What is Content Marketing?

Spread the love

Last week our company acquired 3 new clients.

I was super busy directing my team and suddenly I got a call. I took a while and received it and regretted that why I did receive, man!

The call was from a web hosting company and a ‘human’ telecaller asked me in a ‘robotic’ way that if I’m interested in buying their web-hosting.

I maintained composure and said no.

In reality, I needed a web-hosting, but I could not trust him.
And why should I? I didn’t even hear about their company.

The next day, I bought a web hosting from a renowned company. I had been reading their blogs since earlier. I knew that they are trustworthy because I’ve consumed their content related to hosting.

If you look closely, you will understand that that telecaller took efforts to make a call, talk to me for at least 30 seconds. On the contrary, that renowned company, let’s call it Company X, did nothing. I went to their website and bought it by myself.

How?

Well, in this blog post I am going to explain to you the same.

Company X has been doing content marketing for their company.

I think now you have got a clue, right?

Let me tell you the exact definition of content marketing.

According to the Oxford dictionary, “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”

Oxford dictionary

Let’s see one more definition by Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Content Marketing Institute

Now my turn (assume some random filmy evil laugh here) – “ Content Marketing is nothing but the creation and promotion of relevant content to win the trust of your target audience and ultimately drive conversions“.

Understood?

Now let’s see why content marketing is important apart from the above Company X example.

Importance of Content Marketing

The world has millions of businesses.
Whatever the industry you are in, you will get competition there. Then, how
will you market your business? Why should someone buy from you only?

You are using digital? Well, it’s 2020 and
your competitors too using digital.

Content marketing is what makes a difference!

Let me tell you some content marketing statistics
–

61% of consumers’ buying decision is influenced by the content.
Conversion rates are 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adapters.
Content marketing is 62% less expensive than traditional marketing.
87% of consumers want more videos from brands.
73% of consumers have been impacted by a brand’s social media presence when making a purchase decision.

Enough of statistics, let’s dive deeper.

It influences purchase decisions:

When you create free content, people come to you to consume it. When they consume and it helps them, they trust you. When they trust you, they buy from you. This is how content marketing influences purchase decisions.

It improves branding:

You may buy Ford as your first car, but it’s the branding of Ford which decides whether you will buy Ford again or not. Branding makes loyal customers. Content marketing helps in branding. When you distribute free content over Internet, your audience thinks you are a thought leader in the industry.

It sets you apart from the competition:

Content Marketing is an opportunity to differentiate from your competitors. Make sure you create awesome valuable content that nobody else is providing and get a free chance to rule your customers’ hearts.

It builds brand awareness:

Someone was looking for a solution in your niche and while browsing the internet he found a blog post of yours. It helped him. He made a purchase from you. Voila! Not only purchase, now he knows your company name too. Earlier this wasn’t the case. Content Marketing builds brand awareness.

Content Marketing improves SEO:

Google loves fresh content. Also, you need relevant backlinks (apart from on-page SEO) to rank your website. When you create valuable content on the website, it not only fulfills Google’s fresh content requirement, but website owners in your niche can link to your blog post. Ultimately it boosts your SEO efforts.

This important content
marketing is!

Now you may ask what type of
content I should create. Is it only blog posts or there are some other ways
available?

Let’s see.

Some Major Types of Content

Blog posts: What you are reading now is a blog post! The blog is a written format and can be used for educating people in a quicker way. The blog doesn’t take much time to write, also it is loved by readers as well as Google.
E-books: It is a longer form of content including several chapters. Ebooks are powerful lead generators. You can offer it for free, in return, you will get your target audience’s contact details.
Videos: Videos are engaging. You can make explainer videos about tools, tutorials about how to use your product, customer testimonials, you as a CEO addressing audience etc.
Infographics: It is a representation of information in a graphic format designed to make data understanding procedure easier. Infographics are linkable, hence good for SEO.

Images: Images are powerful and many times perform better than text content. You can use free stock images from pixels.com, freepik.com, pixabay.com, and many such sites.
Podcast: It is an audio form of content. The podcast is getting popular in India. I personally run The Marathi Podcast. If you want to create a podcast, use anchor.com.

So, these are some important types of content. I will write a separate blog post covering all the content types with detailed explanation. Stay tuned!

The Last Word

Content Marketing gives reason to people to buy from you. People love to get educated, also they are seeking to get their problems solved. When you do it, they consider you as a thought leader in the industry. On a serious note, content marketing takes time. It is a long term process, but once it started giving results, there is no last stop.

Prepare your content marketing strategy,
spend enough time creating valuable content, and distribute it across various
channels.

In the upcoming posts, I will cover every
topic related to content marketing which will be useful to you.

I hope now you have a basic understanding of
what is content marketing.

If you have any doubts, please feel free to
comment.

See you soon in the next blog post.