Content marketing has been evolving extremely fast and the year 2016 isn’t going to be an exception. Contrary to what many marketers think, content marketing isn’t something exclusive to the Internet. It has been used since time immemorial. Some call even the cave paintings by the ancient human beings as good examples of content marketing. In the modern age, the soap operas were telecast to promote soap. Highly captivating and engaging stories were run on television sponsored by the soap companies and this is how the term “soap opera” came into existence.

Another example is the GI Joe comic book that gave a big thrust to the toy industry.

Why on the Internet content marketing has caught on with great zest is because the Internet brings the benefit of content marketing even to the small business owner. It sort of, in proverbial terms, levels the playing field. A marvellous thing about content marketing is you don’t need to be a big business in order to compete with the big business. Your success does not depend on how many blog posts, articles, infographics, videos and images you can publish – although I’m not saying that your budget and your brand recognition don’t matter when it comes to content marketing – but it is more about your ability to target the right audience, publish and distribute the right content and respond in a timely manner when your target audience reaches out to you.

In 2016, content marketing is no longer going to be just SEO

So says this Medium blog post, rightly. Improved search engine rankings – organic rankings – are a big reason why people indulge in content marketing and they are not entirely wrong if the success of their businesses depends on their search engine rankings. But if you’re using content marketing just to improve your search engine rankings, you are not making its full use. Remember that an increased search engine ranking can although be a good metrics of success for your content marketing efforts, in itself it is not success. What is the use of getting traffic if that traffic does not convert? As rightly said, different types of content are being used to gain brand recognition and consequently, to generate more leads and improved conversion rate. People have realised that merely good search engine rankings no longer help.