Tag Archives: content marketing defined

What are the benefits of content marketing?

When and why did I start using content marketing to promote my services?

In the very beginning itself. Back then, there was no concept of content marketing, but I knew that if I published my tutorials and articles on other article-publishing and tutorial-publishing websites, it would bring traffic to my own website.

Blogging wasn’t invented yet and I used to manually create HTML, PHP and ASP pages on my website, linking to them from a single web page (just like we have the blog home page these days linking to the latest blog posts).

I didn’t have money to spend on banner ads or link ads and to be frank, I never even found them attractive. Promoting my services through content always fascinated me. I got a high.

I promoted my web design services through content marketing in the very early 2000s and then post 2005, I have really started using content to promote my content writing services.

I was so enamored with text that once I had my website just made of text, not a single image.

Text-only content writing website

Of course, in between I have lost track, gotten distracted or gotten busy in other pursuits, but whenever I have come back to promoting my website, I have solely relied on this form of marketing and promotion.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

Listed below are some indisputable benefits of content marketing:

Brings down marketing costs

Conventional advertising and marketing can be costly. You pay for every view. You pay for every click. You pay for every exposure. You pay for every engagement.

With content marketing, yes, you pay for good quality content, but it is a one-time cost. Some pieces of content work, and some don’t, but the collective benefit that you get from it is far more potent than the benefits that you get from conventional advertising and marketing.

You need to spend more on conventional advertising and marketing because people notice you as long as you are paying. Otherwise, it is “out of sight out of mind”.

Improves your conversion rate

Since, through content marketing you are building relationships and not simply promoting your products and services, your conversion rate is better.

By the time people decide to become your paying customers and clients, they thoroughly know about you and whatever you are offering. Through relevant content, you have educated them, you have informed them, you have also helped them.

Makes it easier to find you

One of the most important parts of content marketing is spreading your content on different platforms.

When you publish your content and then post the links on social networking and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, people like it or share it on their own timelines. Hence, people on their timelines can find your content.

Other bloggers and publishers who appreciate your insight link to your content through their own blog posts, articles and web pages, giving you more exposure.

You also publish your content on other platforms exclusively, making it easier for people over there to find you.

Improves your SEO naturally, organically

Although this is one of the most common reasons why my clients come to me for my content writing and content marketing services, I always advise them to let their search engine rankings improve naturally, organically, based on the strength of the goodness of their content.

But this is a reality: if you persist with relevant, meaningful content marketing, it naturally improves your SEO. You don’t have to separately focus on improving your search engine rankings.

In fact, over the past decade, Google has been incorporating changes into its ranking algorithms to make sure that only those websites and links rank higher that have relevant, high-quality content on them.

Brings more inbound traffic

Since content marketing makes it easier for people to find you all over the web and since it also improves your search engine rankings organically, naturally, you get more inbound traffic.

The best quality of inbound traffic is you are not telling people to visit your website or check out your link. People come on their own.

When people come to your website or blog on their own, they are more receptive to your message. They’re already tuned into what you’re trying to tell them. Hence, they convert easily compared to those who are drawn to your website through some advertisement.

Encourages engagement

The more people engage with you, the more they become familiar to your presence, and the easier it gets for them to do business with you.

Even when people come across your website (through an advertisement), they don’t do business with you because they don’t know you. At the moment they don’t trust you because you haven’t engaged them in meaningful interactions.

Without content, they haven’t gotten a chance to be helped by you, to appreciate your presence on the Internet.

Builds brand awareness without intrusion

Through content marketing, people come across your brand when they are accessing quality content rather than ads they will gladly ignore or block.

With every business available with just a few clicks or a few taps, brand visibility is very important. Whether you want to buy a highly expensive iPhone or one of the cheapest Android phones, they both are immediately available to you.

When you publish and broadcast/disseminate useful content people begin to relate your brand with quality content and hence, establish a positive association. This further boosts your conversion rate because people who already have a positive perception about your brand readily become your customers and clients.

Educates your customers

There are many products and services that need education before they can be used, for example CRM.

