When it comes to utility marketing goals, driving traffic is often near the top of the list, along with engaging customers and improving the customer experience. Increasing traffic is a reasonable goal, but don’t overlook the value of leveraging existing website traffic. According to Market Place, the average utility has 50% of consumers paying bills online.¹ Consider if roughly 50% of your customers are paying their utility bills online, at least that many are regularly online and interacting with your website. In reality, the actual number of unique visitors is likely higher, as some customers might be visiting the website to report an outage, check out a rate plan, or get information on an energy efficiency program. That’s a pretty significant amount of traffic that doesn’t need to be generated – it is already available for engagement.

All too often, demand generation and lead generation are lumped together when they should be treated as equally important, yet unique partners in a content marketing strategy. The confusion often derives from the similarities between the two, yet while they appear very much alike, the two are actually very different — much like two siblings battling it out for attention.

At the risk of blatantly showing my age, I can remember a time when the best option for finding an appliance repairman or a pizza place that delivers was to pick up the phone book and leaf through the Yellow Pages. Actually, let me qualify that: That was the best option if you didn’t have a friend or relative who could recommend one.

Here’s a tough pill to swallow: Your brand does not exist unless it has presence.

When decision makers for small and medium-sized businesses need new lighting, new equipment or require the services of a technician or contractor, they often rely on the Internet instead of traditional forms of advertising and marketing to find a resource. Utility and energy companies have an opportunity to be in the right place at the right time and appear in top search results when customers are looking for solutions. Adding useful content can help optimize a website for search engines and capitalize on customer search behavior.

There are a number of different techniques that generate hand raisers and leads for your products and services. These techniques span a multitude of online and offline channels. Most people are familiar with the sales funnel concept: that prospects and customers are moved through a number of stages based on their readiness to buy. Another common framework is the AIDA, where the process starts with generating awareness and interest.

As many marketers begin their content marketing journey, they quickly wonder what level of commitment is required. How often should we blog? What level of downloadable content is necessary to support an effective contact marketing strategy? How often do we need to refresh content on our website to get Google’s attention?

Content marketing is one of the leading sources of generating website traffic. When content marketing is analytically keywords-driven, it is a proven source of search engine optimized page rankings. Content marketing can also play an important role in social media. Content marketing can serve as a vehicle for giving prospects and customers reasons to interact with your brand. While social media can help build awareness and relationships, it can also serve as an important conduit for driving education, engagement and action.

Content marketing continues to become a critical technique for increasing web traffic, leads and improving a company’s search engine optimization efforts. If your organization isn’t using content marketing yet, here are 7 signs that will have you reconsidering your investment in content marketing.

MarketingProfs recently released findings from its business-to-consumer content marketing study. Content marketing continues to grow in terms of popularity. Similar to business-to-business content marketing trends, 90% of B2C marketers are using content marketing. Interestingly, most B2C marketers are also planning on increasing their content marketing activity. About 60% of B2C marketing survey respondents are planning to increase content marketing spend over the next 12 months.