You just heard someone mention content marketing, and then you probably have a few questions about what it is and why everyone suddenly started talking about it. Here in this article we will try to clarify the situation.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract and win the target audience. The goal of content marketing is to motivate the consumer to perform beneficial actions.
The key word is “VALUABLE”.
This word distinguishes the definition from one that can describe almost any form of advertising or marketing activities. You can say that the material can be part of the content marketing campaign, if people are looking for it; they want to use it, and not to avoid it. Naturally, the purpose of your content marketing is to provide as much value as possible to the broadest possible target audience. Let’s consider some examples …
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Examples Of Content Marketing
There are as many types of content marketing as there are types of content – too much to tell about all of them here. We want to introduce you to content marketing and encourage you to think like a content marketer so you can see the opportunities surrounding you to work. You will constantly see opportunities for creating content …
Infographics
As a rule, these are long vertically oriented graphic objects, including statistical data, graphs, charts and other information. If you need examples, here are 200+ copies of infographics on content marketing rel=”nofollow”, saved by Michael Schmitz.
Infographics can be effective in the sense that, in case of successful implementation, it can for years roam along social networks and be published on websites. You can get infographics in professional execution by hiring a contractor on the site, for example UpWork or Fiverr, or if you want to avoid some risks, you can contact a company specializing in this kind of work.
The design of a decent infographic will cost you at least 100 dollars, and can cost several hundreds or thousands of dollars, if the contractor or agency under your order will develop a strategy, plan, conduct research, copywriting and design. It is also necessary to think about the promotion of this infographics among bloggers and in the media.
Landing Pages
Remember the “SEO Guide for Beginners” from Moz, a provider of tools and resources related to SEO. This free benefit was viewed several million times and brought to countless customers who otherwise might not have stumbled upon Moz and the services they offer.
Many companies hesitate to discuss the work of their colleagues, but specialists are so confident that they are not afraid to face the competition face to face! Their analysis is fascinating and useful to many beginner designers. This is the difference between the simple placement of content on the site and content marketing.
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Podcasts and Videos
One of the best examples of content marketing is audio podcast. Useful information about business, start-ups, corporate culture, management, sales, etc. The popular YouTube channel is also an outstanding example of content marketing, which tells about business and marketing on the Internet. Familiar viewers, not only with the basic concepts of Internet marketing, but also raises difficult questions, discussing them with opinion leaders.
Video and podcasts in general are an immensely mastered form of content marketing, because people think that it is expensive and time-consuming to deal with. However, given the lower prices for equipment, it is easier to create high-quality video and audio content today than ever before. Amateur videos of popular YouTubers give a huge coverage to brands that host advertising. At the same time, the cost of contact is significantly lower than in any other marketing channels.
You could create for your company a video or audio podcast, which narrated about the features and tricks useful to your customers. It’s easier than you think!
eBooks
As in the case of films, people often think that eBooks are sold by themselves. But educated marketers do not sell books to just sell eBooks. They sell them as marketing tools. The eBook is a tool that encourages clients to turn to the experts and projects mentioned in the book. Although there is no place to publish the eBook at your own expense, there is still an opinion that it is difficult and only professional experts can issue a business eBook. Publish your work, and even if it is not read, you can still use it as a form of content marketing every time you introduce yourself: “The author of the book …”
These are just a few examples of content marketing. You can also mention information materials, applications, public presentations, presentations and blogs. About the use of all of this for the purpose of content marketing written whole volumes.
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Why do you need content marketing?
Perhaps the answer to the question “Why?” Is more important than the answer to the question “What is this?” First of all, it is necessary to understand the four stages of the buying cycle …
1) Awareness: Prior to the emergence of awareness, the buyers may have a need, but they does not know how to satisfy it.
2) Study: When the buyers realizes that there is a solution, they begins the research to get an idea of the subject. For example, a person buying a car will try to find out what types of cars exist and which one will suit his/her needs.
3) Consideration: At this stage, the buyers begins to compare different products from different vendors to make sure that they will receive a quality product at a fair price.
4) Purchase: Finally, the buyers makes a decision and proceeds to the transaction.
Traditional advertising and marketing are good at the last two stages. Content marketing deals with the first two: it increases awareness of opportunities and tells customers about the product, i.e. about what they could have not thought about before!
Potential customers find content, consider it valuable and by the time they contact the company-author, they are already convinced that they want to buy from them. The trust that usually needs to be built during a long sales cycle has already been created.
With the right approach, the return on investment in content marketing can be phenomenal. There are ways to not spend a penny – this is called crow road marketing, but we’ll talk about it in another article.
Content marketing also brings additional benefits: it supports other channels of digital marketing. It provides additional content for marketing on social networks and fuels SEO activities, generating natural incoming links and creating good content on your site that appears in the search engines. In fact, many companies should focus most of their activity in the field of search engine optimization and promotion on content marketing.
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Where To Start?
There are many firms offering services in the field of content marketing, often together with SEO and PR. If you are too busy to do it yourself, and are not ready to manage it in your company, then engaging a contractor company can be the best solution.
But if you want to quickly start and engage in content marketing yourself, the easiest way is to start blogging. At first it will be difficult, but the more you do this, the better it will turn out. Watching the readers, you will quickly learn how to create content for a blog or site that will attract and turn them into customers. However, the techniques are not the key to writing great content, which is the best form of content marketing.
Great Content
If you have ever waded through marketing material and finished reading just because you need it, then you are faced with an example of poor content marketing. Content is good if you really want to read it. Content is good if you are willing to pay to read it.
If you watched “The Lego Movie”, you saw one of the greatest examples of content marketing. This movie was created to sell movie tickets? It was a 100-minute advertisement for the Lego designer, and instead of skipping advertising on YouTube before watching, you pay money and watch it at the cinema!
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By the way, recently Lego went around the capitalization of Mattel, the creator of Barbie dolls, and became the world’s largest toy company. Perhaps your budget is not enough to shoot a feature film to advertise your products or services …
Secret #1 Content marketing: Increase the value!
That’s the whole secret! We talked about this throughout this article. Although, when you watch the work of some marketing companies, you will be surprised that they deliberately avoid the obvious. If you are not sure how you can add value to your content marketing, ask your customers: how and what they read / watched when they were looking for your products or services.
Current information on content marketing is now quite available and there are many. You have a sea of information from the pioneers of the content marketing industry and its leaders. Subscribe to blogs of authoritative experts in content marketing, watch their performances. Here in Local Advertising Journal you can learn many useful information of digital marketing, please follow our blog and we will love to assist you with new materials and case studies in various fields of business.