For a very long time I have been planning to start using a CRM to keep track of customer queries, lead nurturing and following up. Unfortunately, no online CRM service has beginners tutorials on how to start using CRM for a very small business.

I’m pretty sure whichever website is able to explain to me, I’m going to use its service.

Another example is content marketing. Still, there are many people who don’t understand this concept. So, they need to be educated. They need to be told the benefits of publishing high-quality content on an ongoing basis.

Builds and fosters stronger customer relationships

Many companies claim that more than 40% of their business comes from existing customers and clients. This is true even for my own business. In fact, more than 50% of my work comes from my existing clients.

Through well-crafted content marketing (especially email marketing), you can constantly keep in touch with your existing customers and clients by providing them valuable information.

You can also keep your existing customers and clients engaged through social networking platforms.

Remember that it just takes a few seconds for a customer to switch to another product or service. This switch is so important that many businesses offer a year of service free of cost just so that people move to their service from the other service.

But if you have built a strong relationship through quality content, your existing customers and clients won’t make that switch, even when prompted.

Builds your communication platform

It isn’t true that only big businesses and media houses can have their own communication platforms. Even smaller businesses can develop an audience that pays attention to their messages.

The communication platform can be your blog or your mailing list or even your social media or social networking profile – wherever your audience comes to access your content.

The benefit of having a communication platform is that you have an audience whenever there is something critical you want to say and it is very important that a certain number of people get the message.

Suppose, you’re introducing a new feature in your product and you would like to tell people the benefits of upgrading.

You want to make new offers.

You need to do damage control if someone has been leaving bad reviews just to tarnish your image.

Search engines need a place to regularly crawl and index new content and if you have a vibrant platform, the frequency of crawling and indexing increases.

Establishes you as an industry expert

Naturally, when you regularly share your knowledge, wisdom and insight, people begin to believe that you are an industry expert.

If you are an app developer and you regularly share your programming techniques and other app development experiences through your blog, whom do you think prospective clients choose when they need an app developer? Someone who is totally mum about his or her app development profession or someone who constantly communicates and engages with prospective clients?

Generates long-term, lasting traffic

As described above, your content is a constant source of traffic. As long as your links exist in the Google index, as long as people are able to find your content, you are going to get traffic on your website or blog.

Once you have increased your content wealth, once many people have linked to your content, once many people have shared your content, your links are all over the place.

Depending on where you are, if you search for “email writing services” you will find my link somewhere on the first page on Google. Now, the position has been there for more than 1 ½ years now, even longer. This link has been constantly generating quality leads for me and I don’t have to pay for it.

If I needed to advertise on AdWords, I would have to pay for every click Google sent my way. Through the above-mentioned link, whether I get 100 clicks every month or 10,000, I don’t have to spend money. It is an ongoing source of traffic for me.

Brings down your bounce rate

Your bounce rate is how many people leave your website without checking out other links your website or blog, after directly coming to a particular link.

A higher bounce rate is bad for your SEO. It is also bad for your conversion rate.

Quality content makes people stick around. If they like what you have published on the current link, they would also like to check out other web pages and blog posts on your website and this tells Google and other search engines that you have relevant content, and hence, your links should be ranked higher.

Helps you grow your mailing list

The benefits of having a mailing list that you have built on your own can only be realized when you have built a mailing list for yourself.

Since building your own mailing list requires effort, persistence and perseverance, most of the people fail to realize its importance.

Having your own mailing list is very important for engaging your prospective and existing customers and clients.

A persistent content marketing strategy and email marketing strategy are interlinked. Without high-quality content it is not possible to build your own mailing list unless you engage in other tactics like offering a case study in lieu of subscribing to your email updates, or offering a very useful e-book, or something like that.

When you publish quality content people expect the same content in your email updates and hence readily subscribe. Also, since your content is so useful, they don’t want to miss it. If you promise them that as soon as you publish something on your website or blog you’re going to send them an email update, they readily subscribe.

Gives you an edge over your competitors

A good thing about content marketing is it democratizes marketing. There was a time when only big businesses with lots of money could use marketing, but with content marketing, business of any size can use it.

