What is Content Marketing?

We all consume content daily. 

Some of us even create content. Social media posts, emails, videos, blog posts, websites, and similar digital formats are all different types of content. 

A content writer is, in almost all instances, responsible for creating content. In this article, we help you understand what content marketing is and why it matters.

Content Marketing – What is involved? 

According to Hubspot, content marketing is the advanced process of planning, creating, sharing, distributing, and publishing content via different channels such as print publications, press releases, apps, podcasts, websites, blogs, social media, etc. 

Content writing aims to reach your target audience and increase sales, brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty.

In the realm of digital marketing, content marketing is producing content for marketing purposes. It’s generally associated with the website’s landing pages and blog posts. It requires careful planning, writing, proofreading, and editing.

Content writers generally create web pages, blog posts, and social media posts. Some might even create content for email marketing or work on press releases. It’s a vast field that touches different areas of digital marketing. 

Why Does Content Marketing Matter? 

This type of marketing is a powerful tool. It helps you build authority, increase site traffic and connect with customers. 

If you look closely, you’ll find good content everywhere — your favorite brand’s social media posts, newsletters, articles, and even on their website.

As a business owner, you need to have a content marketing strategy because:

1. Content forms the backbone of your brand. It gives you something to market.
2. It educates your customers about your products and services. 
3. Boosts conversions.
4. It creates a sense of community around your business.
5. It helps with SEO and improves rankings.
6. It establishes your brand.
7. It enables you to reach new customers.
8. Businesses with blogs generate 67% more leads than those that don’t.
9. 47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with sales representatives. 
10. Businesses that use content marketing have 30% higher growth rates than companies not using it.
11. 72% of B2B marketers believe content marketing increases the number of leads they generate and user engagement.

Get Started With Content Marketing

Content marketing can look daunting but doesn’t have to be. A successful campaign should be sustainable but manageable. Here are a few tips to get started:

• Understand and identify your audience. You want to create content for your target audience. Therefore, it’s essential to understand your audience’s preferences, challenges, and priorities. For example, if you run a boutique, perhaps you might want to create articles related to fashion rather than food.
• Determine the content types. What sort of content do you wish to create? Let’s go back to our example. As a boutique owner, you might want to post every day on social media, publish a blog post once a week and send a monthly newsletter. 
• Decide the format. At what stage of the sales cycle are you creating content? For instance, are you trying to make the customers aware of your brand, or are you trying to boost sales? Your content will differ based on your end goal.
• Hire the right candidate. Your audience will judge your content on its quality. Therefore, you must hire a professional content writer who has experience creating different types of content. If we talk about our example, it’s best to hire someone who has worked with a fashion magazine or a fashion brand.
• Determine distribution channels. Once you have the content, how will you distribute it? Will you use scheduling tools, or will you hire a digital marketer to handle this for you? 
• Create a sustainable schedule. Most people often create content marketing plans that are overly ambitious. It’s essential to develop a realistic program. Create a short-term plan based on your resources and budget. 
• Follow best practices and expert advice. Your content should be error-free, easy to read, grammatically correct, and optimized for SEO. You should also include how-to advice. Relevant, short, actionable pieces of content perform the best. 

The Takeaway

Your audience members, leads, and customers expect valuable content from your brand. This content needs to reach them organically and feels natural and not disruptive and aggressive. 

Utilize the power of content marketing to attract, engage and delight your target audience. 

Develop an effective content marketing strategy to increase conversions, boost revenue, improve brand awareness and establish yourself as an industry expert. 

Continue to monitor and tweak your strategy and find new ways to share content to increase your reach further. 

Do you think content marketing is essential? Which forms of content marketing do you like the most?

Featured Image Credits: Pexels

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