Is Content Marketing Worth the Investment?

Do you ever wonder whether all your efforts into content marketing are really worth it?

Do you feel overwhelmed and unsure about being able to actually measure your content marketing ROI?

We’ve all been there – that feeling that your time, money and efforts are just going down the sink. You can’t quite figure out whether all this content you are producing is doing anything at all for your business. This is an uneasy mindset to be stuck in, but we’re here to help free you from this problem so that you can see the value in content marketing (because we believe it really is worth it!).

How does content marketing affect businesses?

Let’s start with some statistics. This report from Eloqua explains the ROI on your content marketing efforts (as well as a handy tool to calculate your ROI).

Eloqua have provided some average costs involved with content marketing for a mid to large size business. If you check their findings below, you can see that the costs involved will see your cost per lead likely rise during the first few months of content marketing – this is due to the momentum and time needed to build a steady following and presence online.

Regardless of this initial rise in expenses, in the long run, content marketing has proven to be more beneficial than advertising, as we’ll see below.

Why is this so? Think of it this way – content marketing is a constant communication tool and provides regular leads. Advertising only lasts while you pay for it, then it’s over. When you look at content marketing holistically, it’s easy to see the real benefits of actively using this in your marketing strategy.

With content marketing, you’re investing in a long-term resource. Once the content is created it will continue to bring in traffic, leads, and sales over time, despite not having any ongoing costs associated with a particular piece of content. In other words, you’re building a library of content rather than just a short-term pop-up stall (as in the case of paid advertising).

Is all your blogging and SEO work really worth it?

Not yet convinced or sure that content marketing is worth it? Lets take a look at this overview from Hubspot on the different forms of inbound marketing and how likely these channels are to reduce your cost per lead – the results are pretty amazing!

You can see that your efforts in SEO, blogging, email and more are actually a great investment of time and are reducing your cost per lead overall. Yes there is an investment of resources involved, but that effort is definitely worth it when you look at the long term benefits and the return on the investment of resources.

When it comes to SEO, don’t shy away just yet with the approach that ‘SEO is dead’ and it’s not worth it. Check out another helpful report from Hubspot below – this clearly shows that SEO is leading the way when it comes to inbound leads. Perhaps you want to rethink where you place your efforts in content marketing.

Do you feel like your blogging is not worth it? Hubspot reported that companies that blog generate 126% more leads than those that don’t (reason enough to keep it up!).

According to PR news, blogs give websites a whopping 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links.

Our insider tip:

Use an automated service like Hubspot to host, schedule, and promote your content. This will help you get organised, stay on track and really maximise your content marketing efforts.

The Wrap Up

Based on the above statistics it’s clear that content marketing really is worth the investment. But it’s not a “quick fix” for your marketing and lead generation efforts. Whilst your content marketing may take a while to build a higher ROI, it’s important to persevere in your first few months until the breakthrough occurs where your cost per lead begins to decline.

With regular efforts and unique content that provides value to your community, you will surely see the benefits after a few months, with the long term benefits being easily quantifiable.