What Is Content Marketing

What Is Content Marketing No one cares about advertising anymore. Content marketing is king. We skip ads using our DVR. We buy Netflix on demand. We scroll past the ever-increasing number of ads in our Facebook feed.  We dont like ads, and thats discouraging for those who are trying to market their product. But, there is hope. We share blog posts and recommend them to our friends. We comment and discuss the killer content that we love. Getting the word out about our brand, business, product, or organization isnt impossible, but the methods have surely changed.  Content marketing is taking over the world. What is content marketing? What is Content Marketing? Advertising is built on   interruptions–taking up 30 seconds of your time during the Super Bowl, or sneaking its way into your social media feeds. No matter when it happens, you probably didnt ask for it. This is what makes it annoying. Content marketing is different. Content marketing is permission-based.   Its marketing that we freely invite into our lives, and sometimes even share with our friends. Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers. -Wikipedia Content marketing is built on the idea that the best way to build trust with our potential customers is to give them something they want. Online, this often translates to  helpful content that doesnt interrupt whatever the visitor is doing, but rather invites them to learn, enjoy, and connect. Good content marketing  brings the user to us, rather than forcing ourself in front of the user.  This builds trust and loyalty with potential customers.   The Content Marketing Institute says it more formally: Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience–with the objective of driving profitable customer action. While it employs a less in your face approach, content marketing is still about results. In fact, it is often more result-driven than its traditional counterpart. Inbound Marketing More recently, the term inbound marketing (also Seth Godins term, permission marketing) has taken hold as a way to describe the type of marketing that allows customers to come to the brand on their own rather than the brand reaching out to the customer via advertising. This idea is built upon the assumption that if you publish helpful content, the customer will look for the business that is offering the best advice. The best way to understand this is to think about a Google search. If a customer does a search online for advice on how to grow their garden, what will they find? Chances are, they will receive a list of blog posts and articles offering tips and tricks for gardeners. Because Google prioritizes local results, a local nursery that is offering this type of advice on their blog will rank highly in the search results. For the local nursery, this is an inbound marketing technique–getting the customer to reach out to you first. It is pretty easy to see that this entire transaction was only made possible because of helpful content that exists because of content marketing. What Is Content Marketing (Not)? Sometimes it is easier to think in terms of what something is not rather than what is it. Content marketing is many things, but there are definitely a few things that it is not. It Is Not About You  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ This one flies directly in the face of most advertising theories. Ads are always about the company paying for them. With content marketing, we need to take the opposite approach. The content needs to be about our audience. It Is Not About Your Product  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Its not about our company, but surely its about the our product? Nope, its not about that either. Content marketing is 100% about helping your customer succeed (using your content). Again, not your product. It Is Not About Instant Sales – Content marketing is a long-term strategy for building customer trust and loyalty to a brand or an idea. It isnt as concerned with an immediate sale. It knows that sales are earned by building customer trust. After all, you cant trick anyone into buying anything. It Is Not About Creativity – Creativity is king for the advertising world, but not content marketing. Content has a bigger mission.