What is Content Marketing & How Does It Work for You?

You had probably heard of it. You might even consider it. A lot of people are talking about it and calling it the best thing in marketing right now. But what is content marketing exactly? And why do people love it so much?

Basically, content marketing is a type of marketing that uses a set of content to stimulate interest from your target audience about your brand. It does this not by explicitly promoting your brand, but by helping, educating, and entertaining the audience through different forms of content like blogs, videos, tutorials, infographics and so much more.

Content marketing invites a customer through attractive and (very important) relevant content that would nurture them into leads until ideally, convert their interest into a sale. It is almost exclusively online and relies quite a lot on social media, since that is where people hang out these days. Your content can also be distributed through emails, paid search ads, affiliate marketing and not forgetting, your brand’s website.

How Does Content Marketing Work?

1. Your content helps target audience solve a problem
   Like most people, you had probably gone online to find an answer on a problem you have, like how to fix a leaky tap or how to lose weight or find the best quote for your home renovation. You type in the search bar of your internet browser and anticipate a bunch of search results to pop up. This is what your target audience is doing as well.You want your content and brand to be among the search results your audience sees. Your content would also have to be genuinely relevant and helpful to a customer’s inquiry, which is why click baits are a big fat no-no.
2. Your content introduces your brand to the audience
   As the audience engages in your content, you have the chance to show more about your brand to them and generate some awareness. Now that they found you, have them join your mailing list, or like and subscribe to your channel, follow your social media page or get a free trial and so on. This way, it creates a more organic way to build brand awareness and retain their attention and memory towards your brand.
3. Your content helps build trust towards the audience
   Content marketing is a great tool to generate trust and get people familiar with your brand. It will build a long-lasting relationship with your audience until they are ready to hit ‘proceed to checkout’. So, unless you want to be in their junk mail pile or get unsubscribe, your content has to make sense and be genuine without getting spammy.
4. Your content helps them stay loyal to your brand
   With a good content marketing strategy, you can create a loyal fan base, like how Buzzfeed’s Tasty does it. Tasty published many short and fast-paced videos about how to cook or bake delicious food, with catchy music and great props. Their videos are often only one to two minutes long, knowing that their viewer’s attention span is very short. They are also pretty clever at capitalising on the newest social media trends like Instagram Stories and Facebook Reactions, which helped them gained millions of followers and subscribers.Tasty is so well-received that they dedicate a website, a YouTube channel and a Facebook Page to it. Tasty made their format of short, fast-moving, how-to videos mainstream that other brands would soon copy. At the end of their videos though is where Tasty will try to sell something. Viewers and fans can buy their cookbook or cookware and experience the delicious recipes themselves.
5. Your content helps your website gain more visibility
   When someone clicks on your website and engages with the content in it for some time, your website would generally be ranked higher in the search results. This is because when your content answers a user’s search term, your website will be regarded as helpful. Helpful things are ranked higher in search results. You want your web page to be the first thing your audience sees or appear on the first page of a Google search to get better visibility and get your brand known.

Is Content Marketing Right For Me?

Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and creates three times more leads, according to a statistic. As people are searching for more information online, you want to position your brand online too. Rather than bombarding your audience with spams and advertisements which they are used to tuning out, you can nurture them through your content. So now, you can start planning your content and look at what format is most suitable for your content marketing strategy!

Content marketing is both science and art. The technical website’s SEO and SERP stuff are science, but the persuasion and the creativity needed to make content is art. Talk to a professional to get a better idea of how your brand can utilise and monetise content marketing. Branding and marketing agencies can help you develop a content marketing strategy that works best for your brand. Remember, your competitors are already investing in content marketing and winning your audience. Would it be your turn to step-up your branding game?