What Is Content Marketing and Why Do We Need It Really

As the customer mindset has changed over the years, marketing strategies have also evolved. With the web at our fingertips, people became better informed about the standard and value of the items they spend their money on. They’ve also become more demanding; they need their issues resolved fast, and that they want the proper products to try to to it.

Many customers see straight through pushy sales pitches and disruptive online ads, but they will be persuaded with informative and genuinely helpful content. That’s where content marketing comes in. Good content – like blog posts, informational videos, and more – are wont to nurture buyers into making a sale , gently guiding them toward the proper solution for his or her needs.

Whether you create a blog for your website, post helpful tutorials on YouTube, or write eBooks and guides, you can also use content marketing to grow your brand. Here’s an entire explanation of content marketing and the way to try to to it right, also as some examples and tips to guide your own content marketing journey.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing may be a sort of marketing strategy that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and interesting content so as to draw in a targeted audience and encourage them to shop for .

This form of selling doesn’t explicitly promote a brand but, instead, stimulates consumer interest in its product or service. the thought is that the more value you offer consumers within the sort of expert knowledge, the more you’ll entice them to get your product.

Here are another benefits of content marketing:

• Showcases your company’s knowledge, expertise, and authority within the industry.
• Establishes your credibility, helping you gain consumer trust.
• Builds brand awareness by placing your brand across the online .
• Boosts your website’s SEO so you’ll get found by new customers.
• Engages existing customers in order that they buy again.
• Promotes your website for free of charge .

Types of content marketing

There are many various sorts of content you’ll create as a part of your marketing strategy, including:

• Blog posts: Articles published on your website’s blog.
• Offsite articles: Articles written for publications and blogs outside your own website.
• Videos: Short filmed content posted on your business’s YouTube channel or embedded on your own website.
• Podcasts: Auditory content offering useful information, guidance, or tips.
• Infographics: Explanatory visuals that use a mixture of images, statistics, and charts.
• User-generated content: Content like videos, images, and more created by users then shared or endorsed by brands.
• Case studies: Up-close examinations of your customers, often taking the shape of blog posts, that tell success stories about them using your product.
• eBooks: Online books, typically packaged as downloadable PDF documents, with in-depth information or guidance about your industry.
• White papers: In-depth, high-level reports a few specific topic, almost like a search paper.
• Webinars: Online video presentations, often live-streamed, that allow viewers to participate and ask questions in real-time.
• Slide decks: Slide presentations that provide information, guidance, or tips.
• Templates: Fill-in-the-blank templates associated with your product or service.

If that seems like tons , don’t feel overwhelmed. You don’t got to create of these different content types from the get-go. Start with only one to create your foundation, then diversify into other formats that fit your particular audience and niche. By employing a strategic combination of those different content types, you’ll be ready to reach and have interaction an excellent number of prospective customers.

Content marketing examples

Now that you simply know why content marketing is such a strong online marketing tool, let’s dive into some real-life content marketing examples to assist inform your own strategy:

01. River Pools and Spas

Our first content marketing example is River Pools and Spas. It’s an independent pool company, yet its content strategy is one among the foremost famous in digital marketing history. As a final ditch effort to save lots of their business during the 2008 recession, owner Marc Sheridan and his team dived into blogging.

Their goal was to become the simplest teachers within the world about the industry by growing their blog with posts that answered every possible customer question. Eventually, they combined blogging with other sorts of content, too, like instructional YouTube videos. Ultimately, their content marketing strategy succeeded: it attracted an enormous influx of consumers , and saved the corporate as a result.

The content marketing lesson here is to specialise in your customer, not yourself. Aim to be an educator , providing both written and visual content that leaves your audience feeling like they’ve learned something new.

02. HubSpot

One of the leaders within the field of content marketing is digital marketing platform HubSpot. Like River Pools and Spas, the corporate offers a huge array of blog posts on nearly every possible question their audience may need . Not only do these include topics specific to digital marketing, but they also include other business and sales tips relevant to their audience . These blog posts are supplemented with longer eBooks, which hone in on specific topics to supply in-depth informational content to their audience.

