Picture this, you want to take a vacation to Italy and you come across two travel agents. Agent A gives your their rates and takes you through their booking process. Everything seems okay and their level of professionalism is acceptable. But agent B takes their time to share extra information with you. They give a comparison between travelling through an agent versus booking everything for yourself. They brief you on some of the hidden costs you should plan for when travelling to Italy and give you a detailed guide on how to make the most of your vacation. They teach you how to navigate language barriers and move around with ease.

By the time they are done, you feel better prepared and excited to travel. You also know more about the hidden gems in Italy and you are confident your trip will not be a waste of money. Who among the two agents would you work with?
Whether content marketing pays or not is a common question among entrepreneurs. A lot of you are concerned that content does not translate to sales and you will never get a return on your investment.

How does content marketing pay off?

Content marketing pays off in many ways, but there is a lot more you should know before investing in content. For starters, if you were to invest in Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads or advertise directly through other channels, you will probably attract way more leads in the short term, compared to content marketing.
Meanwhile, content marketing seems like a complete waste of money. You might not attract any leads today or tomorrow. However, an article or a video produced today could generate leads three years down the line. In addition, leads from content marketing tend to be of higher quality compared to other sources. According to an article by LinkedIn, blogging generates the highest quality leads compared to all other forms of digital marketing. Other forms of content marketing like podcasts, videos and social media content also take top positions on that list. Content builds trust, especially if you are consistent. By the time a prospect reaches out, they are already in love with your brand and they view you as a leader within that field.

Content helps target clients connect with brands on a human level. When the tone is right and relatable, it removes barriers brought about by formalities in the corporate world. In addition, content also boosts brand loyalty. If people can come to you when they need information on something technical and you share insights unreservedly, they will definitely prioritize your brand when they need services or products.
Of course, there is the organic traffic benefit. Content marketing is one of the most effective SEO tools used by many brands across the world. Over the years, Google has released numerous updates on their algorithm. With each update, it is clear that the giant search engine wants people to create quality content for their sites to rank higher up. Some of the tactics and shortcuts people used in the past such as keyword stuffing, are no longer rewarded as they used to.

In addition, Google is now crawling social media pages and ranking content shared there too. So, if you’ re not interested in blogging, social media content is a great option too. LinkedIn posts and optimized pages, for instance are very popular on Google search.

It seems, in the long run, brands with diverse multi-channel approach to marketing will attract more visibility and content marketing is a great way to diversify your marketing efforts.

How long should it take to get a Return on Investment (ROI) from content marketing?

There is no simple answer to this one. Data analyzed and shared by Neil Patel on how long it takes for SEO to work uncovered some interesting patterns. In the report, Neil and his team analyzed data from over 1 million sites. Out of this number, about more than 142,391 sites were actively working on various SEO strategies, among them, backlinking and updating or generating content monthly. Within the first 6 months, these sites experienced just 11.4% increase in their website traffic. By the end of the 1st year, there was only 9% increase in traffic. Things took an interesting turn in the second and third years with 49.4% and 30.7% increase in traffic respectively.

Out of this pool of 142,391 sites, there was a special bunch. 138 sites (slightly less than 1%) had significantly higher numbers than the rest. These sites grew over 50% in organic traffic per year. What was different about these sites? For starters they kept updating their content. Note that updating does not necessarily mean creating new content. It could be editing old content to add updates and make it more relevant.

These sites also created trustworthy brands through customer satisfaction and having appearance on multiple channels consistently. In other words, they are widely known and trusted. When generating new content, they also rode on the waves of trending topics, that way, they were able to attract more curious audiences.
Back to the question, “how long does it take to get your ROI on content marketing?”. The answers varies from brand to brand depending the effort and consistency you put into your content. You may not see results in the short term, but your content will definitely surprise you in the long term. Content marketing is a long-term investment.

What kind of content should you invest in?

By the end of year 2023, 91% of marketers were using video as their go to type of marketing content, according to statistics by Hubspot. It is also expected that brands will increase their video marketing budgets in 2024. Video is mainly popular with Business to Consumer (B2C) types of businesses. But it’s not just any type of video. Short videos dominated the social world in 2023 as Tik Tok and Instagram led the way as top social channels used for distributing such content. Tik Tok retained a 60 second limit on videos while Instagram experimented with different lengths. Youtube shorts gained traction too with more creators sharing their content across these three platforms to increase visibility.

Though LinkedIn did not set limits on video lengths, the platform introduced automated captions to encourage more video content on the platform. Ultimately, the shorter the video, the more likely it is to go viral. In 2024, it is likely that long form video might make a comeback, on some platforms. Tik Tok has now made it possible to post 10 minute long videos on the platform. Being a leader in video content, this move, might just shape how video content is created, shared and consumed in 2024.

Beyond video, long form articles retained their position on Google as the highest ranking type of content. Blog posts with long lists and “how to” content that goes above and beyond to provide high quality information are still being rewarded with more visibility and high ranking on search engines. Google also introduced “featured snippets” which improve the chances of ranking higher. Snippets are picked from pages with a “direct answer” of what a searcher is looking for. Content marketing increases the chances of earning a snippet and ranking higher.

Search Engine content still remains popular with B2B (Business to Business) brands.
As your brand ventures into content marketing, choosing the type of content to focus on will depend on your distribution channel. Each platform has its rules and preferences and to gain traction on your content, you have to stick to these rules. Choose a platform with the type of audience you want for your brand and create content that is acceptable on that platform. If you wish to take an omni-channel approach (sharing content across multiple platform), focus on content that can be shared across channels with ease.

How much should you spend on content marketing?

There is no straightforward answer to this question as it all depends on your business’ financial muscle. In the recent past we’ve seen cheaply produced content go viral and changing the fortunes of those involved. But let’s not forget that content cuts across branding and marketing. According to analysis by Neil Patel Digital, in 2024, content with excessive production efforts is not gaining as much visibility as raw, barely embellished content. Perhaps people want to see a more personal touch in content.

But as you generate video content, remember that content marketing is also part of branding. Individual brands can afford to generate cheap content but companies and established brands should think through their content decisions. Go for professional sets, audio, lighting and video. You do not want to produce content that makes people question the quality of your services.