It’s almost hard to imagine a world without internet and social media because of how prevalent and intertwined they’ve become within our society. These days 92% of Americans use the internet and spend an average of 24 hours per week online.
And what are they spending all that time doing? Communicating with people, social networking, fact-checking, information gathering, schooling, and generally browsing the web are the most common internet activities, according to The Center For Digital Future.
Content marketing is a way to leverage people who are already active online, during the activities they spend most of their time doing, and get your brand in front of them. Unlike traditional marketing like newspaper ads, fliers, cold-calling, and TV & radio spots, content marketing uses inbound principles to guide relevant leads to your brand, rather than interrupt consumers’ daily activities with forced ads they may or may not pay attention to.
But don’t panic, that doesn’t mean you need to cancel your radio ad or stop offering your customers fliers and postcards – however, many traditional marketing methods have gone the way of the Dodo. If your current marketing strategy is working then don’t mess with it, but as society continues to head into an increasingly digital age, we do recommend integrating a digital marketing strategy into your business plans.
But all that being said, what exactly is content marketing, and how does it work?
What Is Content Marketing?
This one is easy! Content marketing is exactly what it sounds like. It’s using your content – blogs, images, videos, etc. to market your brand to people. Some brands use visually interesting images to draw people in, while others use informative or educational blog posts, and many businesses use a combination of several forms of content to get their word out. There’s no hard and fast rule to what type of content you have to use, so let your brand’s personality and services guide your decisions.
“Ok, cool. But how do I get the content and how do I know what to include?”, you’re probably asking. Well, you can either have it custom created, or you can curate it. If you choose the latter, it means you’ll likely be sourcing the web to gather existing content – just make sure you choose reputable and reliable sources.
If you choose to have your own content created, you can either do that yourself, hire an employee, or outsource to a content creation agency or freelancer. Again, just make sure your content is informative or entertaining, well done, and accurate.
Trust us here – if your content isn’t up to snuff, your efforts won’t work well. The linchpin to a content strategy is providing content people want to see. If it’s not offering them the level of value they want, people won’t look at it, and your plan won’t work.
Has this post been informative or educational to you? Did you get the information you came for or information that was relevant to your search? Was it written in a way that you could easily understand, free of error and miscommunication, and professional?
If all of those things are true, then you’re probably still reading and getting value from this post. Anyone who didn’t think so would be long gone and probably not likely to revisit, and that’s true whether or not content is blogging, images, videos, or a combination. Give, give, give your audience value in your content or it won’t succeed.
How Does Content Marketing Work?
So you’ve got a mix of awesome created and curated content to offer people, but how does that go from a bunch of random assets to a working strategy that creates brand awareness, increases leads, and improves ROI?
Like we said above, the key to content marketing is using content that brings value to your audience with information that’s relevant to them, and that information won’t always be about your brand. Think of your content as the conversation between you and your potential customers (which let’s face it, is who you’re trying to target with here. Your existing or loyal customers don’t need marketing to the way new or potential ones do).
Creating an engaging conversation keeps it going, but making it all about you bores others and causes them to lose interest. Besides, when everything your brand shares is all about you, it begins to feel like advertisements, and nothing sends people running for the hills faster than unwanted ads.
The idea that marketing for your company doesn’t explicitly mean marketing your company can be a hard hurdle for business owners to jump, but it’s an important distinction to make because it could literally be the make or break factor of your engagement.
The good news is that once you’ve got a good selection of content based on information that your audience wants to see, it’s time to get it to their eyes and lead them back to your site. This is where your content marketing strategy and social media marketing strategy will work in tandem. By sharing your content to your social media pages, you’ll be able to get it in front of your target audience through a mix of best practices and ads.
As people see and read your content more, they’ll become familiar with and learn to trust your brand, so that by the time they’re ready to make a purchase you’ve already planted your company’s seed.
And why would they choose your brand over your competitors’? Because you’ve separated yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
By ensuring that your content isn’t all about you, but rather your industry, you’ve proven yourself to be a trustworthy brand that knows what you’re talking about. A good content strategy is really about building rapport with potential customers and earning their trust through your expertise, not telling them you’re the best and expecting that they should believe you.
What sort of topics can you think of that are relevant to your industry that people might want to know about?BRITT RILEY