In addition to its big selection of written content, the corporate offers a service called the HubSpot Academy, with free online courses about content marketing, SEO, inbound marketing, and more. These video courses take the shape of mini-series, encouraging their audience to repeatedly engage and are available back for more.

03. Deere

First published in 1895, The Furrow, a print magazine created by agricultural manufacturing company Deere , is usually mentioned because the oldest example of content marketing. Even some time past , the magazine operated on an equivalent principles as contemporary content marketing: to assist customers resolve their issues while highlighting their industry expertise.

Today, The Furrow continues to be at the core of John Deere’s content marketing strategy and is out there online. The publication reads less sort of a series of selling posts and more sort of a reputable magazine, with stories about farming and agriculture that take the shape of engaging narratives.

Notably, the magazine uses stunning photography to draw users into the brand. faraway from being overtly promotional, the articles instead serve to deepen the reference to their audience, transforming an outsized manufacturing company into a relatable, more human brand.

04. Blendtec

How much content are you able to really create about blenders? Generating an outsized amount of content are often tricky if your product is extremely specific, but Blendtec pulls it off with creativity.

The blender company’s eCommerce website is filled with recipes, presented within the sort of video tutorials. The videos aren’t limited to smoothie recipes, either; the corporate also shows more advanced recipes for soups, nut butters, and more.

In doing so, they’re ready to engage their readers with unique and unexpected content, while sending the message that their product’s capabilities exceed those of a typical home blender.

Even more impressively, the Blendtec brand has become a successful YouTuber. In contrast to the intense recipe suggestions present on its website, the company’s “Will It Blend?” videos wow users with their goofiness and audacity.

Among its hottest clips are the blending of an iPad (boasting 12 million views) and therefore the blending of glow sticks. These videos aren’t genuinely educational, but they serve a special quite purpose; they achieve establishing Blendtec as a funny, likable company with a memorable brand identity and an evidently effective product.

05. GoPro

For its content marketing strategy, GoPro shows us another sort of visual content. instead of engaging its audience through humor, GoPro grabs our attention with high-quality, user-generated video content filmed with – you guessed it – the GoPro action camera. They post this content front and center as a part of their website’s homepage design, in order that it’s instantly visible to all or any site visitors. Similar videos also comprise the majority of their social media marketing strategy, with GoPro content posted across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Far from traditional, GoPro’s content takes advantage of today’s video trends. We’re taken on a journey through the eyes of the customer as they surf the waves of the Pacific, float down the Mekong, and snowboard within the Alps. We’re all a touch jealous of their adventures – and lots of viewers may find it tempting to duplicate those experiences by getting a GoPro of their own.

Not only does the company’s content strategy entice new customers, but it also encourages existing customers to interact with the brand. They hold competitions for user-generated content, rewarding the winners with cash awards and increased online exposure. This deepens users’ relationship with the brand and helps the corporate build a loyal and dedicated customer base.

06. Trader Joe’s

Many grocery stores overlook their content marketing strategy, but that’s never the case for American supermarket chain Trader Joe’s. the corporate effectively markets itself employing a combination of various content formats. they supply recipes on their website, a monthly newsletter available both online and in print, and, of course, many mouthwatering food photography.

In addition to attracting and retaining customers, the company’s content strategy is critical to their branding. The tone, language, and visual style present in both their online and print content forms the core of the supermarket’s brand image.

The content’s hand-drawn illustrations and vibrant brand colors, combined with cheeky, off-beat language (their newsletter, as an example , is named the “Fearless Flyer”) makes the brand feel casual, comical, and relatable.

07. Ben and Jerry’s

Speaking of food, Ben and Jerry’s serves up some pretty sweet content marketing examples. Their visual branding features a 1960s aesthetic, and their content bolsters this image with topical blog posts about fair trade products, gender equality, and more. Their website also gives an in-depth explanation of their process for sourcing and making their frozen dessert , highlighting their brand values of social responsibility and transparency.

