Content Marketing

Content marketing is the name of the game in the current marketing landscape. It has proven to be an essential part of many different businesses, regardless of their niche and size.

Still, despite its obvious benefits for the businesses in question, a successful content marketing campaign contains many moving parts, and it brings the best results when it is carefully planned and executed.

In this article, we will explain what content marketing really is, and provide some valuable insights into the content marketing procedure, and its importance.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a way to engage the audience by distributing relevant content in different forms of media, such as videos, newsletters, blogs, emails, and many others.

If you’ve ever had the chance to see a funny or relatable piece of content on social media, chances are that you looked at the source of that piece of content in a positive way as well.

This is how brands get you to like them, by providing relatable, entertaining, or inspiring content. The sale is something that comes much later on after the customer has been exposed to plenty of quality content.

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic marketing strategy focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

This definition clearly emphasizes that only should the content be relevant and valuable to the audience, but also consistently distributed to the potential consumers, so that they may have more opportunities to interact with it and stay hooked.

How to Define Content Marketing?

As previously mentioned, content marketing is a strategic digital marketing tool that aims to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time.

To gain a clearer picture of what content marketing truly entails, it would be useful to go over the most important steps in a basic content marketing campaign. These steps include building awareness, creating intrigue, and closing the deal.

1. Building awareness

The first step always focuses on creating awareness within your audience, which is achieved by creating and distributing engaging content that is relevant to that audience. This means that the content you distribute should be highly specific to the needs, wants, and problems your audience is facing.

Examples of awareness-building efforts are all around us. The local restaurant writing a newsletter about the best new recipes to try, a swimming school creating a video of the fastest ways to swim, or the law firm writing an article about the do’s and don’ts when in court.

2. Creating intrigue

After your audience has been captivated by the wonderful content you put out, it’s time to create some intrigue and make them more curious about what you have to offer.

Although the second step is still not really the time to sell, there is an obvious shift from purely informative or entertaining content, to a mix between helpful information and marketing.

One of the best ways to create additional interest is to offer your take on the best ways to do certain tasks or provide certain services. You may offer valuable how-to videos or how-to articles, combined with case studies and testimonials.

3. Closing the deal

At long last, this is the step that every marketer was waiting for! At this stage, the content which is distributed to the audience will have clear intent to sell a product or service.

One of the best ways to convince prospective customers to buy is to show them why your product is better than others, all in the form of an entertaining or informative piece of content.

Content that is typically produced as a part of this step is product videos and articles, user guides, and positive testimonials from previous customers.

Why is Content Marketing Important?

It is not hard to see why content marketing has an important role in the overall marketing strategy of a business. At the core of any sort of campaign, whether it’s through emails, social media, blog posts, or something else entirely, lies the content.

Content Marketing Builds Trust

By consistently delivering valuable content to potential customers, you will gain their trust and gratitude.

The trust of the audience is invaluable, and reasonably so, as it allows you to position your own services as some of the best out there in the minds of the audience.

Additionally, by distributing content consistently you may gain recognizability. Most people will trust a brand that they have seen previously more than one that is completely unfamiliar.

Content Marketing Takes Time

In order to see the best results, content marketing requires time, expertise, and consistency in production and distribution.

When it comes to content marketing the sky is the limit. The quality of the content you produce and the frequency with which you distribute it to your audience will be limited only by the amount of time and other important resources you have at your disposal.

That is why organizing and planning out your activities, with a content calendar in mind will be of great importance.

What Are The Best Content Marketing Strategies?

Just like there is a wide variety of content that you can use to reach your audience on social media and elsewhere, there is a wide variety of content marketing strategies. Here are some of the most effective ones.

Partnerships

Partnering up with an influencer or popular brand is one of the most known strategies in marketing in general, but when it comes to content marketing there are special benefits it can provide. The exposure you gain with partnerships can propel your content to an even wider audience, provided that you really are putting out great content!

Miniature Monopolies

By doing in-depth research on your competitors you may begin to see some gaps in their social media content, which you can fill. Regardless of whether it is photos, text, or video content, you should adapt it in such a way that it is unique to your service so that you create a miniature monopoly on that type of content.

Paid Marketing Channels

Even though we all love good organic content that gets the number one spot on the search engine, it could turn out that your content marketing strategy benefits more from using paid channels.

Just like with partnerships, if your content is already amazing, getting it to be seen by more people could be worth the investment in the long term.

Additional Tips & Tricks

• Create a backlog of content. Having a backlog is a source of safety and it is crucial in maintaining consistency in the content distribution phase.
• Make a realistic content calendar. It’s good to aim high but if you burn out in 2 weeks by posting 6 times a day, it might be time to consider a less frequent but more consistent option.
• Provide content that is fit for all three Cs of search internet – the content type (video, image etc), content format (how-to guide, list articles etc) and content angle (sales-oriented, easy and convinient etc).

Now You Know What Content Marketing is!

Even though content marketing is a term that requires wide research and commitment, now you’ve got a grasp of it! In simple words, content marketing is utilizing different media such as videos, newsletters, blogs, emails, and many others to communicate with your target audience.

Content marketing as a concept is the heart of every marketing effort since it is tool for building brand awareness, creating intrigue or closing deals. 

You learned what content marketing is, why it is important, and strategies for content marketing and you’ve got a few tips & tricks in your pocket. With all this knowledge and information, it’s up to you now to determine your next steps and design a content marketing strategy that fits your company or organization.