The Content Marketing Institute, an online resource for information on all things content marketing related, defines content marketing as “… a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
The definition could also describe other forms of advertising or marketing, but pay close attention to the “valuable” adjective here. Content marketing focuses on relaying information that engages people; ideally to as many of your target audience as possible.
Content Marketing uses blogs, podcasts, video, and social media sites as vehicles to attract customers. EFFECTIVE content marketing harnesses all the persuasive power of the best copywriting, as well. Keep this in mind: There’s a huge audience out there for almost every topic under the sun. But there’s an equal amount of companies and brands competing for them.
An integrated marketing strategy must include content marketing if you want to portray your business as a thought leader and innovator. It defines and strengthens your brand, and creates more opportunities for you to be found through search marketing and social media strategies.
Content marketing connects with and builds communities and relationships (know, like, and trust), and directly impacts your website’s search engine rankings and traffic.
To further understand why content marketing is important to your business, you must first understand the buying cycle:
Steps 3 and 4 can be accomplished with traditional advertising and marketing. Content marketing is key to accomplishing the first two steps of the buying process by raising awareness of solutions and educating consumers about a product they may have never considered before.
Valuable content will concentrate on pain points for the consumers. It should be unique, remarkable and shareable. Some great ways to include valuable content are:
At St. Louis SEO for Growth, we build content-driven websites that get you leads and will help you get found in search engines.