Are you thinking of setting up a business? Do you want to market your products? Or are you a marketer and want to set up your business in the field? Well, for all of these needs, the best thing to learn is what is content marketing?
You must be thinking how can learning what is content marketing help in business or make you a successful marketer? Well, the simple answer to this question is that a customer or audience wants quality and valuable content from a business. This is where content marketing helps as it helps in making the content reach the audience in a way that feels organic and natural without being disruptive.
In the article, we will tell you all the nitty witty of what is content marketing. We will also explain other aspects of the field like content marketing strategy and more.
What Is Content Marketing?
The term content marketing refers to the process of creating, planning, distributing, publishing, and sharing content. In it, the content is specifically designed by keeping the target audience in mind.
It is a way that helps the business to describe their products, services, and more in a way that is engaging, attractive, and delightful for the target audience and customers.
Content marketing also helps in boosting the factors like sales, brand awareness, interactions, loyalty, and reach of the business. This is why content marketing is a major part of the digital marketing field.
Why Is Content Marketing Vital For A Business?
The next important thing to know what is content marketing is understanding why it is important.
Content marketing involves the process of creating, sharing, planning, publishing, and distributing engaging and meaningful content. It helps a brand in boosting its sales by making more people aware of it and increasing its reach. Content marketing also helps in creating a brand image in the minds of customers.
Some other factors which make content marketing important are:
- Content marketing helps in educating the leads and the prospects on various things about the products. It makes them aware of the services you are offering.
- By using content marketing, businesses can also boost conversations with customers.
- It also helps in building a relationship and trust between the customers and brand. This, in turn, results in customer loyalty towards the brand and increased brand value.
- It also helps in showing the audience that how your products can be helpful for them. This also helps them in understanding how your products can help in solving their problems.
- It helps in creating a community sense around the brand.
These are some factors that make content marketing vital for a business. This is why understanding these factors is an essential part when we want to understand what is content marketing.
Now when you know what is content marketing and why it is important for a business, let’s move on to its next aspect.
Types
There are various kinds of the content marketing that you can include in your content marketing strategy. Some of the most popular types of content marketing are:
Social Media Marketing
The use of social media has become an important part of everyone’s day-to-day life. This is why social media is one of the major types of content marketing. It is a platform that plays an important part in all the aspects of content marketing as well as digital marketing.
At present, there are 3.6 billion users of various social media platforms, and this is exactly why it is very important. This is also the same reason why various businesses and brands invest in social media marketing. The good thing about social media marketing is that there are a number of platforms available for it, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more.
What is even amazing about this type of content marketing is that it is easy to access, influence and advertiser. It also allows you to use various methods of marketing like video content. Stories, using influencers, and more.
Infographic Marketing
The infographic is the next major type of content marketing. In it, the brands display the content, data, and information in a way that is easy to understand for the audience.
This is a mix of various things like simple wordings, create images, short statements, and other infographic things. It is a great way for communicating with the audience effectively through the content.
The infographic is one of the best as a brand or business can use for explaining any complex topic to the audience. It is something which can help in the explanation of complex topics like educational or scientific ones.
This is why it is an important part to understand when we want to understand what is content marketing. It can help to advertise and increasing the customer base even in areas where education levels are low as it makes understanding things easy.
Blog Post
The next form of content marketing and an important part of digital marketing is blog post-marketing. It is a powerful type of inbound content that allows for a high amount of creativity in terms of topic and purpose.
By using blog post-marketing, a brand can do various things like promoting their external and internal content. They can do this through articles and blogs by using links, incorporating information for products, and social media button addition. The brands can also use the blog posts for influencing the audience and creating a good image of their product in their mind.
One of the best examples of it is the various sites like buzz feed where audiences read about product reviews. These sites help in the creation of a narrative around a product and thus the increase in sales.
Podcasts Marketing
According to a survey in the USA conducted in 2020, people in the age group of 12 to 32 years listen to podcasts on a regular basis. The survey shows that they listened to podcasts once a month with an average listening time of six hours a week.
This is enough to give you an insight into why podcast content marketing is important. It is the reason why various brands and businesses go for the creation and sharing of their own podcasts.
The podcasts allow brands and businesses for being highly creative for any topic of their choice. In addition to this, the marketer also decides the factors related with podcasts. Some factors which the marketer decides are:
- Episode cadence
- Who is on a podcast like using an influencer?
- Where to advertise the specific podcasts like deciding the particular region.
- How long an episode will be.
These are some of the factors which the brands decide for the podcasts. This is why podcasts are an important part of content marketing and digital marketing.
Video Marketing
The next type which you need to understand for understanding what is digital marketing is video marketing.
According to research by Wyzowl, 69% of the consumers say that they prefer video learning instead of other methods when it comes to learning about a brand or product.
