What is content marketing?
Traditional marketing promotes brands, products, and services. It uses newspapers, TV, radio, newsletters, and billboards to reach a target audience and convince them to buy.
The massive adoption and use of the Internet in the late 1990s radically changed how companies engage with their customers to do business.
Before, a consumer would walk into a store and chat with a salesperson about the pros and cons of a product before choosing what to buy. The current ubiquity of the Internet means that all research and consideration can now be done online.
So, if not through mainstream advertising or face-to-face sales pitches, how then would marketers and salespeople help consumers make their buying decisions? They did it by evolving the way they tell their story through relevant, consistent, and authentic content marketing.
SEO, social media, and the preponderance of online content, (video, blog posts, and infographics) mean that marketers need to work smarter to cut through the increasingly cluttered online environment.
Customers (both prospective and existing) have grown accustomed to getting the information they want instantaneously, despite the overwhelming plethora of information available on the Internet.
Marketing managers need to find ways to engage meaningfully with their customers and grow a relationship that breeds brand loyalty and repeat business.
In the current climate – where change is the only constant – smart marketing that delivers ROI cost-effectively is critical.
Why is content marketing important?
Content marketing is a form of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of pieces of content aimed at acquiring and retaining customers. Content can be of different forms: articles, infographics, videos, case studies, guides, seminars, webinars, and Q&A. The purpose of a content marketing campaign is not directly to sell but to inform the customer to generate a stable and long-term relationship.
The key to a successful content marketing strategy is the ability to create quality content that attracts attention and generates leads, expands the customer base, generates online sales, increases brand awareness, and boosts brand reputation by engaging an entire online community of users.
Unlike traditional marketing, the focus of content marketing is the customer. Not the brand. It identifies a need, articulates the things that customers care about, and establishes a meaningful connection that will lead to a remarkable, and hopefully repeatable, customer experience.
The goal of content marketing is to grow awareness and establish your reputation as an experienced, authoritative leader in your field. In doing this, you encourage customers to visit your website repeatedly searching for content, information, and sales.
Once a business has identified the customer's need, they need to start delivering a continuous but curated stream of content that can be presented in a variety of formats, as mentioned earlier, based.
Content marketing is an inbound marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract and retain a clearly defined target audience.
This approach is designed to attract prospects and convert them into customers by creating content that the target audience will find valuable enough to share.
Content has become so important that many organisations have a content marketeer in place to oversee their content strategy. If executed well, it is one of the most crucial marketing components for a successful content marketing strategy.
What are the advantages of content marketing?
1. A well-designed content marketing strategy is the ideal partner for SEO:
Search engines crave quality, fresh and original content, and reward websites that publish it by ranking high in their SERPs.
These elements are central to both SEO and content marketing, blog posts, search-engine-optimized infographics, and videos to share on social networks.
2. Content marketing is the number one weapon for creating brand awareness:
The higher the level of familiarity consumers have with your company, the more likely they are to become customers. The reason is simple: consumers are more prone to buy products from brands they know and trust.
No one is willing to purchase products from unknown brands if there is a better option on the market. Do you want to increase the brand awareness of your company? Content marketing shows your target audience the strengths of your company.
3. Content marketing offers value to users:
It should be emphasized that, unlike advertising, content marketing innately aims to provide value to the target audience. This means that consumers will not be confronted with yet another disturbing advertisement to be forgotten as soon as possible, but with helpful content that improves their everyday life.
4. More results at lower costs:
Content marketing is a form of business promotion that involves much lower costs than classical advertising. Nevertheless, an effective strategy allows you to reach more buyers and create long-lasting business relationships, whereas advertising - while providing faster results - has a limited beneficial effect over time.
5. Standing out from the crowd:
Any company without a website is unfindable. And that is not all: in most cases, companies need to be present on social networks as well. Online presence is no longer a differentiation factor, but a basic need.
To remain ahead of the competition, create valuable content to post on your business website and share on social networks. Many companies still struggle to produce useful resources for their audience.
6. Create a continuous source of traffic: To get traffic to their websites, companies rely on organic positioning and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To attract prospects to their website, they invest lots of money in Google Ads and other forms of online advertising.
Yet, using a content marketing strategy will let companies reduce their dependency on Search engines and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Creating high-valuable content is the basis for forming a large and loyal audience.
7. Improving brand reputation:
A company that produces free content for its users and thus content for the blog, video tutorials and podcasts - improves its reputation. From this point of view, therefore, being altruistic and munificent pays off, especially in terms of web marketing.
What does a Content Strategy Agency do?
Whereas a digital marketing agency creates content, a Content Strategy agency goes one step further.
A Content Strategy Agency is
“A specialized content marketing agency that consists of copywriters, content strategists, designers, and digital marketers. Such a specific agency creates quality content that attracts, engages, and builds trust with the target customers of a business. It also produces a business strategy."
A Content Strategy Agency not only develops the content strategy for a company but also helps businesses with the execution of the content strategy plan as well.
An effective content strategy needs three core elements to be successful: brand focus, user experience and content distribution. These are the three components a content strategy agency uses to create a content strategy.
Content Strategy agencies focus on brand awareness and customer engagement. They do that through a variety of products and services, such as blog articles, infographics, digital consultancy, and SEO. Contact us for more information.
