Content Marketing

Content Marketing is a marketing technique in which the focus is not on selling products directly, but on strengthening a brand with entertaining, advisory or informative content. The content should offer users added value and convince them of the company's brand and products.

Content Marketing Goals

The primary goal of content marketing is to retain the customer, therefore entering into a profitable and long-term customer relationship.

Content marketing also serves the company in the following ways:

• Increase brand awareness
• Expand the brand
• Introducing new products
• Establishing the expert status of the company (thought leadership)

In content marketing, the focus is not directly on typical marketing goals such as lead generation. Content marketing should help the company acquire new customers and increase sales, but these goals are achieved indirectly by increasing the brand's reach and positioning the brand as an expert. 

Definition of terms

There is no uniform definition of the term content marketing in the online marketing industry. The US Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a "strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain defined audiences." However, this does not mention what kind of content should be used in content marketing. Other sources refer to classic advertising with storytelling, such as the Coca cola Christmas advertising.

Content marketing is often equated with inbound marketing. There is no clear distinction between the two, as there is no clear definition of both terms. However, inbound marketing generally focuses on users finding the marketing content themselves (e.g. via organic search), as opposed to classical outbound marketing such as advertising. 

Content marketing can therefore be a part of an inbound marketing strategy, as a goal of content marketing is for users to become aware of a brand through good rankings in search engines. However, content marketing is not limited to inbound marketing. Content marketing can be actively promoted, for example via social media or e-mail marketing. The distribution of content is also referred to as seeding or content distribution.

Function

Content Marketing uses online content (texts, pictures, infographics, etc.) with high quality which helps the individual target group with::

• Information: The users are kept up to date with interesting content.
• Education: The users get instructions on how they could simplify their everyday life.
• Entertainment: The users get set in a good mood by certain content.
• Inspiration: The users are provided with ideas that could lead to personal or professional development.

Users mainly want to receive useful content on the internet, such as news or entertainment. Online content that is specifically targeted at a group turns brands into media. Content marketing can also take the form of blog marketing. The content of content marketing is published on various media. Popular platforms include social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, e-books and video platforms.

Use

Content marketing plays a major role in corporate strategy. Companies can win and convince customers through the efficient use of content marketing. The customer is more likely to stay long-term when a customer relationship is built up with content marketing.

Content marketing can help a company achieve more profit and higher market value. In addition, many users become regular customers by subscribing to newsletters and may write letters to the editor or supplement, criticize and evaluate blog posts with comments. This information helps companies to respond more effectively to the needs of users and to stand out from the competition with the right content.

If the content is of high enough quality and offers high added value, there is also a chance that it will be further distributed or linked by influencers. In this way, a high reach can be achieved quickly and the content can benefit from influencers' reputation. This approach can be part of a content marketing strategy.

Content marketing and SEO

Content marketing is also valuable from an SEO perspective because the focus of content marketing on creating value-added content overlaps with Google's maxim of displaying value-added content to users. Google has also made the quality of content on websites and blogs one of the most important factors in achieving the highest possible SERP rankings.

Also, the goal of content marketing to create content that is distributed by users coincides strongly with classic SEO goals. The text-to-code ratio should also be considered for search engine optimization. This puts the text on a website in relation to the code. This is why online marketers are increasingly turning to content marketing for search engine optimization.

Web Links

• 7 Content Marketing Strategy Steps to Boost Your SEO and Site Presence in For Better Online Marketing
• Content Marketing Trends