The bulk of their content aims for max user engagement. One post encourages readers to make their own flavor, attributing popular creations like Cherry Garcia and Chubby Hubby to their fans.

The frozen dessert company also predominantly features quizzes to form their brand feel personal and fun, like “Love or Ice Cream?” and “Which Dough Chunk Are You?” By inviting people to participate in their brand, the company’s content strategy helps them form a close-knit community of loyal fans.

08. website build and design

This should come as no surprise – we’re quite pleased with our own content marketing strategy! We use the website build and design Blog as how to attach with users and help them with all their professional needs, from website design to small business tips and more. We also cater to all or any our different audiences by segmenting our content across various blogs. Between the Creative Blog and therefore the Photography Blog, we confirm to deal with a good range of user interests.

Our goal? to understand exactly what customers want to know, and to share strategies, ideas, and inspiration which will help them achieve success.

How to optimize your content marketing strategy

While these content marketing examples are all very different from each other in terms of strategy and content type, they are doing have one thing in common: meticulous optimization.

Creating the foremost effective content marketing strategy possible requires going beyond producing great content. you furthermore may got to keep your audience, competitors, and overall marketing plan in mind.

Here are some tips to make sure your content is at its best:

Create buyer personas

Before you even begin to supply content, you’ll got to conduct marketing research . believe who your audience is in order that you’ll engage them by directly chatting with their wants and wishes .

Start by creating buyer personas, or fictional representations of your ideal customers. Ask yourself questions like “How old are they?” and “What are their interests and hobbies?” If you’re a B2B software company, that fictional customer could be a middle-aged, high-level company exec. If you’re a classy handbag designer, on the opposite hand, your buyer persona could be a young fashionista.

Understand the buyer’s journey

Part of resonating together with your audience is creating a content marketing plan that correlates with particular phases of the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is that the process customers undergo when researching, considering, and eventually purchasing a product or service. This journey consists of three main stages:

• The awareness stage, during which a customer becomes aware they need a drag .
• The consideration stage, during which the customer identifies that problem and researches the way to resolve it.
• The decision stage, during which the customer determines an answer .

When your content marketing efforts directly address your audiences’ questions at each particular stage, you’ll better guide customers through the marketing funnel. Your goal is that by the top of this journey, users will realize that your product is that the solution they’ve been checking out .

Research your competitors

As a part of laying the groundwork for effective content, you’ll also want to try to to a SWOT analysis of your competitors. By researching your industry competition, you’ll create content that not only covers an identical range of topics, but that also surpasses that of your competitors in terms of depth and customer value.

Begin by taking a glance at your competitors’ websites, blogs, and social media platforms, then build your inspiration from their existing content pieces. believe what they did well – and what they didn’t – and use that knowledge to tell your own content marketing plan.

Improve your SEO

Content marketing and program optimization (SEO) are two sides of an equivalent coin. SEO determines how your content is ranked in search engines – that’s , whether it’s listed because the first, second, third, or 100th end in Google, Bing, et al. . the upper your content ranks, the more potential customers will click thereon and skim it.

To ensure that your blog posts and other content rank high for SEO, write with specific keywords in mind. You’ll got to conduct keyword research so as to understand which keywords are presumably to push you to the highest of the program results page. make certain to pay particular attention to long tail keywords.

Even after your content is published, you ought to still update your content regularly to stay it ranking high. These SEO tips for bloggers can help guide you.

Create a content marketing calendar

As you expand your body of content, you would possibly find it’s hard to stay track of all of your different work. to make sure your content strategy is organized and well-planned, create a monthly editorial calendar for your blog, also as a social media calendar, that display the publishing date of every piece, its topic and title, and any additional details of your choice.

This will help make sure that you publish on a uniform basis which your content stays varied, interesting, and fresh. it’ll also offer you a much bigger picture view of your content marketing plan as an entire .

As you seek to expand your brand, you’ll believe content marketing as a strong tool. By creating strategic, optimized content that ranks above your competitors’ and resonates deeply together with your audience, you’ll be ready to drive high-quality traffic to your website, and acquire happy customers as a result.