Content marketing is a strategy that involves creating and sharing valuable content with your target audience with the goal of driving profitable action:
- Getting visitors to become leads.
- Getting leads to become customers.
- Getting customers to become power users.
Unlike traditional marketing methods, which are focused on selling, content marketing is all about providing value to your audience first. This is done by publishing useful information, such as blog posts, case studies, eBooks, white papers, product manuals, presentations, quizzes, infographics, or other relevant content.
This way, you build trust and credibility with your target audience before asking for a sale; making all future promotions much more effective.
Types Of Content Marketing
When it comes to content marketing, there are three different types of content you can create in order to promote your business.
1. Educational Content
One type of content is educational content, which helps your audience learn more about your industry and what you do.
This can include blog posts, whitepapers, and even eBooks.
Blog posts are a great way to share informative or entertaining content with your audience. Whitepapers can be used to educate your audience about your products or services. Infographics are a visual way to communicate information, and they can be very shareable on social media. Ebooks are a great way to provide in-depth information about a particular topic.
2. Entertainment-based Content
Another type of content is entertainment-based content, which is designed to simply be enjoyable for your audience to consume.
This can include things like funny videos, memes, and quizzes.
While this type of content can be very effective at engaging audiences, it’s important to make sure that it aligns with your brand and message. Otherwise, you risk coming across as tone-deaf or out of touch. Used correctly, however, entertainment-based content can be a powerful tool in your content marketing arsenal.
3. Promotional Content
Finally, there’s promotional content, designed to directly promote your products or services.
This can include things like sales pages and product demos.
When potential customers are getting ready to make a purchase, promotional content is extremely effective. After all, people who are interested in what you have to offer are more likely to respond to promotions. However, it’s important to show promotional content only to prospects nearing the bottom of the marketing funnel, otherwise you risk turning them off.
Create a balanced mix of all three types of content to appeal to a wider range of people at different stages of awareness. People who are new to the industry will appreciate educational content that helps them learn more about it; those who are ready to buy will appreciate promotional content that offers them a great deal on what they’re looking for; and finally, those who already own your product will enjoy entertainment-based content that keeps them engaged. — Mihael
Why Is Content Marketing Important?
Content marketing can be an extremely effective way to reach your target market and build relationships with them. When done right, it improves your brand awareness, generates leads, and boosts sales.
This happens because content marketing:
1. Builds Trust, Expertise, and Authority
When you provide helpful and informative content, people will start to see you as a trustworthy expert in your field. This will make your promotional efforts more effective because:
- They’ll feel like they’re getting the best possible product or service.
- They’ll know your reputation is on the line and you’ll do everything to maintain it.
- They’ll trust you’ll deliver on your promises, and don’t have to worry about being taken advantage of.
2. Boosts Search Engine Rankings
Creating high-quality content is also important for SEO because:
- Well-written articles and blog posts attract links from other websites;
- Quality content encourages prospects to spend more time on your site and visit it more often.
Both of these factors improve your site’s ability to rank on Google.
3. Demonstrates Your Product in a Human-Friendly Way
This is my favorite benefit, which I discovered while working on content strategies for SaaS companies.
You can leverage long-form content and various media formats (video, gifs, images) to showcase specific product features and benefits in great detail, while still not overwhelming the reader — regardless of how complex the product is.
Demonstrating your product this way helps your audience make an informed decision while avoiding the hard sell that can often turn them away.
