You’ve just noticed someone mention “content marketing,” and you assume that you should already know just what it is, but it’s too embarrassing for you to ask anyone. Congratulations, this article is for you.
The Content Marketing Institute, an online platform for information about everything related to content marketing, defines content marketing in this way:
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.
“Valuable” is the key term here. It is what alters that definition from one that could define almost any type of advertising or marketing. You can know if a piece of content is the type that should be part of a marketing campaign for advertising if people are searching for it if people want to consume it, rather than avoid it. So was VW’s 2014 “Game Day” advertisement, which was viewed nearly 18 million times on YouTube, an ad, or marketing content? The answer is it’s both, based on how each person who’s exposed to it receives it. .The same applies to any piece of content marketing that you create, depending on whether the recipient got value from it or not.
The aim is, of course, to offer as much benefit as possible from your content marketing to as much of your target market. At this point, despite that definition and explanation, you probably still wonder what content marketing is exactly. By looking at a couple of examples, we can get more clarity.
Five examples of content marketing
There are just as many content marketing types as there are content types-far too many to cover here. The aim is to introduce you to content marketing and to help you think like a content marketer so you can see the possibilities around you. You will soon be coming up with 50 ideas for marketing material every day. You won’t be able to halt seeing content creation opportunities. Below are five examples that will help the mind to start percolating.
- Infographics. In general, these are large, vertical graphics, which include statistics, charts, graphs, and other relevant data. If you’d like some examples, there are 197 infographics curated by Michael Schmitz, Head of Content Lab at Publicis, Munich, on the topic of content marketing. Infographics can be compelling because it can be shared through social media and posted on websites for years when one is successful. You can get a professionally produced infographic by hiring contractors on a site like oDesk, or you can go with an organization like Visua.ly if you want to simply remove some of the risks. A useful infographic would usually cost you at least $ 1,000 to produce, but if you employ a contractor or organization to provide strategy and planning, analysis, copywriting, and design, it may cost you several thousand dollars. It’s also about spreading the infographic to bloggers and the media. Or maybe you could set up a Pinterest board, and curate infographics on a business-related topic. That’s also a form of content marketing, and it just costs your time.
- Websites. What’s the difference between a regular web page and a content marketing webpage? Consider Moz’s The Beginner’s Guide to SEO, a provider of tools and resources related to SEO. Offered for free, this site has been accessed millions of times, bringing in countless consumers who otherwise might never have come upon Moz and the services they provide. Or look at a case study by design company Teehan+Lax. The majority of case studies are boring. They have intriguing case studies. That’s the difference between just putting content on the website and marketing content.
- Podcasts. Michael Hyatt, author of the best-selling novel Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, exercises what he endorses. His podcast entitled “This is your life” is downloaded about 250,000 times a month. As Hyatt explains on his blog post 4 Reasons You Should Consider Launching Your Own Podcast, “A podcast gives you increased visibility in an entirely different world — primarily iTunes. I’ve had scores of new people saying they’ve never heard of me before they stumbled upon me in iTunes. “Hyatt gives useful information and suggestions in his podcast — all free of charge. But that podcast leads to increased book sales, sign-ups for his courses, and inquiries for him as a speaker.
- Videos. Gary Vaynerchuk is a content marketing master using online video, just look up his YouTube channel. He started creating videos to promote the wine store of his family, and he gradually grew it to a $45 M empire through all those videos as well as other online marketing. Videos and podcasts are a form of content marketing that is mostly unexplored because people think it is expensive and complicated. But it’s easier than ever with the dropping cost of professional-grade equipment producing high-quality video and audio content. The marketing of amateur video content has also been used to sell blenders, launch new oral health products, and market consulting services for visas to Hong Kong.
- Books. Similar to movies, people tend to think of books as attempting to sell themselves, but smart marketers don’t sell books just to sell more books, they sell books as marketing ploys. Michael Port’s sales guide Book Yourself Solid is a good read for entrepreneurs, sales associates, and advertisers, and while Port appreciates selling his book, the book is a crucial factor in driving customers to his mentoring and speaking services. While it is simpler than ever to publish a book through self-publishing, there is still the idea that it is challenging, and that only reputable practitioners should publish a business-related book. Publish on your own, and even if people do not read it, any time you’re announced as “Author of …” you can always use it as a type of content marketing.
