What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a new version of what used to be called ‘inbound marketing’. This means you create content and media that people are drawn to and seek out when looking for a solution.
‘Outbound marketing’ can be billboards, TV or radio ads, print ads in newspapers or magazines, and trade show promotional efforts. With this approach, you have taken your message and your best product offering, packed it together, and put it out to the world to try to generate engagement or sales from a group of people.
Examples of content marketing can be seen on Broadsheet, in Bunnings, or on Amazon Prime services.
Broadsheet is a nationwide digital-publication that writes articles about new restaurants, creates lists, announces events and generally aims to curate the nightlife of a typical metropolitan area. If you need to find a good place to go out or help with making plans for the weekend, Broadsheet specialises in the appropriate content you are looking for. You know this because their marketing has told you about the content they offer.
Bunnings has a magazine that helps you with styling, construction, design, makeover and many other tips. The content costs money to produce (from printing to paying writers and photographers), but the benefits for Bunnings range from a deeper engagement with customers to giving customers a clear idea of what they can make and giving them a reason to shop at their local Bunnings warehouse.
Amazon Prime, the streaming service, is possibly the most elaborate content marketing strategy in the world. Spending billions of dollars to create movies, TV shows, as well as interactive streaming options which allow you to buy the products that were placed into that particular episode of ‘The Boys’. Amazon also links its content offering directly to its delivery services. This means the customer sees additional value on top of having access to their library of content.
In the professional services world we see content marketing on LinkedIn, where people stand up and tell us about their latest discovery, insight, or professional development. The idea is quite straightforward. If you post enough insights, eventually, you become the ‘go-to guy/girl’ for your particular area of expertise becoming the Subject Matter Expert - SME - for a given niche.
The time spent building an audience by being an SME, providing restaurant or design insights or recommending compelling TV shows via your streaming service can be monetised in a variety of ways. From consulting, affiliate sales, direct sales of your product offers, or exposure to completely new opportunities.
Modern marketing is about having a conversation with people while building your audience. Being accessible on multiple platforms and aligning your values and the way you want to do business. Content marketing is the way you communicate these ideas to people with examples and relevant case studies that appeal to those you are trying to reach.
Fundamentally content marketing is about building a base of assets for people to reference when they find you online or in print. Content assets that work for you night and day to show you understand your audience, their concerns, and have compelling offers which provide solutions for their problems.