Yes, you do need some money to generate quality content, but more than that, you need ingenuity and persistence.

Your competitors won’t be able to gain even a fraction of visibility with conventional advertising and marketing that you can gain with strategic content marketing.

With helpful and relevant content, you make it easier for people to do business with you rather than with your competitors.

I gave you an example of CRM above. Whichever website explains better how to leverage its CRM, is going to get more customers.

Reduces your support cost

Content marketing also involves publishing lots of helpful content on your website and blog, for example the detailed FAQs section.

People may have many questions. They may have many issues. They might be confused about using your product or service.

Normally they contact your support. But these days, contacting support is a hassle in itself and most of the people want to avoid it.

Helpful content on your website can provide all the information people need to be able to use your product or service properly.

When people contact you for support, you can prepare a list of questions and queries that they have and then publish their answers on your website.

The next time if another person has the same question, rather than calling you or writing you an email, he or she can simply check the section that contains answers to the most commonly asked questions.

Builds a community around your business

Apple built a community around its business and look how great the company does.

Amazon has encouraged a community of “skill” developers for its range of Amazon Echo gadgets and now they are selling millions of these gadgets.

The same goes for Android-based mobile phones. The examples are innumerable.

Building a community builds a support system. The community helps you refine and evolve your product or service. You instantly get feedback and since your community is devoted to your brand, you mostly get positive/encouraging feedback.

You want to introduce something but before making it available in the market, you would like a few people to test it. You can use your community for that.

Concluding remarks on the benefits of content marketing

Over the years I have learned that content marketing benefits only those who understand its benefits. Yes, it is like “Laws of Attraction”.

If you want to use it just because you have read a few blog posts and articles on content marketing and you think a nice strategy can be implemented without spending some money and effort, you are going to waste your effort and lose your money.

You benefit from content based marketing only in the long run, when you have nurtured it and allowed it to blossom into in its own entity.

You cannot “trick” it into bringing you business success. This is the reason why it works for everyone who seriously pursues it.

What makes content marketing successful?

Your understanding of it. Otherwise, you’re going to implement it halfway through and then lose interest or courage, or both.

It is an ongoing activity. Just like your other business activities, it has to go on.

For example, if currently you feel that you need to publish 2 blog posts every week, you may have to publish these 2 blog posts every week for an indefinite number of years if you really want to benefit from content marketing.

What’s the purpose then, you may ask?

Because it increases your business and even if you go on publishing just 2 blog posts every week, compared to the growth of your business, the cost of publishing these 2 blog posts will move towards negligible.

What is content marketing: 15 definitions from industry experts

Why is it important to know what is content marketing?

If you want to use something for your benefit, you need to know it. You need to know it beyond tweaking.

Do you know Michelangelo used to dig up corpses, cut them and explore various parts to understand the dynamics of the human body from the inside so that he could carve out immortal sculptures? Gross, but you understand the need to understand something.

It is one thing to know what works for others may also work for you, and it’s a totally different thing if you actually understand what you are doing and what it is going to lead to.

Marketing methodologies that have existed for years don’t need explanation. For example, you know what is advertising. You may not know its intricacies and the stuff known to the MBAs, but you have a fair idea.

You know that advertising targets certain individuals and uses certain channels. You know that when people come across your advertisements they come to know of your product or service and if they need it, they approach you. You have a total understanding of why you want to advertise on a billboard on a busy highway.

It’s very straightforward (actually, it is not).

With content marketing things are not as straightforward. Yes, it is simple, yet, difficult.

Difficult, because, for an average businessperson or entrepreneur, results are not direct.

If I tell you to publish 50 blog posts covering all your topics so that your target audience is educated and then some among this audience may turn into your customers and clients, it may seem very vague to you.

If I tell you that through content marketing you can have your own broadcasting channel you may ask why the heck does my small business need a broadcasting channel?

If I tell you that through content marketing you can establish your authority and create an influential presence for yourself on the Internet you may ask, why do I need to put in so much effort if I can simply advertise?

