If we all were truly creating content in the optimal way, we would be outlining the topics relevant to our business growth, listing all the personas of our target audiences, then draw the five stages of the marketing funnel. Multiplied together, we would be writing several hundred pieces of content each month just to stay relevant.
According to Oracle in the “Simple Ways to Massively Increase Your Content” session at SXSW today, in 2008 there were one trillion indexed pages on Google and today in 2015 there are 67 trillion indexed pages on Google. Yet, 20-percent of Google searches have never been searched before. Creating content related to your brand is only gaining in importance.
We are not going to stop talking about content any time soon. Kaila Garrison of Oracle broke the complex into the simple by defining three types of content:
- High Effort – blogs, webinars, white papers
- Medium Effort – Q&A content based on questions your customers ask
- Low Effort – user-generated content, curated content
High effort content can cost $21-$2000 to create, per piece of content. It drives a lot of traffic from search and is a top-of-the-funnel activity that builds awareness. The traffic generated from this content is very good at moving visitors through the sales funnel.
Medium effort content costs $10 per piece on average to create. Of the traffic generated from medium effort content, 11.4-percent converts to a lead. And 5.62-percent of those leads convert to customers.
Low effort content is the best for distribution across multiple channels. Of the traffic generated from low effort content, 9.1-percent of visits convert to leads. And 13.5-percent of those leads move on to become customers.
Each type of content is important depending on goals, budget and your business. But the bottom line is that content is now a cost-of-entry game in digital marketing.
