What is Content Marketing?

Marketing comes in many forms, key among which is content marketing – a technique used to attract and retain customers by fostering brand loyalty. And how do you do this? – By offering your target audience free content through which they can interact with you and leave feedback. You can then use this feedback to create content that offers more value to your target market using a combination of content marketing strategies. This back-and-forth paves the way for brand loyalty and trust, prompting your target audience to share your content with others, thus creating more user-generated content for your brand. And we all know that peer content is much more valuable than business-generated content.

Does it work? Sure!

The goal is to reach your target audience using several content marketing strategies and prompt them to interact with you. Examples include blogs, newsletters, social media, etc. Say, for instance, that you interact with your audience using Instagram stories. You can check out their responses to your stories, view the analytics, and get an idea of what they enjoy about your content. Then you use these statistics in your favor when creating more content for your stories.

Is it important? Think about it like this.

By now, you have worked on an app or a website and have figured out the ins and outs of SEM (search engine marketing). So, a slight fraction of your audience can find you. But if you want to cast that net wider and reel in more leads, you must master content marketing to help you attract more customers and, most importantly, keep them hooked on your site. And the only way to do that is by offering them value through content.

So, how can you hack content marketing?

It all comes down to developing a content marketing strategy. It helps you understand what your clients need and what value you can offer them to stand out from the competition. Plus, it shows you how you can get your audience to generate more user-generated content.

Did You Know?

People sometimes confuse content marketing with inbound marketing, another form of marketing used to drive traffic and generate leads. While you need the two, the techniques to foster both systems are pretty different. Oh, and while we are at it, let’s point out that native advertising, which is also integral to the growth of your business, is not content marketing. Understand the differences between the two, enabling you to gauge what you should use and when.

Not sure how to start? Get your free Content Marketing Strategy Template.