These are all valid questions. But the answers to these questions exist contextually. Here is the context:

Advertising isn’t as effective as it used to be a few years ago.
Most of the Internet users skip ads or have developed a blind eye towards them.
Most of the TV viewers have the ability to skip ads these days. They do.
Advertising is getting prohibitively expensive, especially when you are paying for every single website visitor.
People trust opinions more than they trust advertisements.
Word of mouth is more powerful than advertisements.
88% B2B marketers use content marketing because they know it works.
People have a limited attention span and you need to remain in front of them using various creative ways.
Apropos to the above point, people skip or ignore ads and the only way to remain in front of them is by providing interesting, useful and high-quality content.
You need content marketing for SEO.

Interestingly, the last point is immediately understandable to people. Yes! SEO is something that can be measured.

You explain to them how many web pages and blog posts it’s going to need to improve SEO for a particular keyword and they immediately understand. But tell them to have the same number of web pages and blog posts to improve conversion, and they give you a blank look. That’s because they don’t understand what is content marketing.

Why is it difficult to define content marketing as a single definition

It is difficult to define content marketing as a single definition because every individual, every business, has its own way of implementing a content marketing strategy. There is no set definition because content marketing is contextual.

Do marketing and advertising have a definitive definition? I don’t think so. Whatever works best, is used by content marketers.

Content marketing explained by 15 industry experts or influencers

On this blog post I’m listing definitions of content marketing from 15 industry experts or influencers. They aren’t necessarily people. Some are even companies.

Why do I call them “industry influencers” or “industry experts”? Some are working on million-dollar content marketing projects. Some have written books on content marketing. Some run popular blogs on the topic. Some are very popular on social media for thought leadership. Some have completely replaced conventional advertising with content marketing throughout their global operations.

They speak at conferences. They travel the world trying to convince businesses to adopt content marketing. Basically, these people know their stuff. They are the flag bearers. They are the pioneers. They are the trendsetters.

I must state in the beginning that I haven’t directly sought these definitions from experts and influencers themselves. I have picked them from various sources on the Internet.

While doing my research the biggest problem I encountered was that some of the attributions have been made randomly. I needed to check multiple times whether someone who has said something about content marketing was actually said by the person or the company, or not.

To my best knowledge, these definitions of content marketing come from right persons and companies. Do let me know if there is a discrepancy and I will quickly mend it.

So, here it goes…

1. “Content marketing is the process and practice of creating, curating and cultivating text, video, images, graphics, e-books, white papers and other content assets that are distributed through paid, owned and earned media. These assets are used to tell stories that help brands build and nurture relationships with customers, prospects and other audiences to drive awareness, generate demand, influence preference and build loyalty.”

Gartner

2. “Content marketing is a strategic marketing technique that aligns business and consumer information needs with relevant content. Content can act as a means to attract, engage and convert a specific targeted audience. From blogging and social media to white papers and eBooks, marketers use a variety of content marketing tactics to consistently inform and persuade their customers–without trying to sell them something outright.”

Top Rank Marketing Blog

3. “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience–with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Content Marketing Institute

4. “Content marketing is the process of developing, executing, and delivering the content and related assets needed to create, nurture, and grow a company’s customer base. Stages of the content marketing process include: strategy; content development; asset development; and channel leverage across outbound marketing, inbound marketing, and sales enablement.”

Curata

5. “Content marketing means attracting and transforming prospects into customers by creating and sharing valuable free content. The purpose of content marketing is to help the company to create sustainable brand loyalty and provide valuable information to consumers, as well as create willingness to purchase products from the company in the future. This relatively new form of marketing usually does not involve direct sales. Instead, it builds trust and rapport with the audience.”

Wikipedia

6. “Great content marketing offers something valuable to an audience with no obligation to repay that offering: entertaining, insightful, relevant, useful, well-produced and well-written writing, graphics, video and audio.

It seeks to first find the right audience, and then establish a relationship with them in order to build trust, so that when it gets to business time, they choose you over a competitor.”

