February 1st, 2019 | Updated on March 19th, 2024
For most self-starters in business, they feel like they can do it all. This may be true in some respects – after all, they have managed to build a business from next to nothing.
They may be a whizz at marketing and building buzz and excitement. They may even be top sellers and able to generate leads and conversions to sell whatever it is their business specialises in.
But, they might not be able to put this down in words. And that’s usually where assured self-starters fall down.
Content writing is a skill that some do better than others, and these people are more of an investment in your business than you would expect.
Whether it’s taking advantage of the content strategy across social media or in more traditional marketing, there are definite benefits to be seen. But, you may be thinking, do you really need a content writer for your business to succeed?
How Can A Content Writer Help Your Business?
Content writers are usually people who can turn a plain brief into something fairly exciting. The art of writing is the art of evoking emotion – which is essentially what your business should be doing in order to encourage potential customers.
You may offer a service of a product with a function, but writers will be able to turn this function into a benefit that the customer simply can’t go on a second longer without.
Content writers can bring fresh ideas and offer a fresh perspective on a business. You may see what you’re doing from too far within it to notice areas that are lacking, which a content writer can help bolster through their copy.
Whether from within your organisation or an outside freelancer who helps out, most businesses have someone dedicated to communicating to customers through web copy, email marketing, social media, whitepapers, leaflets, posters, brochures, and all manner of written text.
Follow The Leaders – Big Businesses Use Content Strategy
While a lot of SMEs may appear to just throw a few bits of content out there – especially when it comes to digital means – most actually have dedicated content teams that carefully craft messages, choose when to deploy the messages, and prepare to measure how these messages have worked and look into what could be done better in the future.
Innocent drinks, for example, employ a strong content strategy on social media that reflects the often twee and comforting nature of their business.Steak-umm, the frozen deli meat company, employed a guerrilla content strategy in the pursuit of one of the elusive Twitter blue ticks, and galvanized a whole crop of followers who became brand ambassadors.
Betway have a strong content strategy that focuses on facts and figures and infographics to translate information to their customers and those interested in their industry.
Not all content needs to be digital – Oasis drinks use humorous, often self-deprecating and meta billboard advertising that make it clear to the customer that they are a drinks company and eschew any of the formalities that marketing sometimes forces.
Canada’s Netflix Twitter feed is run by someone with their thumb on the pulse of the zeitgeist, resulting in meme marketing and content that reflects the joke du jour.
Let’s Talk Numbers – Content Writers Get Conversions
But does content do anything for a brand other than show that they know how to play the same game everyone else is doing? Content marketing in-house can be cheaper and yield better results than paid, and generates 3x as many leads as outbound marketing for 62% less of the price.
Ad overload means that self-published content is likely to be seen more. SMEs with blog content get 126% more leads than those without – and 61% of US customers made a purchase from a blog recommendation.
Conversion rates for content marketing can be as much as 6x as much as traditional marketing. In terms of SEO strategy, content allows you to succeed more – with 434% more search engine indexed pages than those without content.
Publishing 16x a month can result in 3.5x more traffic than those who don’t. Content marketing giants in business have 7.8x more traffic than those who aren’t as skilled at content creation.
As 93% of B2B businesses use content marketing, it shows that content marketing is a crucial tool in a business’s toolkit.
Content is a fancy word for the messages that a company decides to put out. It can be solely sales promotion, it can merge humor and sales messages, or it can solely be to show that the company has a human side and can laugh at itself.
It can focus on social media content creation or it can be all kinds of marketing. On the other end of the spectrum, it can inform and educate and summarise complex ideas about a business into a simple way of understanding.
Ultimately, businesses need content to survive and those without it can find themselves losing out on some of the tangible benefits, such as conversions.
