Content marketing

Advantages and disadvantages of content marketing

Content marketing can help you engage your audience and build relationships, ultimately boosting sales. However, there may be certain challenges. These include thinking of good content ideas and finding the time to write it.

Advantages of content marketing

Content marketing helps you to:

• Build brand awareness, trust and loyalty – people consuming your content will start to build an impression of your brand. Publishing informative, well-researched content means your business will be seen as authoritative and trustworthy. The more your audience rely on you for information, the more likely they will be to buy from you. 
• Reach an audience who may avoid ads – using content rather than traditional advertising can help you reach potential customers who may use ad blocking software or actively avoid or ignore traditional advertising.
• Keep costs down – there are no media placement costs and most work can be done in-house. This means your spend can be kept low.   
• Increase traffic and conversions – quality content draws your audience to your website, boosting web traffic. Once they are on your site, you can persuade them to register or make a purchase (ie convert). 
• Support your other marketing tactics – good content is important for the success of many other marketing tactics, such as search engine optimisation, social media and public relations.

Disadvantages of content marketing

Some of the main challenges include:

• The benefits aren’t immediate – content marketing can be a long process. There is normally a period of trial and error to discover what works best before you see results.
• Skills and resource – content marketing can be time-consuming. You need to create content, publish it across your marketing channels and analyse the impact. To create certain kinds of content such as infographics and videos, you may need to outsource or develop your in-house skills.
• Finding content ideas – it can be tricky to come up with ideas for effective new topics and formats. This will become easier as you go along and can analyse the impact of previous content.
• Evaluation – it’s relatively easy to measure the effect your content marketing has on web traffic and online conversions. It can be harder to determine the impact of your content on brand reputation, awareness and loyalty.