Pawan Deshpande from Curata

7. “Content marketing is the process of developing, publishing, and distributing useful information that engages prospective customers and propels them toward purchase.”

Anne Murphy

8. “Content marketing is all about marketing that’s left.”

Seth Godin

9. “Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.”

“Official” definition from Copyblogger Media

10. “Content Marketing provides consumers with useful information to aid purchase decisions, improve product usage and entertain them while achieving organizational goals without being overtly promotional.”

Heidi Cohen

11. “Content marketing is a strategic marketing and business process 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.”

Hubspot

12. “Content marketing is all about the creation and distribution of high-quality content that attracts and engages audiences online. Like other traditional forms of marketing, content marketing is typically used to drive customer acquisition, deeper engagement with current customers, and for brand awareness.”

Outbrain

13. “Content marketing is an umbrella term covering a set of strategies, techniques and tactics to fulfill business and customer goals by using content across the customer life cycle and the business functions in a consistent, integrated and continuous way.”

i-scoop

14. “Content marketing is about delivering the content your audience is seeking in all the places they are searching for it. It is the effective combination of created, curated and syndicated content.”

Michael Brenner

15. “Best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect, and trust of those who might buy.”

Rand Fishkin

Why definitions from so many people?

If you have read various opinions or definitions on content marketing above, you must have noticed that more or less the gist of the definition is the same. Everybody is pretty much on the same wavelength regarding what is content marketing.

Why it is necessary to get point of views of multiple people is because they are in the thick of things. They are the pullers and pushers of content marketing. They are constantly defining and redefining content marketing. This is why, the more views you get from the experts, the clearer you get (or more confused).

What is Content Marketing? Explained in detail

What is valuable content in Content Marketing?

It depends on your business. You can develop, publish and distribute useful content by

Keeping people informed
Educating people
Making them laugh or making them feel sentimental
Reviewing products and services for them
Providing them privileged information

Basically, providing them something they value, something that they don’t mind getting access to or being delivered on an ongoing basis.

This, is what valuable content is.

What is content marketing according to renowned marketers?

Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly-defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

~ Content Marketing Institute

Content marketing is the process of developing and sharing relevant, valuable, and engaging content to target audience with the goal of acquiring new customers or increasing business from existing customers.

~ Amanda Maksymiw

Content marketing is a device used by companies to educate, inform or entertain customers or prospects by creating attention or causing behavior that results in leads, sales or advocacy.

~ Jay Baer

Content Marketing is anything a company creates and shares to tell their story. It is conversational, human and doesn’t try to constantly sell to you.

~ Ann Handley

Content marketing is, creating a following of dedicated audience through providing valuable, timely and relevant content to people over a long period of time, so that they begin to trust you and want to do business with you on their own.

~ Amrit Hallan

Why content marketing works better than traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing, as you already know, is one-way. You’re constantly telling people to do business with you whether at that time, they want to do business with you or not. The traditional marketing doesn’t care whether people want to hear from you or not.

Traditional marketing uses channels that have already been built. The entire process is unscientific. People come across your marketing message when they are least expecting it or even when they are feeling hostile towards it.

Content marketing on the other hand, allows you to build your own broadcasting channel. When you develop and publish useful content, people seek you out to access that content on their own. You don’t have to advertise. People come to your website or the platform you use to publish your content, on their own.

By developing, publishing and distributing useful content on a prolonged basis, you develop a loyal audience of people who look forward to hearing from you.

You, your business name, or your brand, becomes familiar to them and they begin to trust you because of the non-stop value you deliver.

After you have successfully implemented your content marketing strategy, there are two ways people will do business with you:

Scenario 1: They need what you provide and they know you provide it and since they already know you and trust you, they approach you rather than someone they don’t know.
Scenario 2: You tell them what you provide and if and when they need it, they are going to get it from you rather than someone they don’t know.

So, the basic purpose of Content Marketing is, to be present in people’s lives in such a manner that you provide value to them on an ongoing basis while making sure they always remember what business you are in.

Once you have created such presence its positive impact is long-lasting.