These days traditional marketing just doesn't cut it anymore. Long gone are the days when people actually had to sit and watch commercials in between their favorite shows. Now they set their DVR and skip all the television advertising. Magazine advertising isn't as effective as it once was either,many people simply ignore it. And those banners and buttons that used to get clicked online, well web traffic has become somewhat immune to those too.

Smart online marketers know this type of traditional marketing is no longer effective and that's where content marketing comes into play.

Content marketing is really what you should be focused on for success.

You've heard the term "content is king" I'm sure. What that means is that website owners need to create and distribute valuable content on a consistent basis. The objective is to get visitors to take a specific action, such as, sign up for a mailing list, making a purchase or simply to develop brand and establish expertise in a given niche or industry.

Benefits of Content Marketing

As you can imagine there are a ton of benefits associated with this type of marketing. Let's take a look at 7 of them.

Benefit #1 - It Generates Sales

As a business owner, marketer, or money-making blogger you depend on sales to survive. The problem is that you don't have the customer base of those large companies, which means you have to do much more to generate any sales. Content marketing is without a doubt one of the most efficient ways for any business to raw in more customers and ultimately more sales.

It is a fact that being of value to customers, and offering content they can actually use builds relationships and loyalty that lasts.

Benefit #2 - It Establishes You as an Expert

Content marketing is a great way to separate yourself from all the others in your market. If you are not afraid to say something bold and to express a different point of view on a particular topic it will really make you stand out in the crowd. It will make you look like the expert everyone should follow. When you establish yourself as an expert there is no limit to the amount of money you can make.

Benefit #3 - It's Cost Effective

When you compare content marketing to other forms of marketing you will see just how cheap it is. While it won't cost you a lot monetarily it will cost you a lot as far as your time goes. It takes time to create content and it takes patience to continue to do it on a regular basis.

The rewards from content marketing won't be instant. It will take some time before you start to see any returns. Expect to spend at least 40 hours a month creating content. Really! If you can't do that you may want to consider hiring someone who can.

But I've got a secret for you - when it comes to content we typically think of written text, but did you know that video converts 80% better than text on sales pages? Yep, YouTube has millions of views each month. People love video, infographics, posters - it's all a great form of content.

Benefit #4 - It Makes You Money

This is the best benefit of all. Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies on the internet. It delivers your message in a very quick and efficient matter. If done correctly a good content marketing strategy can bring in quite a bit of money in conversions for calls to action on your site.

Benefit #5 - Brand Building

Brand development is another important benefit of content marketing. The fact is that when people get reliable, useful and accurate information the payoffs for establishing brand reputation can be significant. A smart strategy is to go beyond how the content serves your monetary goals, instead consider how it serves your reader or product user.

Make sure to consider what they're in need of and solve their problems as they pertain to your niche and industry. Once you do so on a consistent basis you will establish long term and prosperous relationships from a grateful audience.

Benefit #6 - It Brings Traffic

The simple fact is that the more pertinent blog posts or marketing content you have the more traffic you will get. Content brings search engine bots and the more pages of a site those bots index the more traffic they can bring back and traffic means more opportunities to convert any calls to actions that are on that site.

Benefit #7 - Social Media Benefits

Content marketing is the food for social media campaigns. High quality can go viral, it gets shared and it can be posted on the various popular social platforms, in turn, social media marketing campaigns bring more traffic more leads and allows you to build relationships with your customers.