Sorry to tell you this, but marketing with content and content marketing are not the same thing.
The Marketing Insider Group defines content marketing as “the process of consistently publishing relevant content that audiences want to consume to reach, engage, and convert new customers. It involves brands acting more like publishers and creating content on a destination you own (your website) that attracts visitors.”
In fact, what you’re reading right now is included in the umbrella of content marketing. You are consuming this blog post to answer an important question that you, the audience, have: What is content marketing?
When you peel away all of the layers of techniques, trends, and possibilities, content marketing is a tool for growth. What makes content marketing different from other marketing types is the ROI and business value it delivers over time. Any business can increase its presence in organic search by using SEO (search engine optimization) and content insights to align with customer needs.
But what are the advantages of excellent content marketing? Business growth can be exponential when done well by having a solid content strategy.
Content marketing builds brand awareness and trust through relevant content, which wins over prospects and engages your customers, resulting in a loyal base of brand advocates. Your brand presence will become more significant and more impactful. It also becomes easier to achieve your marketing goals with future content because a foundation is already in place to resonate with target markets.
In contrast, even with today’s sophisticated digital ads, traditional marketing techniques like advertising can create overexposure. Audiences become saturated with a brand promotion that offers no genuine value to the people you’re trying to build customer relationships with.
Now let’s talk about what content marketing is not. Content marketing isn’t just pieces of content – randomly published blogs and social media posts, landing pages, emails, etc., and hoping something sticks. Content marketing is all about strategy too.
Many brands fail to get the strategy part of content marketing and release too many content campaigns without the direction of where it should take the business and an understanding of who the content is for. Content marketing is not about creating fancy commercials and hoping for the best- it’s about providing consumers with relevant information.
Additionally, blogging matters substantially in content marketing, but having a blog does not necessarily make you a content marketer. Content marketing is about providing information, which can happen in many formats and channels. The central theme of this information is that it is helpful to its intended target.
You may be rethinking your content right now. You now know that you don’t necessarily have to invest millions in ads to get noticed by your target markets. Instead, you can use content marketing to build a community and deliver a refreshing new spin on old problems for your audience.
Content marketing can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some steps that you can take to get started in your content marketing journey:
- Identify your audience: To create content for a particular audience, you need to have a clear idea of who these individuals are, plus their priorities and challenges.
- Decide who will write, edit, and proofread: Audiences will judge your content on its quality, so it is essential to have the right resource to create this work. You can source this resource or person internally or externally.
- Determine how you’ll distribute: Will you post content on your site, put it in email newsletters, or print it out? Start with “where” you know your audience could be and go from there.
- Choose a sustainable schedule: Don’t make a content marketing plan that is overly ambitious. Once you know the target readers and the format in which you want to create content, strategize a short-term (3-6 months) plan for a realistic amount of content that your brand can make based on budget and resources.
Now it’s time to set you loose into the content marketing world. Ensure that your expertise and unique value shine through in your content creation. With some planning and fun, you can reach the right people and build your brand.