You’ve most likely heard of the phrase, “Good things come to those who wait.” And when it comes to content marketing, that phrase is especially accurate. Content marketing can produce short-term results, but its true value is achieved over weeks, months, and even years. It’ll take some patience, but planning ahead is key to maximizing the impact of your content marketing efforts.
Content marketing is a marathon – not a sprint. In order to succeed, you need to play the long game when building out your strategy and goals. How a marketer designs and delivers content will ultimately determine how it is distributed and measured for success and further optimization. Keeping an eye on current trends is good practice, but focusing on a long-term plan will provide lasting value for your brand.
Here are eight things a long-term content strategy can do for you.
1. Generate Lasting Value Over Time
Content marketing is a process of creating materials that can be repurposed and useful down the road. A piece of content created today can be reused or reworked one year from now. Once you have written a content piece like a blog post, you can go back to it at any time and your staff can use it in educational and sales materials.
2. Establish Authority and Build Trust
With growth comes reputation. More useful content on your website increases the visibility of your brand and strengthens your appearance. Viewers are more likely to engage with a website that offers an abundance of educational content that inspires them to continue learning, and search engines take notice of sites that are regularly updated.
3. Provide Resources for Repurposed and Republished Content
As we previously stated, content isn’t a one-and-done deal. One piece of content can be reused in multiple ways, and it can also increase in value over time. A large piece of content can be broken down to create new content or even updated to be re-released at a later date.
4. Compounding Returns
The longer content exists and the more content you create, the higher your returns will be. Think of your marketing content as an investment. It has compounding returns that add up over time. The more you create and the more you connect these pieces (i.e. backlinking in blog posts, promoting long-form content on social media), the better the returns will be on all the other content you’ve created.
5. Save Time
Having a solid strategy, and even a predetermined calendar of topics, gives you a map to follow, making it easier to streamline the process and plan ahead. Knowing what to do and when to do it will eliminate any confusion or wasted time in the strategy.
6. Increase Traffic
More content increases your website’s number of backlinks, and in turn, search rankings improve and more viewers can find your content. Your site will be found more through searches and links from other sites. Searches and referrals increase traffic and these are a direct result of successful content marketing over time.
7. Improve SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is a mix of strategies that companies need to incorporate in order to succeed online. The links that go back to your website increase your pages’ search rankings and your content boosts your SEO. Content and links are two key factors in improving a site’s SEO. Improved SEO boosts online visibility and generates more clicks to your website.
8. Produce a Higher ROI
The continual creation of valuable content will have a long-term effect on your brand. A long-term strategy allows you to take a more holistic approach to content creation, getting you more bang for your buck. You will continuously see results and return on your investments as content marketing grows over time.