What is Content Marketing?

December 16, 2021 in Digital Marketing & Digital Transformation

Content marketing has become overused, exploited, and confused with other types of marketing in recent years. What exactly is content marketing, and why should businesses care?

This blog post breaks down the definition of content marketing, showcases examples of content marketing, and highlights the importance of having a content marketing strategy in place. By the end of this blog post, you will have a clearer picture of what is content marketing and how to start doing content marketing.

Defining Content Marketing

The process of planning, developing, distributing, sharing, and publishing material to reach your target audience is known as content marketing. It has the potential to increase brand exposure, revenues, reach, engagements, and loyalty.

The fact is that “tactics” and “principles” of content marketing have been used since 1867. In recent years, marketers from many industrial sectors have splattered the phrase content marketing on practically every single internet marketing action conceivable. Speaking of “term misuse,” there have been instances of digital marketing organisations making outrageously bold comments such as “content marketing equals digital marketing.”

Why is Content Marketing Important For Brands?

A survey done by The Straits Times in Singapore indicated that Singapore consumers spend an average of 12 hours and 42 minutes each day using their cell phones. While the following are the top internet activities that they participate in at least once a day:

Reading personal e-mails
Online messaging and calling
Social media and networks
Work and business purposes
News and sports updates
Game apps on smartphones and tablets

People are consuming material at an unprecedented rate on their digital devices. Despite this, the average click-through rate for all display ad types and locations is only 0.05%. According to Solve Media, you are 475 times more likely to survive a plane accident than to click on an ad.

Content marketing can also help your business with the following:

Educate your leads and prospects about the products and services you offer
Boost conversions
Build relationships between your customers and business that results in increased loyalty
Show your audience how your products and services solve their challenges
Create a sense of community around your brand

Content marketing as a marketing approach may be useful for educating your target audience and getting them interested in your company. It’s also an excellent approach to keeping in touch with and re-engaging existing consumers.

To understand why content marketing can work as a strategy, think about the buyer’s journey. For many companies, it may look something like this:

Awareness phase: This is where the potential customer is seeking information on a topic. They may be looking for a solution to a problem they experience or are simply looking for information on a topic they’re researching.
Consideration phase: The potential customer is learning more about the options available that solve their problem, including your product or service.
Purchase phase: The potential customer is looking for information on how to make a purchase.

Content marketing is a scalable way to bring in customers and potential customers to your site via each of these stages. You can create content that targets those in the awareness, consideration, or purchase phase. As long as the content is optimised and provides what the audience is looking for, it has the potential to continue to bring in potential customers long after it’s been created.

Types & Examples of Content Marketing

What are some examples of content marketing activities? For starters, it is critical to distinguish between pure advertising and content marketing. The goal of content marketing is not to actively encourage consumers to purchase a product. Rather, it takes a more indirect approach, providing consumers with useful information throughout their purchasing process.

There are various forms of content marketing to select from. The following are some of the most popular forms of content marketing.

1) Social media content marketing

With over 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, it’s simple to see why so many firms engage in social media marketing. There are several platforms to work with (for example, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Snapchat) and numerous ways to generate and publish content on each of them (e.g. photos, live videos, pre-recorded videos, stories).

The Instagram account of Lush Cosmetics is on-brand and compliments the rest of the company’s marketing content. Customers would know the profile belonged to Lush even if it didn’t say “Lush Cosmetics” anywhere on it. The Instagram feed promotes the Lush product line by displaying multiple colour and aroma choices for the items as well as demonstrating the various ways each product can be utilised. The profile is colourful and distinctive to Lush, as it portrays members of their diverse client group.

2) Infographic content marketing

Infographics are visual representations of content, information, and statistics. Infographics are an excellent approach to successfully express your material since they use basic text, brief sentences, and clear visuals. They are effective when you are attempting to simplify an educational or complicated issue so that all audience members may grasp it.

Infographics are visual representations of content, information, and statistics. Infographics are an excellent approach to successfully expressing your material since they use basic text, brief sentences, and clear visuals. They are effective when you are attempting to simplify an educational or complicated issue so that all audience members may grasp it.

3) Blog content marketing

Blogs are an effective form of inbound content because they provide a great deal of flexibility in terms of aim and topic. You may use a blog to promote other internal and external material, add social share buttons, and include product information.

This is your opportunity to debate hot industry topics, establish yourself as a thought leader, explain how your solutions may solve common problems, and attract new buyers to your website. Once you’ve created blog material, you can use it to produce social media posts, long-form content on the same topic, eBooks with the same text but additional visuals, and more.

Expedia runs a blog called Out There Starts Here where they publish travel-related information such as hotel recommendations, fantastic places to visit, and travel-related activities available all over the world. Expedia distributes blog articles on a frequent basis to keep readers interested and engaged. It covers a wide range of subjects pertaining to any form of travel you can think of. The blog is consistent with the travel technology company’s purpose and mission of recruiting consumers and increasing brand recognition. This is accomplished by linking to their services and writing about clients who have previously had excellent experiences with the organisation.

Podcasts allow for a lot of creativity because they may be about anything. You also decide on other aspects of the podcast, such as the rhythm of episodes, who is on the podcast, where the podcast is advertised, and how long episodes are.

HBR IdeaCast is a weekly podcast hosted by Harvard Business Review (HBR) that highlights industry experts in business and management. You may either subscribe to receive their hundreds of podcasts on a regular basis or pick and choose which ones you wish to listen to. The podcast is consistent with the rest of HBR’s published content. It also allows HBR to engage with their target audience, raise brand recognition, and develop a following of audience members through a medium that is different from their usual work (e.g. podcast versus HBR article).

5) Video content marketing

According to HubSpot research, more than half of consumers want to see videos from companies with whom they interact. Additionally, video marketing may increase conversions, enhance ROI, and aid in the development of relationships with audience members. You may post your video material on social media sites, landing pages, or on the website of a co-marketer.

A large portion of Dollar Shave Club’s video material has gone viral. Their marketing activities are consistent with their brand, witty, and engaging. In fact, one of their YouTube videos has over 26 million views. Dollar Shave Club has enjoyed amazing development and brand awareness by making a name for itself through internet video programming.

6) Paid ad content marketing

Paid advertisements may help you reach a large audience and position yourself in all of the places you want to be noticed. They are particularly useful when used with inbound marketing. Paid adverts may be shared in a variety of venues, including social media, landing sites, banners, and sponsored content.

Revolve, a clothing and accessory brand, employs paid and sponsored social media adverts (such as this one on Facebook) to reach their target demographic as they scroll through their news feeds. To attract target audience members to their site, the content advertisements contain some of their items as well as information about their free shipping and return policy (and, hopefully, convert them into paying customers).

How Will Content Marketing Change in 2022?

We hope this blog post has helped you to gain a clearer understanding of what content marketing is all about. We’ll be sharing more examples and tips to build a comprehensive content marketing strategy in the coming weeks.

But, in the meantime, you can master content marketing with our 2-day course – Professional Certificate in Content Marketing & Copywriting.

In this content marketing course, you will master effective content marketing and copywriting skills. You will learn how copywriting plays an intricate part in creating content for your digital platforms and the art of content creation. You will also be introduced to the best practices of content marketing and copywriting to ensure that your content is impactful and engaging.