This is why video content marketing is a very vital part of the marketing strategy. In addition to this, video content marketing can also help in improving the ROI, boosting conversations, and more.
It can also help in building the trust and relationship between the customer and brand.
The good thing about video marketing is that you can share it on various platforms. Some of the common platforms for it include social media, websites, or landing pages.
Paid Advertisement Marketing
The paid advertisement is one of the types which you can use to reach a broader audience. It allows for positioning a brand or product in the places where you want to see it. This kind of content marketing is especially good when you pair it with inbound marketing.
The good thing about the paid advertisement is that there are various platforms where you can share them. Some of them are social media, banners, sponsored content, websites, landing pages, and more.
These are the major types of content marketing that play a vital role in marketing. The good thing about all these types is that they are easy to learn and understand. For professional help, you can go for various content marketing institute options which train in content marketing.
Content Marketing Examples
There are various examples of the content marketing which you can find. Some of them are:
- Brand pages on Instagram like lush cosmetics. It is a type of social media marketing.
- IBM cloud marketplace website. It is a type of infographic marketing.
- Travel blogs.
- Youtube ad for the brands.
Content Marketing Strategy
To be a successful content marketer, you need to have a strategy. Some of the steps which you need to follow for successful content marketing are:
Set Smart Goals
The first and most important part of the content marketing strategy is to set goals. These goals must be specific to the business, and they must complement the broader marketing things like the goals of the company.
Some examples of content marketing are:
- Improve awareness towards the brand.
- Increase conversation with the audience and customers.
- Boost the revenue.
- Improve the loyalty of customers towards the brand.
- Increase engagement of the customers.
- Build trust and rapport among the customers and prospects.
- Attract other strategic partners.
These are some of the examples of smart goals which you can try before going for content marketing.
Determine The KPIs
The next thing to do in content marketing is to decide the key performance indicators or KPIs for the goals. The KPIs mean the quantifiable data which you can use for measuring the real performance of the marketing against goal.
Some KPIs are:
| Awareness for Brand | Follower in social media, mention by partners and customers, site traffic, subscriptions |
| Revenue | Abandonment rate of shopping cart, trends for competitive prices, conversion rates |
| Loyalty towards brand | Promoters, referrals, returning customers, product reviews |
| Customer engagement | Follows, likes, mentions, shares, and backlinks |
| Trust and Rapport | Returning customers, mentions, followers and promoters |
| Strategic Partners | Mentions, new partnerships, backlinks |
These are some KPI examples which you need to set for your goals.
Decide The Content-Type
The next thing you need to do is choose what type of content you are going to create. For doing this, the best thing is to think about the buyers and target audience personas.
To do this, get answers to following questions:
- What the customers need from you?
- Why do the customers need your services or the product?
- What are the problems which the customers want to overcome?
- How can you help the customers in succeeding?
- Where do the customers spend their time?
Once you have the answer, review the content you are creating and then decide accordingly.
Choose The Channels For Content
After you have decided what type of content you are going to market, then go to choose the proper channels for it. Where are you going to share the content you create? Where your content will be shared and live from? And more.
Set The Budget
One of the important things you need to do for content marketing is to set the budget. For doing this, think about the content you will create and the channels you will use to market it.
Once you are done, ask the following questions to yourself for determining the budget:
- Will you be needing to purchase any kind of technology or software for your content creation? For example, adobe photoshop, keyword tools, and more.
- Will you need to hire any of the designers or marketers for the content like writers, designers, editors, and more?
- Do you need any paid space for your content?
- Will you be needing access to any kind of specific resources or toll for enhancing the content?
When you have the answer to these questions, then make a note of the impacts they will have on your budget. Then decide according to it.
Creating And Distributing Content
The next thing you need to do is creating and distributing your content to the members of your audience. This is essential so that they consume it and later possibly convert it.
For ensuring that you are consistent in producing good content and sharing it with the audience, use a social media or editorial calendar for content. It will help you in staying on top of all the other competitors.
Measure and Analyze The Results
The last thing you need to do in the content marketing strategy is to analyze and measure the results. This will help in creating the content more efficiently and make any changes according to customer needs. It will, in turn, help you in creating better content and thus reaching more audiences.
To do the analysis, look at the KPIs and SMART goals that you set for your content. Did you achieve the set KPIs and goals? How close were you to achieving them?
These are some of the content marketing strategy tips and tricks which you should follow. They will help you in creating better content and increasing engagement.
These are some of the things which play a part when we want to understand what is content marketing.
Final Words
Do you know what content marketing is? No? Well, then you must if you want to be a successful marketer and want your business to be successful in these digital times.
Content marketing is a major part of digital marketing that helps in enhancing and increasing a brand’s value, customer reach, conversations, and customer loyalty. It is something that helps in creating an image of the brand in the minds of potential customers.
