Why content marketing works

A company can promote content by emailing their list of users , or by the CEO tweeting the latest infographic.

They already own the channels, so they can tell people about their content all they want. This could be sponsored media on another channel, or just buying ads pointing to your content. Earned media is what you get when you do something so noteworthy that other people talk about you. It goes viral. There you have it, folks. An entire multi-disciplinary practice boiled down to about 1, words and 17 doodles.

Content marketing is doing business by making Free Helpful Stuff, because the customer is in charge now. By earning their trust, you earn their business. Start every week with all the content marketing stories, data, teardowns, case studies, and weird news you need to drop in your next marketing standup meeting.

Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. So … how does content marketing work? What is content marketing? Content marketing is getting business by making Free Helpful Stuff. But with the Internet, people have access to a lot more information. Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing grows your audience Everyone loves being the bearer of good news, and that means everyone loves talking about Free Helpful Stuff.

Both of these tactics are about getting a larger slice of the market pie. Content marketing generates demand But content marketing can also grow the whole pie. Free Helpful Stuff is a powerful thing.

Low cost per acquisition In the long run, it tends to be less expensive to acquire customers via content than it is to acquire them via more traditional means.

So how does content marketing work? Both are true … to an extent. So how do companies deal with this? They give the market more trampolines to land on. But how do people learn about Free Helpful Stuff? Owned media Owned media is the kind of promotion you can do yourself within your own ecosystem.

Examples of paid media channels: Facebook ads Remarketing ads SEM ads Sponsored content Earned media Earned media is what you get when you do something so noteworthy that other people talk about you. Most companies that can do all three, do all three. Conclusion There you have it, folks. These days, just about everyone uses content marketing, whether they know it or not. Both B2C and B2B marketers use content to reach and engage their target audience.

Using strategies like audience segmentation , digital marketers can develop highly relevant content that drives leads. Best-in-class content marketers are more likely to :.

Building a content marketing strategy from scratch, or even building upon an existing strategy, requires hard work, a scientific approach to analytics and a willingness to never stop learning.

Effective content marketing utilizes several distinct skills to create cohesive campaigns. The best content marketers work in teams in which they can rely upon the expertise of several people. As you can see, each of these skills can translate into many different types of collateral, from blog posts to animated videos.

An effective marketing strategy relies on multiple forms of media to generate awareness and promote brand recognition. When you take the time to understand your target customers and their needs, the ideas will flow. Search-optimized blog posts are simple yet powerful tools for engaging your target audience. These top-of-funnel assets capture web traffic and address customer pain points within a branded digital environment. Content writers leverage advanced SEO tools to identify the right keywords, topics, trends and perspectives.

Then, they add industry subject-matter expertise to craft insightful pieces that provide readers with value. Interested customers will follow calls-to-action and internal links to learn more and eventually take action.

Once a blog is live, a strategist can monitor its performance using Google Analytics. If the data shows users bouncing leaving the site from the blog, it may indicate that the piece could use a stronger call to action.

Learn more about our approach to blogs. Mid-funnel content like eBooks and white papers provide readers with in-depth information and compelling research. Additionally, these longer pieces support lead generation when deployed as gated content. Readers can provide their name and email address in exchange for a free asset.

To get these assets to rank in search, they should be accompanied by a supporting blog post. Discover how to create beautiful and engaging eBooks and white papers. Infographics make it easier for readers to visualize and process complex data, which is often essential to the sales process. They can be shared on social media, or embedded in a blog post.

Likewise, illustrations, graphic design and custom photography make written content more interesting. Learn how to supercharge your content with visual elements. Adults in the U. As a marketing tool, videos are highly engaging and capable of attracting a wide audience.

These days, videos are appearing in more and more search engine results pages, which makes them great for attracting organic traffic. Learn how to implement video content at every stage of the sales funnel.

Like white papers, case studies serve as mid-funnel content that encourages the reader to take further action. Check out some of our own case studies for inspiration. Your website is your best marketing tool. It supports your business goals by providing a channel in which potential customers can learn about your offerings and make purchase decisions. Landing pages dedicated to specific offerings and subjects are better at converting customers than your homepage.

They provide targeted information that encourages further action. These pages are indexed by search engines, which allow users to find them easily. The Content Marketing Institute , an online resource for information on all things content marketing related, defines content marketing thusly:. Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

You can tell if a piece of content is the sort that could be part of a content marketing campaign if people seek it out, if people want to consume it, rather than avoiding it. The same will apply to any piece of content marketing you create, depending on whether the recipient received value from it or not.

Of course the goal is to provide as much value from your content marketing to as much of your target audience as possible. We can get more clarity by considering a few examples. There are as many types of content marketing as there are types of content--far too many to cover here.

Here are five examples to help your mind start percolating. Those are just a few examples of content marketing. I could also have mentioned white papers, ebooks, apps, public speaking, presentations , and blogs. Entire books have been written on using each of these in content marketing efforts. Perhaps more important than understand what content marketing is, is understanding why content marketing is important to your business. First we need to understand the four steps of the buying cycle:.

Traditional advertising and marketing is great when it comes to the second two steps. Content marketing taps into the first two stages of the buying process by raising awareness of solutions and educating consumers about a product they may have never considered before.

The trust that usually needs to be built up during an extensive sales cycle has already been created before we know the potential client exists. The return on investment for content marketing can be phenomenal if executed correctly. Content marketing also provides additional benefits in that it supports other digital marketing channels. It provides additional content for social media marketing and contributes to SEO efforts by generating natural inbound links and building up good content on your website that gets found in search engines.