Content Marketing 101: The What, Why and How To Make It Work For You

What Exactly Is Content Marketing?

You’ve probably heard the term content marketing floating around for some time now, and it’s no surprise. Content marketing is all around us, and ALL the big names in advertising are doing it. Ikea, ASOS, Hershey's, Nike, AirBnB, you name it, and “as early as 2014, 57% of marketers already considered custom content as their top marketing priority.” (Source:https://www.e2msolutions.com/blog/facts-about-content-marketing/)

So, what is all the hype about?

Content marketing is still a fairly new concept in the marketing world. It’s a type of marketing which supplies free, media-type content to customers to create and attract attention to a product of campaign.

Content marketing comes in all forms, such as:

• Blog posts

• Youtube videos that benefit customers and provide value

• Videos

• Case studies

• E-books

• Social Media Posts

• White Papers

• Interviews

• GIFs and Memes

• Podcast recordings (.mp3s)

• Infographics

The idea is that instead of creating advertising that interrupts customers, a business will share content that customers actually want to engage with while simultaneously marketing their brand.

Pretty clever, huh.

Why Does Content Marketing Matter?

So, we’ve established that content marketing is a subtle and clever form of marketing, but why does it matter?

Well, content marketing is all about storytelling, and there’s nothing consumers love more than a good, old-fashioned story. Advertising a product by means of a story creates a much bigger impact with audiences, making then much more likely to relate to, and ultimately want to support, a brand.

Building a strong relationship with your audience is extremely important in content marketing as you are targeting an audience by showing high-quality content that the audience can relate to. You're no longer just selling a brand or product, you're selling a lifestyle.

Good content marketing also builds trust and adds value and credibility without asking for the sale. This subtle but important difference encourages honest, genuine interest and engagement from your audience.

A few of the benefits of using content marketing:

• It drives real conversions;

• It builds brand awareness with useful content that engages target buyers;

• It can drive more traffic to your website;

• It can educate your customers;

• It is extremely cost-effective;

• It creates more loyal customers.

“Content marketing is a long-term strategy that focuses on building a strong relationship with your target audience by giving them high-quality content that is very relevant to them on a consistent basis.” (Source: https://neilpatel.com/what-is-content-marketing)

How Can You Implement Content Marketing in Your Next Campaign?

There are so many ways you can utilise content marketing, but here are a few of our recent favourites:

• Using micro-influencers to write and blog for you is a great way to leverage influence and promote your content. You can invite micro-influencers to guest post on your blog and they are more likely to share and link to the content they have written.

• Interactive storytelling is another great way to engage your audience. This could be anything from hosting a poll for your next product to a lifestyle quiz based around which of your products would suit a customer best. For content marketers, engagement is the key, which interactive story-telling provides.

• Using and encouraging user-generated content is a great way to create engagement. Create brand-specific hashtags, get your audience to use them and find ways to encourage them to do so and tag you. That way it cuts down on the work of content creation for you and makes your audience feels good about being featured, which results in even more reach and engagement.

• Hosting prizes and giveaways is a great way to encourage your audience to create their own content around your brand/product.

However you choose to run it, content marketing should be at the top of your next campaign to-do list!

Do you have any other great content marketing ideas? Have you used content marketing in your business or are you an influencer who helps with content creation?

Let us know in the comments below!