Digital marketing is in a constant state of evolution, but one thing remains consistent: Content Marketing is an effective way to reach your customers.
Before we get into the question of, What Is Content Marketing, I would like to start by sharing a few of the benefits of content marketing in order to frame up our later answer. Whether you're an established corporation, a small business, or even an entrepreneur, content marketing can do the following:
Support building and retaining an audience
Generate industry authority
Raise brand awareness
Create loyal brand advocates
And even generate leads and increase conversion.
As a business owner, do these sound like benefits you would want to miss out on? If you answered no, keep reading.
So What is Content Marketing?
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI), an online resource whose mission is to advance the practice of content marketing, through a variety of mediums, defines content marketing as such:
“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action..”
Think of it relates to the latest Netflix show you binged. WHAT IF your audience was just waiting for your next piece of content to drop because every time you publish something it is valuable, relevant, consistent, and even entertaining (in other words it's QUALITY) and they just can't get enough!
Content marketing in its simplest form can be described as the intersection of your brand's purpose and what your customer/audience want. It is quality content with a competitive advantage on topics that offer information, entertainment, and most importantly value. It is the type of content that impacts audience decision-making (even more so than traditional marketing.)
As a business owner, marketing without great content is virtually impossible, and while quality content comes in many forms in order to be effective at content marketing you need to have a marketing strategy (*and NO they are NOT the same thing).
A social media strategy does NOT equal your content marketing strategy and a marketing strategy does NOT equal public relations, yes there is certainly cross-over, but in the words of Maren Morris, "the house don't fall when the bones are good." In this scenario, your marketing strategy is the bones, and the bones need to be good for your Content Marketing to work.
Quality content is the present and the future of marketing, and content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on audience engagement leading to growth in revenue. But let's not forget, this strategy is driven by analytics and research and is a strategy set to measurable goals!
Do you have more questions on where to start with your digital marketing strategy? Are you looking for a fresh perspective on how to simplify the way your brand or business is currently creating content? Are you ready to develop a content strategy framework?
