You’ve heard of print advertising or even pay-per-click marketing, but what is content marketing? As we continue to throw out the old methods and welcome new digital tools, content marketing comes to the fore.
In a nutshell, content marketing is the principle of creating valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract your target audience. It helps if we look at it from a traditional and modern approach.
The traditional marketing approach might be what we call ‘push marketing’ or ‘outbound marketing’. With these methods, we are actively trying to get our message in front of our key audiences. Key tactics may include:
- Print advertising
- TV ads
- Radio commercials
- Banner ads – both online and in public, for example, billboards.
While there is still something to be said for all these methods, they are more difficult to measure than new digital forms of marketing.
Content marketing, by comparison, relies on more of a ‘pull’ or ‘inbound’ technique. This means that we are actively answering our target audience’s questions – for example, if they type a question into a search engine.
By offering valuable content that answers these users’ questions, we can position ourselves as experts and foster trust, which helps to increase sales.
Types of content marketing
‘Content’ may be a catch-all term, but the channels we use can vastly affect the outcomes. With content marketing, our efforts are far more targeted. We might be targeting users based on the abovementioned search engine queries, or we might be creating an ‘evergreen’ (non-time-sensitive) resource to use as a sales tool. Channels we can use include:
Blog posts
An on-site blog offers tons of benefits, from asking users’ questions to creating shareable articles that boost your brand’s authority. Creating a consistent editorial strategy allows you to offer your users fresh content regularly, helping to build a following and keep search engines happy, amongst other benefits.
Video marketing
If you’re a dab hand with editing software or love talking to the camera, video marketing creates a timeless resource that your audience can access 24/7. Don’t forget, YouTube is owned by Google, which means not only can your videos increase your following; they can also improve your SEO.
Social media
Your social media is the voice of your brand, so use it to share useful content or create content specifically for these platforms. For example, you might make use of channel-specific tools such as Instagram Reels or Twitter Fleets, thereby increasing your audience and giving them new ways to access your content.
Infographics
If you’ve got a lot of facts and figures, you can create a digestible resource in the form of an infographic. This hits people with the facts and can be complemented by supporting blog posts – a visual resource for bitesize learning, and a longer, contextual post.
Podcasts
With the likes of platforms like Clubhouse cropping up, audio is very much here to stay. This means that podcasts are a great way of increasing your brand reach, giving users easier access to valuable information. For best results, you can even integrate videos and upload them to YouTube.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, brand awareness is the top goal of content marketers. But that’s not the only benefit of content. You can also use it to:
- Establish your brand as a thought leader
- Drive prospects and would-be buyers down the sales funnel
- Remarket and retain loyal customers
- Boost your website’s discoverability via enhanced SEO.
Get started with a bespoke content marketing strategy
Now you know the tools, it’s time to make plans. Contact our friendly hive of search engine specialists today to discover how a content marketing strategy can work for you.
