The main idea behind this article is to educate about content marketing. The article is for those who have heard the word ‘content marketing’ as a trend or are superficially interested in it or want to understand it better or even those who want to apply it to their business.
So, what is content marketing?
It is a strategy for creating, promoting, and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
Ooh! Lots of jargon there!
But don’t worry, the main thing to focus on here is ‘valuable content’ and a ‘clearly defined audience.’
The goal of content marketing is to attract customers to your business by providing them with content that can be used to solve their problems. The content must be ‘valuable’ to them. This content can be in articles, videos, infographics, blogs, podcasts, or other media.
Content marketing that predated the internet?
You might have heard this term in recent years, but content marketing has been around for a long time. For as long as people tell stories, they are marketing their products and services.
In the earlier days when there was no internet, content marketing was done via posters, banners, print ads in newspapers or magazines, or billboards on highways.
Today, storytelling is taking the digital marketing world by storm. People remember stories. If you put a story capable of evoking emotions in your viewers, they will never forget the experience. Putting traditional advertising to rest, brands are now telling their own stories utilizing online channels to reach an audience with information about their product or service. And this is present-day content marketing.
How is it different from traditional marketing/advertisement?
Traditional marketing and advertising are often limited to ‘selling a product or service. On the other hand, It is about establishing a ‘strong relationship with your customers by providing them with relevant information that is valuable to them. It can be an effective way of making money because it doesn’t require the customer to purchase anything from you. You don’t have to worry about convincing people they need something for you to make money off of them. Still instead, content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable content that they want anyway. It is different from traditional advertising because it does not interrupt the user experience.
What are the different forms of content marketing?
There are many forms of content marketing like personalized product demos, conferences, physical leaflets, and even phone books. The key is that the content provides information or entertainment, usually free of charge, supporting a business goal. For example, you may create a set of YouTube videos to build your audience with free content. And then, when they know you and trust you, you can use your YouTube channel for marketing your product. The Lego Movie is an excellent example of content marketing which was not just a movie but an hour-long advertisement of their product.
- Create quality, informative blog posts
- Conduct webinars and other live events that provide educational value to your audience
- Share valuable industry insights through social media channels like LinkedIn or Twitter.
- Publish articles in popular industry publications or blogs
All of the above are various forms of Content Marketing.
Why content marketing?
Content Marketing is about understanding your customer’s needs, identifying their unmet desires, predicting what they will want in the future, and giving them more of what they want right now. It allows companies to connect with their audiences by focusing on being helpful rather than just being sold to.
In this way, it creates communities devoted to your company’s brands or products or services, and this community does the major ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing for your brand.
How is Content Marketing related to SEO?
Content marketing is not just for the customers, but it also helps improve your company’s ranking on search engines. It also helps generate leads for the business through traffic from search engines or social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
When you map your content to the target audience’s pain points and then improve that content on keywords, your content ranks high on SEO. Higher SEO ranking increases visibility, brand awareness, traffic, and ultimately conversion.
How is content marketing gradually converting to content experiences?
With increasing forms of generating content in the present digital world, content marketing is no longer about creating a blog post and sending it out to your audience. It is now all about providing them with valuable information, interesting facts, or fun stories to read and interact with.
If you want to be successful in content marketing today, you need to create an experience for your customers that they will remember and want more of. Today’s consumers want more than just product information from brands; they want an experience.
This shift in mindset has caused a surge in companies using content marketing as their go-to strategy for customer engagement.
ROI in content marketing?
The return on investment for content marketing can be phenomenal if executed correctly. Many companies don’t spend a dime on their own content marketing or even that much time. 95% of the success they experience with content marketing can be traced to a handful of articles they have written, adding up to perhaps 20 hours of work.
Creating blog posts, videos, etc., may appear to be very difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, they are easy and fun. Content Marketing has a direct correlation with the success of your business. Companies that employ successful content marketing strategies see an average annual revenue increase of 20%.
For the reader:
How do I get started?
If you are new to content marketing, you should start by looking at the basics. This will help give you a foundation for everything else that comes after it. It is a great idea to start with your target audience in mind. It is not enough to think about the type of content you want to create and who will be reading it.
Once you have determined this, you can find a topic that is relevant and appealing to them. The question ‘What should I blog about?’ can be answered by asking yourself these questions:
What are you passionate about?
What do you know a lot about?
Where are your interests currently?
What does your audience want?
How do I write great content?
If you’ve ever slogged your way through reading a piece of marketing and only finished reading because you had to, you’ve experienced bad content marketing. A piece of content is good if the readers genuinely want to read it. Content is great if they’re willing to pay to read it. If you want to see great examples of content, look at what you’ve paid to read, watch, or listen to lately.
Great content needs to be well-written, informative, and engaging. It’s not just about creating content; it’s about understanding your audience and what they want to consume. To do this, you need to know who your target market is and their needs. You can do this by conducting research or talking with people in the industry.
One of the best ways to engage your audience is through blogging on topics they care about, such as reviews or news stories related to their industry. Once you have an idea of what they’re looking for, you can create something that will appeal to them. It’s most effective when it’s not promotional in nature but offers valuable information that builds a relationship between the customer and the company.
What are the current trends in content marketing that I can tap into?
Content marketing is evolving as the industry moves to a more digital space. The two biggest trends in content marketing today are
- Native advertising,
- Influencer marketing
Native advertising is becoming increasingly popular with brands because it can be more effective than traditional ads. Traditional ads have had a hard time catching on, but native ads can look like they are just part of the platform where they’re posted, which means users may not even realize that they’re being advertised.
Influencer marketing is also gaining traction as an effective way for brands to reach consumers. This type of content marketing works best for a company that wants to promote its products or services through social media accounts with large followings. The company can pay these influencers to post about their product or service on their account and encourage followers to check it out.
Is content marketing right for me?
Content marketing is an effective way to reach a large audience. You need to know your target audience and their needs before determining if content marketing is right for you. People can use content marketing in many different ways, but no one is better than the other.
It all depends on what type of business you have and what you want to get out of your campaign.
How can I learn more about content marketing?
- Read Joe Pulizzi’s excellent book Epic Content Marketing.
- Read Michael Hyatt’s Platform
- Frequent websites like Content Marketing Institute, Ragan, Copyblogger, Michael Hyatt, and Gary Vaynerchuk sign up for their email newsletters.
Final words-
If you produce free and helpful content for your target market, they will engage with you, spread your message, and probably even buy from you.
PS: The above content is generated in CrawlQ app by using its Market Research Niche feature and SERP results in AI Content Writer. The data in the article is generated and refined using our AI assistant feature “Write Me, Athena.”
Surprised !! Try it out yourself.
To learn how to use Athena, refer to this blog.
https://share.vidyard.com/watch/PrAztePUKqs261yADLrsHy?
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