What is Content Marketing

Content marketing has been more than a buzzword in the online world for quite a while now.

As at today, it is one of the most popular coinage in the digital world and just as expected, a lot of businesses are falling over each other to understand and create better content.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that content marketing has been in existence as a marketing strategy, as far back as the 1800s it became really popular only recently.

Despite the fact that the Content Marketing as a marketing strategy has become quite popular for some time now, a lot of businesses do not understand the concept of content marketing.

Many others are still grappling with finding their feet around creating content and getting the right audience to their websites and blogs.

So what exactly is Content Marketing?

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a combination of the two words, content and marketing.

Content on the one hand is an information expressed through a medium directed towards an end user.

While Marketing is the process through which goods move from the producers to the consumers…

So combining the two definitions, content marketing is the process of producing and moving a particular piece of information, from the producer (of the information) to the consumers.

But content marketing is a bit more than that right?

To the very basic learner, the idea about content marketing is to produce value to your target users in a way that will help you achieve a specific goal.

Now going a bit advanced to industry definition…

Content marketing is a marketing strategy used in Creating and Distributing, Valuable, Relevant and Consistent content in order to create a Clearly Defined Audience with the Objective of Driving Profitable Customer Action.

By the way, before we go deeper into this definition, I want you to understand that content marketing is not all about writing. There are different forms of Content Marketing.

You can create your content either as a written document, a video, audio or podcast, audio visual, Infographics, ebooks, case study etc.

That’s why we have people producing Video content, Picture content, Graphics, Audio content and so on…

But… The process of producing, promoting and distributing these series of content all falls under content marketing.

OK. So let’s look at the elements that should define a successful content marketing effort.

Before you embark on content marketing, there are certain things you must consider. These are part of the primary elements mentioned in this definition and that’s what we’re going to talk about below…

How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Campaign.

The following steps will help you to create an effective content marketing campaign that can deliver your content marketing goals…

Create and Distribute

One of the elements of content marketing is creating and distributing content.

As a content marketer, you’ll have to create content. And after creating content, there’s need to distribute your content.

Creation of content is where you start then distribution is what completes the first part of your content marketing process.

Of course without creating or distributing the content there will be no content marketing in the first place. So you start with creating and then sending it out to your audience across the platforms they can be reached.

Create Valuable Content

The second leg of the definition of content marketing is creating “valuable” content.

The valuable here connotes that your content must have a particular value it provides for your users if you must drive results.

Your user should be able to get real value from your content. This is part of what keeps the user coming back to consume your content and ultimately taking a particular action you’re driving at which could be subscribing to your email or buying a product from your website.

This is what makes content marketing distinguished from advertising which is most times aimed at getting the user to buy your stuff immediately.

Unlike advertising and direct email marketing, content marketing focuses on providing value which will make the user come to Know your brand, Like you as a brand and then Trust you to the point he can buy and recommend your products and services to others.

Those three factors are very important when it comes to digital marketing as a whole.

Make Your Content Relevant to your audience

The third thing you should consider in your content marketing endeavors is relevance.

So before you begin to produce your next content, you need to ask yourself, is this stuff relevant for my audience?

Because you can’t get people coming to read stuff that’s not relevant to them.

Take for instance, your website is selling Suit for guys, Cufflinks and Belts…

You won’t want to start writing content about pregnant women on such websites… Because such content will not be relevant to the target users.

So your content marketing strategy must be focused on creating relevant content if you want to make users come back to read your stuff.

Create Consistency

Consistency is a big factor when it comes to creating a successful content marketing campaign.

You should be able to create a certain kind of content consistently, in a way that your users will always find something fresh to read about when they check out your platforms.

This could mean having a particular set of schedule for creating content.

Let’s say you might decide to be creating a particular number of content on a weekly basis for instance. Focus on that.

Consistency helps in driving the number of return users to your platforms.

Consistency could also mean staying in OR writing about a particular niche for a long time that you become known for that.

This helps in building trust and evolving a loyal audience.

Create a clearly defined audience

Your content marketing should be targeted at bringing in a clearly defined audience to your platforms.

Now this is it…

If you’re marketing content for the Instagram social media platform for instance, you’ll want to use the relevant hash tags in your content…

This helps in making your post visible to people actively engaging with such hash tags.

Same thing goes for blogs and websites. Before starting out, try to find out the purpose of your content marketing effort.

After that, tailor your content towards achieving that.

If you want to target a particular audience, your content should anticipate the kind of things those audience will be searching for on the internet and optimized for them. Including the keywords they will use.

Create your Content Goals

When it comes to creating an effective content marketing campaign, you can’t just start producing content without any specific aim.

Of course so many newbies do this. And yes I did same when I started out. And the result was wasted effort, time and resources.

You won’t want to come online and produce content just because you feel like it (well that’s not a bad thing to do. But it’s not the smart thing for a small business to do ).

You want to create content that helps you achieve a particular result. This is why you must strive to do just this.

Again, before starting out with content marketing, find out the overall objective for the content marketing process.

What do you want to create as a result of doing content marketing for your business?

The answer will help you streamline your content marketing effort towards achieving those results. And then you will be able to rate your success based on that.

Going a bit further, you’ll also want to create a content marketing objective for your particular content.

So before creating any content, you ask yourself, what do I want to achieve with this content?

. Is it to help my brand become notorious?
. Make my users like my brand?
. Increase awareness for my new products?
. Drive engagement or sales?
. Etc.

There are so many reasons and objectives behind individual content marketing efforts. Try to find yours.

For instance the way you write content that is aimed at making your brand notorious will be different from the way you write content that’s aimed at making people like your brand.

Knowing your content goals helps you bring in content marketing strategies that will help you achieve those goals.

Why Content Marketing Matters

There are so many reasons why Content Marketing matters to small businesses. From growing your audience to building your brand, content marketing has been driving tremendous success for small businesses.

The following are some important reasons why content marketing matters to you as a small business…

Drives targeted Traffic

One of the most important reasons why content marketing matters to small businesses is because it drives targeted traffic to websites.

With a smart Content Marketing Strategy, you can build a targeted audience who will turn out to become prospects and possibly paid clients.

Builds Brand Identity

When done well, strategic content marketing can build your brand identity, improve your reach and create a collection of committed and loyal audience.

As an entrepreneur, you can build a robust brand with the right content, create a following and become a thought leader in your industry.

Content Marketing Drives Sales

Another reason why content marketing matters is because it drives sales for businesses. A lot of entrepreneurs depend on content to spread their ideas, expand their influence, reach a wider audience and drive sales.

With the right content you can attract the right audience to your blog and over time these audience can become paid subscribers or clients.

There are so many reasons why Content Marketing matters to businesses but, this is where we’ll draw the curtain.

So, how important is content marketing to your business? Let’s hear you.

8 Responses

  1. […] Content marketing is regarded as a strategic marketing approach focused on building quality, useful or relevant and consistent content on the internet (could be social media, your blog, website etc) in order to attract a well-defined audience that will help you drive a profitable customer action. It is one of the most popular services rendered as online business. […]

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Victor Winners

Victor Winners

Award winning Blogger, Author, Web Developer, Senior Digital Strategist and Founder of Africa's most widely read blog on Content Marketing and Digital Strategy, VictorWinners.Com.Named as one of the top 50 design influencers globally, since 2014; Victor Winners has helped over 2 million readers to understand and use digital technology to transform their lives and businesses.

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