Content Marketing: Everything You Need To Start
Following Google trends result shows growth in interest for Content Marketing from 2004 to 2020.
Following questions are answered in this post,
- What is content marketing definition?
- What is content marketing in simple words?
- What are types of content marketing?
- Major difference between content marketing and traditional marketing?
- How to do content marketing?
- Why content marketing is important?
- My opinion on Content Marketing: Conclusion
What is content marketing definition?
Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. (Source: Definitions from Oxford Languages)
It is a strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent content.
What is Content Marketing in simple words?
Creating content (such as article, video, audio or image) and sharing it for free on social media to gain trust from potential customers.
Basic steps for content marketing:
- Create ridiculous amount of quality content.
- Share it on every social media platform-such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, website blogs, etc.
- Keep on repeating above two steps consistently.
What are types of content marketing?
One of the most amazing features about content marketing is that it has variety options to choose from. You can choose the option that suits your business interest better. Some of the options are as follows,
- Blog article
The article you are reading right now can be the perfect example of the content in the form of a blog.
- Video
Video content provide an amazing platform to watch and just listen to the content. Some people prefer to view the summary of any blog or article in the video format.
- Podcast
Podcast are gaining lot of attention in the last few years. You can listen to them while working. Podcast provides content that is easy to understand.
- Books
Books are served as a beacon of light from ancient times. From manually writing every book to printing evolution to e-books mode of availability may have changed but the essence is still the same.
- News/newspaper
In the Corona pandemic, we all are glued to the news reports for any new updates. Newspapers in this digital age are still considered as reliable and relevant.
- Case studies
Case studies provide insight into the working model of the company or service. They serve as a perfect way to learn from and develop new valuable products.
- Reports
Reports can help you understand if the current marketing model is working or not. Reports give us the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the subject matter.
- Social media post
You may not have read company financial reports but you definitely have read social media posts. It can be from Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or other social media platforms.
- Emails
The first thing I do when I wake up is I check my emails.
- Webinars
Webinars are important tools of remote learning.
- Infographics
It provides easy to understand overview of the topic with chars, text, and images.
- Animations
Animations are great ways to explain difficult terms in simple format and to keep audience active.
- Apps
From games, note keeping, music we all have apps on our smartphones. They make our life easy.
- Quiz
Quizzes provide us a way to test our knowledge and learn something new at the same time.
How content marketing is different from traditional marketing?
Traditional marketing involves following forms of advertising,
- Facebook ads
- Google ads
- Print ads
- Billboards
- Newspaper features
These forms of advertising are surely beneficial to business but are not economical for the business.
Whereas, Content marketing involves- Lots of free content out which brings loyal trusting customer base. You can create free social media accounts and just interact with people. Content acts as away to get to know you quicker and in an easier way.
How to do content marketing?
Anticipate what user wants, to make sure user is satisfied. Don’t create just content for content’s sake, follow trends, look for what’s relevant and create a content that can generate traffic.
Content marketing formula-
Content Marketing = Content + Distribution
Both parts ‘Content’ and ‘Distribution’ are equally important. For successful content marketing use these 6 strategies-
- Do your research about content and competitors
- Create Quality content
- Be consistent
- Remember you are creating content for your users as well as search engines, keep content structured and SEO (Search Engine Optimization ) compatible
- Chose the right keywords-for search engines
- Earn back-links for your post
- Promote your content on all relevant platforms (stay active on social media)
- Repeat the cycle, improve, adjust, and adapt
Even if you have or don’t have your own personal website you can make use of following platforms for free.
Social media distribution platforms- with Monthly Active User count
| Social Media Platforms | Monthly Active User Count |
| YouTube | 1.9 billion |
| 2.23 billion | |
| 1.5 billion | |
| Messenger | 1.3 billion |
| 1.0 billion | |
| Tumblr | 642 million |
| 335 million | |
| 294 million | |
| Snapchat | 255 million |
| 250 million |
Why content marketing is important?
When a product or service is put on for sell, buyers take defensive mode while inspecting it. Buyers expect more (as rightly they should) and trust less.
Most buyers don’t trust ads and some even don’t trust companies they buy from.
To counter this challenge content marketing is used. Content marketing is a strategy of putting out content and letting the content do the marketing for you.
It is used to create loving and devoted customers. Instead of directly asking customers to buy your product or service, you provide value to gain trust. It can make people aware about your product, service and its benefits. Good content is essential for growth of your website. Well crafted content drives through rankings, external links, and social media.
My opinion on Content Marketing
Conclusion:
Content marketing can be exhausting but it works. Time investment is worth it. There is no time like present to use content marketing strategies to boast your service or product.