Content marketing
What is content marketing?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, the definition of 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.”
In other words, it is a type of marketing that involves creating and exchanging materials over the internet. For example, videos, blog posts, sharing text posts on social media platforms.
All of which does not directly promote the brand, but rather aim at providing content that benefits the audience. In addition to enhancing their interests in the products and services offered by the brand.
When comparing modern forms of marketing to traditional forms in the history of marketing. Firstly, we will notice that the past traditional forms have become less convincing. Secondly, we will see how their effect is slowly degrading.
Providing good entertaining content could create a powerful bond between your brand and your clients. In addition to its ability to contribute to its growth over time.
Acquiring an attractive content marketing plan means that you have a strategy to create valuable content that would build a strong relationship with your clients and increase the power of your brand.
Content marketing is a long-term strategy that focuses on building a stable relationship with your audience. Therefore, instead of promoting your products or services, you provide appropriate content for your potential and current clients that would help solve their problems.
Certainly, when it comes to making the purchasing decision, certainly, gaining the loyalty of your audience falls entirely upon you.
Through your content, you can show the audience that:
A) You have the required relevant experience
B) You care enough to share this knowledge with them.
To clarify, valuable content allows you to move customers along the knowledge path. For instance, gaining their trust and having them purchase at the end without forcing them to do so.
Today, 41% of marketing in the B2B sector focuses on the content that is associated with the customer’s purchasing journey. Meanwhile, many companies fail in producing customized content for each stage in the purchasing cycle.
Marketing messages not only mean targeting with demographic standards, but they subsequently mean producing appropriate proactive content for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Why is content marketing important?
Educating your clients and providing them with the necessary resources to know you and build trust toward your brand is the modern way of marketing. For you to achieve this, you need to identify your marketing goals clearly at first.
Therefore, most of the leading brands nowadays are heading towards marketing through content, and so as your competitors.
Over 91% of B2B companies are using content marketing, so why don’t you?
Content marketing benefits:
1- Meets the needs of your target audience, and it is beneficial to put your audience first.
2- Depends on sending and directing specific messages to each client depending on their location in the procurement path.
3- Content focuses on building brand awareness, trust, and loyalty towards it.
4- Bringing in more potential clients.
74% of companies indicate that content marketing increases the quality and quantity of potential customers. Therefore, if you are searching for potential customers who are willing to buy, nothing exceeds high-quality content based on a well-thought-out strategy.
According to Hubspot, marketing content attracts potential customers three times more compared to search ads.
5- Content promotes sales, which likewise helps customers make purchasing decisions.
As a result, Content marketing may require more time, patience, and effort in the long-run, but the rewards are much greater.
According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing has six times the power compared to traditional marketing when it comes to converting people into potential customers and then to actual buyers.
You can tell if your content is good if it was:
1- Accessible by everyone:
Your content must be understandable and accessible to your targeted audience. In which the terms that suit their educational level and society are applied.
2- Valuable:
The content you offer must hold a tangible value for the clients that would educate them. It should add to their knowledge some beneficial information that changes their lives for the better.
3- Easily shared:
When creating content, you must consider that it could be shared and interacted with by answering your questions or publishing them with your “community”.
As a result, increased interactions and engagement could build a strong bond between you and your audience. The greater access to your content by the public, the higher the interactions you will receive from your audience, make sure that you share the content on other platforms as well.
4- Related to the products or services offered:
Linking content to a company’s products/services will demonstrate your experience, and encourage consumers to decide on the product. Therefore, the content aims to decide on the products or services offered so that it would turn a visitor into a customer.
5- Your content must be unique:
By creating unique content and spotting the light on your competitive advantages, the trust and faith of the audience would highly increase.
Therefore, you must become distinct and provide content that makes you stand out whenever you’re in comparison with anyone should be your goal.
To do so, you will need to analyze your competitors thoroughly.
Certainly, your content should not promote your products and services directly because it does not attract customers.
6- Valid for every time and place:
There is a type of content called “Evergreen Content”, this means that your content should be appropriate and valid at all times and places so that consumers can benefit from it without losing its value over time.
Types of Content marketing:
Many believe that content marketing is only limited to the publication of articles, but on the contrary, more types of it do exist, including:
Blogging:
It is one of the most powerful and least-costly types of content marketing. Certainly, blogging offer many benefits to consumers in terms of the company’s products/services. In addition, it also answers the general questions asked by the audience.
Usually, different company websites fiercely compete to occupy the top search results on search engines.
Infographics:
Graphics or visual representation of information or data, where this type of content helps simplify complex information and animates dull topics. Sometimes, the way you present your words may be what attracts the reader’s attention.
Video:
It is the most widely used form, where videos on specific topics get designed and uploaded to the company’s website or its social networking platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
In short, video involvement in marketing campaigns has spread widely from large, medium, or small companies due to its importance.
Research and studies:
The type of content marketing that customers trust and rely on since most people trust numbers and statistics. In other words, doing research in your area of expertise and sharing it with clients proves how professional you are.
e-books
e-books are written and published after the company conducts its research and collects the questions asked by customers and answers these questions through these books. If you want to create long-lasting content, you should try using e-book content marketing.
Brands nowadays need to plan and pursue strategies that assist in attracting and gaining the trust of potential customers.
In short, this is why you need to create valuable content that helps in solving the problems of your audience. In addition to focusing their attention towards your brand.
Are you ready to improve your brand and increase your sales through content marketing?
