Crystal Clear Communications Blog

How can content marketing create awareness? What else can content do?

Creating brand awareness is the #1 goal that marketers successfully achieve with content marketing. About 4 out of 5 marketers create brand awareness successfully with content marketing, say Content Marketing Institute surveys.

B2C marketers build awareness with content

More than half of B2C marketers use content marketing not only to build awareness, but also to successfully meet additional needs:

• Build credibility and trust.
• Educate audiences.
• Build loyalty with existing customers.
• Generate demand, leads, sales and revenue. 

B2B marketers build awareness and more

B2B marketers report similar experiences with content marketing. 

Going beyond awareness-building, more than half of B2B marketers also use content marketing to sucessfully:

• Build credibility and trust.
• Educate audiences.
• Generate demand and leads.
• Nurture subscribers, audiences and leads.
• Build loyalty with existing customers.

How much success is due to content?

When marketers need to measure revenue from content marketing vs. other marketing activities, they run into a problem called attribution. 

In fact, this is the number one frustration for B2C marketers.

It’s tricky to get attribution right. Here’s a blog on how to minimize attribution error.

To prove in content marketing, perform a pilot project:

• Define clear market boundaries.
• Choose a greenfield or brownfield marketto apply content marketing only – no other marketing activities allowed during the pilot project. 
• Measure the sales lift. 
• Calculate return on marketing investment (ROMI). 

Great content helps buyers at every step

Content marketing drives awareness and consideration – and much more throughout the buyer’s journey. That’s especially important on a big-ticket purchase known as a carefully considered purchase. 

When buyers make a carefully considered purchase, content must get 4 jobs done for them. The accompanying infographic shows how to apply content marketing for carefully considered purchases – cars, homes, colleges, retirement plans, and capital expenditures.

“How to measure consideration and awareness contribution of content marketing?” is one of marketers’ Top 100 Questions about Content Marketing. 

I’ll speak on “How to Use AI to Unlock Secrets Inside Questions” at Content Marketing World (CMW) 2019. Use the discount code STENITZER19 to get $100 off your CMW registration.