I had the extreme privilege of attending Confab 2011—the content strategy conference. I was able to meet wonderful people and I’ve learned so much that my brain will be on fire for weeks.

Of all of the fantastic sessions (and trust me there were many) the session that resonated with me the most was Content Is a Business Asset by Valeria Maltoni, aka @ConversationAge. Valeria made the case for companies treating their content as a business asset.

Content and Your Business

To understand why content is a business asset, you must first understand how content helps your business. The three main ways content can help your business are:

1. Attracting customers—Content can help lower the cost of leads and is a cost-efficient way of attracting new business.
2. Interacting with and influencing customers—Content allows you to have a conversation with your customers, not just talk at them.
3. Providing customers with the right information at the right time—Content gives your business the ability to be opportunistic…in a good way.

Attracting Customers with Content

Providing original, relevant content is a great way to increase traffic to your website without spending a lot of money, though it does take effort on your part. First identify the topics that are of use and interest to your audience. Then find the people within your organization who can speak best to those topics. Hint: Often these people are not in your marketing department. Give them the training and support they need to be successful and help them understand that this is more than just another job requirement—it is key to the company’s success.

Use Content to Interact with, and Influence Customers

This is where social media comes into play. Take that content you created and “push” it into the places where your audience can find it. This also helps “pull” your audience into your social “hub.” This push/pull of relevant content fosters conversation and allows you to talk to your audience about what they find interesting, not just what you find interesting.

Content Provides the Right Information at the Right Time

Creating your own content and conversing with your customers will give your company a better understanding of how changes in the world are impacting them. When you know what is happening to your customers, you have a better chance of providing them with information that is highly relevant to the state they are in at the current moment.

For example, after news broke about the Sony security breach, an on-the-ball credit report company could have marketed a message about identity theft monitoring to a newly susceptible audience. These are the types of opportunities you can take advantage of using content.

The role content plays in the success of your business is tremendous and the sooner you take advantage of it, the better off your company will be. If you’re interested in learning more about making your content work for you, let us know—Finelight is always looking for ways to help.