In a recent blog, I wrote about how content marketing is more of a long-term play.

In addition, to attract an audience, it is vital to offer more than purely sales content and “buy now!” messages. Consumers are constantly bombarded with these salesy messages. Therefore, any business relying solely on that type of marketing strategy is destined to become part of the noise, rather than stand out from the crowd.

Content marketing offers so many benefits over and above attracting eyeballs. But many marketers fail to consider creative, well-planned content as part of their inbound marketing strategy. It is certainly easy to get distracted by the many things that need to be done in any business or dealership. This can lower the priority of content creation. But, this can in fact hurt your business more than you may think.

A recent article posted on Business2Community shares the many benefits content marketing brings to a business, including:

1. * Increases brand visibility
2. Positions you as an industry expert
3. * Improves brand awareness, recognition, and value 
   * Generates website traffic and improves lead generation – especially if the content strategy defines topic clusters around important problems that cause ideal buyer to invest in your solution 
   *Generates engagement and dialog with your audience 
   *Helps build credibility and trust with current customers and prospects 
   *Helps prospects move through the sales funnel to a purchase decision more quickly 
   *Develops lasting relationships with your customers

I understand that at times content creation can seem like a nuisance. Sure, it takes time and creativity – BUT, that time is well spent and, if done well, results in excellent ROI.

Think about it from an audience perspective. Imagine picking up a magazine to find it full of ads – the pages literally all advertisements. I’m sure you’d stop reading it. In addition, you’d probably never give that magazine any attention in the future - Why would you?

The same applies to your dealership when attempting to capture and keep an audience. Don’t drive them away with a constant barrage of sales-based messages. Your audience probably includes existing or former customers, as well as potential future customers. Good, creative content marketing that provides your audience with items of interest to them, can continue to engage previous and current customers while attracting the attention of prospects.

Having trouble figuring out what type of content might work well? Check out examples from other dealers on my recent blog on this topic.

If your content marketing is well planned out, created in such a way that it displays your personality and/or culture – and those attributes align with your audience – it can give that extra push the customer needs to choose you over your competitor.

Backing off, deprioritizing it, or viewing content as a nuisance activity, opens the doors to your customers’ attention going elsewhere. What if where they choose to pay attention is your competition?

It today’s world, consumers are inundated with marketing messages on every channel they turn to. The key to remaining relevant, and to attracting their eyeballs, is to provide content they want to see.

Bring value to your audience. They will be more open to continue to pay attention; more receptive to standard marketing messages, amplifying your reach and the results of all your marketing efforts.

Don’t look at content marketing as inferior to normal product or service marketing. In fact, they have a symbiotic relationship. A great content marketing strategy feeds your traditional marketing strategy and empowers it. Dealers who stick to their guns and continue to produce rich, relevant content, in addition to regular sales messages, tend to get a better ROI for ALL marketing messages. Marketing performs better overall, reaches more relevant people and results in a greater return-on-investment.