Once upon a time, content marketing was simply a strategy used by quirky niche businesses to separate themselves from their competitors and mark themselves out as “alternative”. Now, however, content marketing – and content more generally – goes further than any other form of outreach in marketing. The vast majority of successful marketing campaigns rely heavily on content marketing in order to create rapport with readers, build brand awareness and (hopefully) sell products more efficiently.
What is content marketing? If you work in marketing, SEO or social media, the chances are you’ve used this marketing method before. Content marketing simply refers to a form of outreach which uses content – information – for multiple purposes in marketing terms. Writers, bloggers and other content generators create engaging, useful and (sometimes) humorous content which helps readers improve their lives and sells parent company products into the bargain.
Let’s look at an example. Say you want to promote a new type of protein powder for workout fanatics. Traditional marketing would lean more heavily on sales pitches – advertising, booth presences, et cetera. Content marketing would involve writing a piece themed around your product and including natural links to that product within the content. You could construct an article titled something like “Top 5 Weight Loss Tips”, which would be a very easy home for your protein powder store. After that, you’d find a good quality outreach service to house your content and generate sales.
Content marketing de-emphasises the hard sales pitches of eras gone by in favour of something friendlier and more approachable. By generating consistently relevant, valuable content, companies hope not only to be financially successful but also to shore up repeat business; customers won’t just come to that company for products they need and love, but also for genuinely useful life tips to help them in their day-to-day lives.
The primary way in which content marketing is used these days is blogging. Influencers and bloggers construct content which has a reliable audience, then companies reach out to said content creators in order to embed links to their products. Sometimes – very rarely, but sometimes – companies will receive naturally embedded links, but usually an outreach process is necessary. In this way, companies develop symbiotic relationships with bloggers; those who love the company’s products will return to the blog, while the company gains a content generator to drive sales.
There are other forms of content marketing which have been proven to be effective over the years. Since the advent of YouTube back in 2005, video content has been used by many influencers and YouTubers in order to promote companies. Most prominent YouTube video creators utilise content marketing; next time you watch a video game-themed YouTube video, think about the ads that bookend the video or perhaps even the equipment that’s featured prominently in the YouTuber’s setup.
In addition to videos, eBooks have popped up as a significant form of content marketing. If you’re a leading voice in your field, publishing an eBook which contains an in-depth look at certain aspects of your business is a surefire way to drum up interest and custom for you. When users purchase or download eBooks, they’re looking for informative and entertaining reads, so you’ll need to make sure your eBook doesn’t just come across as a veiled attempt to advertise – make your content engaging and you’ll get more business naturally.
So, why should you use content marketing? We’ve already given a few reasons above, but let’s look at the issue in more depth. Josh Steimle’sassessment of the four stages of content marketing is excellent, and gives us a good idea of why content marketing is effective. Here are the four stages Steimle outlines:
Awareness – the customer or visitor knows that they need something, but they aren’t sure whether there’s a solution that fills their niche.
Research – customers will then go to search engines like Google (it’s extremely likely to be Google) to find out whether a product exists to satisfy their needs. If, for example, a customer wants a cheap but powerful mobile phone, they’ll be looking for “cheap mobile phones”.
Consideration – having researched the relevant products, customers will then start to compare products and decide which one works best for them, as well as where they can get the lowest price or the best service.
Buy – the customer makes their decision and purchases the item they need from the source they have chosen.
Steimle says that conventional advertising is great for the latter two stages, as it allows companies to convince customers that their products and services are superior to consumers, but content marketing works best for the first two stages. Those first two stages are crucial – if a customer doesn’t know the product exists, they won’t be able to buy it from you, and if they don’t know they have a need then they won’t research it.
Content marketing allows you not to instil that need in the customer but to awaken it. For example, if a customer doesn’t realise they need or want to change their mobile phone, then a piece of content entitled “5 Reasons You Should Change Your Phone” can both bring them to your platform and make the customer aware that their need is greater than they thought. In this way, you’re not being dishonest or duplicitous; you’re simply alerting the customer to an issue they hadn’t previously considered.
So, we know now why content marketing works. How do you get started? How, as a business, do you implement content marketing? Well, the good news is that content marketing is quite simple to begin. Content Marketing Services aren’t too hard to find, and will do most of the hard work for you when it comes to getting in touch with influencers, bloggers and independent content writers who will construct commissioned content.
If you’re looking to generate content for your website yourself, then it’s worth having a look around to find sites that give tips on how to create engaging and relevant content. Sites like SEMrush and Quicksprout feature highly recommended articles on how to drive sales and acquire customers by generating engaging content, and even if you’re not looking to generate content yourself, you can use these guides to check whether the content your writers have given you is appropriate.
We hope this introduction to – and recommendation of – content marketing has helped you to think about developing a new approach to marketing. With the right bloggers and content generators on-side, you’ll experience an explosive boom in business and build brand awareness like you never thought possible.
