Content Marketing is a specific type of marketing strategy designed to provide useful information to an audience. This is in direct contrast to traditional publicity, which is sometimes referred to as “interruption marketing.” In interruption marketing, the goal is to blast messages to users with the intention of getting an impression that will, hopefully, become a lead. Usually, media space for interruption marketing is rented. Think about television commercials, radio commercials, and billboard advertising. These are all venues for traditional publicity.
Marketing based on content, on the other hand, is not about renting media space but about owning it. A business’s own blog, social media channels, and other such venues represent media space that the business can access for free. The reach of these channels could be quite limited, or there could be numerous people following the business, but these channels are where the strategy often starts. Instead of simply trying to grab the viewers’ attention long enough to say, “Buy my product,” a good content strategy focuses on developing relationships with a readership and providing useful information to a targeted audience.
Benefits of Content Marketing
This marketing strategy has many benefits over traditional publicity. A few of the biggest advantages, though, are as follows:
- Most consumers have learned how to ignore traditional marketing. The DVR makes it possible to skip television advertising, and most people have learned to completely ignore banner advertising on websites.
- Using owned media means less money spent on advertising. A good content strategy can provide a better return on investment per dollar than most advertising slots.
- This approach shows customers and potential customers a consistent, expert voice from your company. All companies offer a service to their customers. As a result, companies have access to knowledge. Giving some of that knowledge away is a great way to ensure your company is remembered when potential customers need your services.
Content Marketing Is the Future, and the Future Is Here
Today, it is not enough to blast customers with ads. Most consumers will just ignore them because they have been inundated with ads for so long. Instead, consumers are attracted to those companies that provide valuable information that is relevant to their needs. However, this is nothing new. Even traditional advertising has been moving towards providing something of value in recent years.
Many advertisements now have more to do with entertainment for a brief period of time than they do in the product, and that is no accident on the part of the advertisers. They know that the way to get the most mileage out of their advertising slot is to provide something their customer wants in that slot. For television and radio alike, this is simply to be entertained. That is good marketing content, and that is how you get customers in a hyper-competitive market.
All Marketing Requires Good Content
Whether it’s SEO, PPC or social media marketing, all marketing has one thing in common. Its success rests on the quality of the content provided. A strong SEO strategy requires timely updates with high-quality content because search engines reward this behavior.
Good marketing content requires time, and marketing that content requires even more time. Content requires someone to eventually sit down and write it, there’s just no way around it. If you need help building or executing a content strategy, maybe we can help, contact Full Circle SEM today.
