Why Content Marketing is King

I recently read a great article by Brian Gardner called “Why Content Marketing is THE Way to Start a Business“. The article began by giving some popular misconceptions about starting a business, mainly, how so many people think that “if you build it they will come”.

Essentially you want to build content to attract people to your eCommerce site. Why? Because you have to give a little to get a little. Content Marketing involves creating and sharing free and valuable content to convert prospects into customers*.  So why does Content Marketing work? Well Brian outlined the top 3 reasons:

1. Trust

People will trust you if you offer something of value for free. If you only charge for all your information, how are people suppose to know it’s legit and not a scam? This is where the Freemium model comes into play. A freemium model is where you offer a certain amount of content for free with the option of upgrading or having premium access to information for a price. By offering freemium information it can help to validate you as a credible source on the web.

2. Sharing

Nowadays people like to share information and it has never been easier with the magnitude of channels available to everyone on the internet. From Facebook to Twitter, Reddit to Digg, and Blogs to newspapers there is a plethora of information sources and channels to share. Stemming from point 1 above, if you are able to build trust with people, they will be more likely to share your content because they believe in you. By having more people share your content it will help to increase the flow of traffic to your site.

3. Payment

This is where trust becomes such an important aspect for content creation; because when people trust you, they will be more willing to pay for more content. You just have to convince them why it’s worth paying for. For example, by paying for more content will it give in depth statistics or recent trends? Does it give access to a specific topic for a webinar or forum?

Making content creation a priority in your eCommerce business is definitely a great idea. Why? Because it’s going to help build your site, generate traffic, convert that traffic into leads. However, most importantly it will transform and establish your eCommerce site as a thought leader in your space. If you are the go-to resource and knowledge leader for your industry then you have a great way to convert all that traffic and those leads into sales!

*http://www.copyblogger.com/content-marketing/