Content Marketing
Content marketing is the creation of content made specifically for your audience as a way to exchange value for awareness and trust for a brand. Content marketing doesn’t ask for anything in return (except maybe a follow or subscribe ???? ).
78% of consumers believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships.
(Source: Key Difference Media)
Think about it, how many times do you think advertisements are thrown at you every day? Some research says it’s about 5,000 times each day! It’s pretty easy to understand why people are annoyed by ads. Just a decade or two ago, you could simply pay for air time and people would rush out to buy whatever you were selling. Since then, it’s gotten very noisy out there with everyone yelling about why you need to buy their new thing. People are installing adblockers, ignoring banner ads and they’re skipping commercials. So, how do you get through to people? One solution— content marketing.
Content marketing is a great strategy for not creating more “noise” in the world. It’s a way of creating content that people can actually relate to and cause some kind of memorable emotional feeling. It’s probably the only kind of honest selling in the world today.
The secret to content marketing is to provide value of some kind, whether that’s education or entertainment. This then helps build an audience of ravaging fans that are aware and trust who you are and any products you think would help them.
“Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.”
Seth Godin
Examples of Content Marketing
Content marketing can be made up of many different elements from an online video series to an in-person conference, but here’s a quick list of some examples of what might go into a content marketing strategy.
- Video blog of vlogs
- Written content/blog or ebooks
- Social media content
- Infographics
- Podcasts and Interviews
- Email Marketing
- Travel Videos
- Unboxing Videos
- Magazines
- Events
- Films
CAUTION: While there are many ways to create content marketing, It’s not recommended to try ALL of the items listed above, but to start out with a select few that you have the resources to post consistently.
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How quick can you expect results?
Content marketing is not about quick results, on average it’s said to take between 12-24 months of consistent marketing to start seeing a clear ROI. However, when comparing to paid advertising which may get you immediate results, content marketing ends up being cheaper in the long term. Content marketing helps companies show up on the first pages of Google without having to temporarily buy a position on a page, and content is shared by people much more organically than paid ads are.
Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. (Source: DemandMetric)
Seth Godin famously said in 2008 that “content marketing is all the marketing that’s left”. It’s believed by many industry experts that because of the many drawbacks of paid advertising, content marketing is the future of marketing.
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What’s the value of content marketing?
Great content is known to be valuable for brands in a few ways, here’s five:
- It drives web traffic
- It provides better SEO
- It increases social media engagement
- It generates quality leads
- It builds trust
Ultimately, this list of five outcomes creates more sales for any company that’s able to consistently produce quality content for their audience.
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How can we help?
While content marketing can have many components, we help brands with a content strategy as well as any content creation including graphic design, illustration, video, audio, and motion graphics. Through our partners, we even offer writing, blogs, print design, events and more.