These are just a handful of content marketing examples. We could have discussed white papers, ebooks, blogs, apps, presentations, and public speaking as well. Whole books have been written on the use of each of these in marketing strategies for content.
Why Content Marketing?
Perhaps even more important than understanding what marketing the content is, is understanding why content marketing is essential for your business. First, we have to consider the purchasing cycle’s four steps:
- Awareness. Consumers can have a need when they are aware of it, but they are not aware that there is a solution.
- Research. When a consumer is aware that a solution exists, they may carry out research to educate themselves. A car buyer, for example, would want to figure out what various types of cars are available, and which one will suit their needs.
- Reflection. At this juncture, the customer starts to compare different products from various vendors to ensure they get a high-quality product at a reasonable price.
- Buy. Ultimately, the consumer makes their decision and continues with the purchase.
When it gets to the second two stages, conventional advertisement and marketing are fine. Content marketing reaches into the first two phases of the acquisition process by raising awareness of alternatives and educating customers about a product that they may never have noticed before.
People have used content marketing at their businesses in the last year to expand more than 1,000 percent. Potential customers find the material, find interest in it, and by the point, they contact them they are already persuaded that they want to engage with them. They don’t have to indulge in any high-pressure sales strategies, it’s just a matter of description, signing a deal, and starting up. The trust that often needs to be built up over an extended selling process has already been generated before we know the potential customer is there.
If properly executed, the return on that investment for content marketing can be phenomenal. People haven’t spent a dime selling their stuff, or even too much time. Ninety-five percent of the success they have had with content marketing can be attributed to a handful of papers written, adding up to 20 hours of work.
Other advantages are also offered by content marketing in that it supports many digital marketing platforms. It provides additional content for social media marketing and relates to SEO efforts by producing natural quality backlinks and building quality content in search engines. In reality, the bulk of its SEO efforts will be focused on content marketing for several businesses.
Where do I start?
Many organizations provide content marketing services, also combined with SEO or PR services. If you’re probably too busy to do it on your own and aren’t able to do it in-house, hiring a service may be the right alternative. So if you’d like to jump in and do your content marketing, the simplest way would be to start blogging. For first, it will probably be challenging, but the more you do that, the better you get at it. Using tips from websites like Copyblogger, you’ll quickly learn how to build content for your website or blog that inspires readers and transforms them into clients or customers. But while effective writing and the right headline can help, it is not the secret to producing quality content that is the best level of content marketing.
Good Content
If you have ever slogged your way through having to read a marketing piece and have only finished reading because you’ve had to, then you’ve encountered lousy marketing content. If We speak about content marketing to businesses, We advise them that the material is perfect if they genuinely want to read it. Content is ideal if they are even willing to pay for reading it. When you want to see some fantastic content examples, just glance at what you’ve paid for reading, viewing, or listening to lately. When you watched this year’s The Lego Movie, you’ve seen one of the most prominent examples of content marketing to date. Yes, do you think they were making the movie to sell cinema tickets? Think once again. It was a 100-minute toy advertisement, and you paid good money to watch it instead of using a DVR to skip it. Is it any coincidence that Lego just leapfrogged Mattel, Barbie’s makers, to become the world’s leading toy company? You may not have the budget to produce a feature film to advertise your business, but you can still provide useful information to potential customers.
The # 1 content-marketing secret
Add value. That is the secret of it. It’s utterly not a secret. We’ve written about it all over this section already. Even if you look at some of the marketing companies choose to engage in, you wonder if they are purposely attempting to avoid the obvious. If it gives little or no interest, we skip ads. Find a skateboarder and ask him whether you could watch him look at a skateboard magazine if you want to learn about ads that don’t get missed. You will see he’s spending as much time looking at the adverts as he’s looking at the articles and pictures. Or check out the website – The Berrics. Most of the content is advertising, but skaters don’t avoid these videos, just like watching the other videos, because they get the value they want — good skating. As a skater, one would like to say those skateboard companies were pioneering content marketing years ago, but they only did what came naturally, and selling more goods was secondary to the joy of creating videos and magazines. When you want to recruit someone to your marketing team who intuitively understands content marketing, it may not be a bad idea to hire a skateboarder.
When you are not sure how content marketing can add value, ask your current customers what kind of content you should create that would be beneficial to them now and would’ve been valuable to them while they were looking for your service or product. They’re going to tell you.
For professional help, consider availing the services of a website advertising company, or when searching locally, lookup for a digital marketing company Wollongong like Monsterco.
