22 Jul Content Marketing: What is it?

Posted at 06:54h in Event Solutions by
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Traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective nowadays and as a forward-thinking marketeer, you might wonder if there is a better way. 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. 

Instead of pitching your products or services you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues. The key word here is “valuable.” It’s what changes this definition. 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 and if people want to consume it, rather than avoid it.   

An annual research shows the vast majority of marketers are using content marketing. In fact, it is used by many prominent organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and John Deere. It’s also developed and executed by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe. Why? Because it works.

Nowadays, the strategy your business uses to find its target audience is completely different from a few decades ago. Content Marketing has become one of the digital era’s most effective techniques in terms of finding potential clients and retaining the ones that have already bought something. Content Marketing is not only used to attract interested people towards your brand’s proposals, but it is also the best way to transmit your business’s identity and values while enabling you to secure a spot in these people’s daily lives through the use of Social Networks.

 

Benefits of Content Marketing:

  • It’s the best way to reach your target audience by offering relevant and quality content
  • It’s the perfect technique for improving your content, website and commercial proposals’ web positioning
  • It enables you to showcase your brand’s values.
  • It helps you attract and retain potential clients on Social Networks.
  • Creating articles and content that are relevant to your audience makes it possible for you to utilize SEO techniques, which help favor your appearance in the first few results on Google searches.
  • The main benefit of content marketing is that it’s always relevant and to the point.
  • Brands can use different ways to present their content in an innovative manner. 

 

Content Marketing: The Numbers according to Forbes Magazine 

  • 88% of B2B Businesses (meaning, businesses focused on selling to other businesses) use Content Marketing as part of their marketing strategy.
  • The most successful B2B Content Marketing specialists designate a large proportion of their resources to said strategy: 42% of the total budget compared to the 28% designated for less effective measures.
  • 90% of B2C Businesses (meaning, businesses focused on selling to the final consumer) utilize Content Marketing to build and promote their brand image.
  • 48% of the most effective B2B marketers have a documented editorial plan as part of their content strategy.
  • 61% of the most successful content marketing specialists meet daily, or monthly, with their work team.
  • 76% of B2B marketers decided to produce more content in 2016.
  • 94% of B2B marketing specialists keep their LinkedIn current as part of their content strategy. Other popular platforms are Twitter (87%), Facebook (84%), YouTube (74%)  Google+ (62%).
  • 85% of the most effective B2C Businesses have someone who coordinate their content marketing strategy.
  • Both B2B Marketers and B2C Marketers use an average of six Social Networks.

Source:Forbes Magazine

 

Types of Content Marketing:

  • Blogging
  • Video
  • Podcasting
  • Infographics
  • Email
  • Visual content
  • Ebooks
  • Whitepapers
  • Slideshare presentations
  • Courses
  • Webinars
  • Social media posts and more!

Content Marketing possibilities are endless which make this technique one of the most flexible and adaptive for your business. Therefore, implementing it in your business can help you take advantage of it before your competitors do.