make a success of content marketing as in this day and age, it is completely relevant. In layman’s terms, content marketing is way of interacting with your customers and the start of building a relationship with them. And isn’t that what all businesses need?
“Quantity over quality”
Content marketing, as the name suggests, is all about the content that is being put out there. But is it better to have more out there, regardless of the quality of it? Not at all! While search engines love fresh new content, it needs to be content that is relevant and that is of a good quality. Otherwise, people won’t keep coming back for more, if what is on offer is a little lackluster. The content that is on offer needs to offer something to the readers and website viewers, and bring some value.
“Long form content is the best”
When it comes to content online, there is a lot of talk about how long articles should be. And in many instances, long form content has seemed to be the thing that has reigned supreme. There have been some studies that have shown that longer articles, such as ones that are around 1,800 words in length, do perform better with search engines. But back to the previous point about content and quality, can you be ensuring quality articles if you have so many words to write? Your audience plays a role in this too. Business blogs, for instance, may well have a readership that can happily spend time reading 2,000 word articles. But parent bloggers content would tend to be shorter, as it is what the readership want; they don’t have time for super long articles.