What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is generally defined as the process of attracting, engaging, and satisfying an audience in a target market. Our audience and customers want valuable and useful content from our business. This content should reach the audience and customers in a natural way, not disturb them. This is where content marketing comes in and helps businesses do just that.
With the help of content marketing, we can achieve the following goals:
- Increase brand awareness
- Improve conversion rates
- Increase sales and revenue
- Gain credibility and gain the trust of users
Content is closely related to other areas of digital marketing, especially SEO. So if we want to succeed in SEO or improve the performance of our site on the Google results page, we must use content marketing. In this article, we give you an overview of CM and review examples, types and benefits of content marketing. So if you want to know content marketing to use it effectively, stay with us until the end of the article.
What is Content Marketing?
Imagine you are watching the critical moments of your favorite movie. How would you feel if they advertised to you between these critical moments? You will certainly not feel satisfied and pleasant. What is shown to us in advertising is content, but why do we not feel good about it? Because it has bothered us. Of course, we should not assume that advertising is necessarily bad; Content advertising and marketing are really complementary.
If we use advertising in the right way and on the right channel, it can be very effective. In today’s world, our content should reach our audiences and customers naturally and without interruption. That is, we need to make our content available to the audience or customer so that they feel they have found our content and feel good about it. This is what CM does for us.
CM is the process of planning, creating, publishing, distributing and sharing content. This content can be published in spaces such as blogs, social networks, podcasts, press releases, print publications, applications and more. Our goal in publishing content can be to increase brand awareness, engage more customers, increase sales and customer loyalty.
Definition of Content Marketing from the perspective of Joe Polizzi
Joe Polizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute ( CMI ), one of the most well-known content marketing institutes in the world. In most books and articles in the field of CM, they refer to the recommendations and definitions of this institute. So we have used the definition of CM of this institute in this article:
CM is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and ongoing content. This content is done in order to attract and retain our target audience to ultimately lead to profitable actions for the business by customers.
The question is: content marketing or content marketing?
So far, we know what content marketing is, but the mistake that most of us make is to assume that CM is the same as content marketing. In content marketing, (as the saying goes) we try to market the content. In other words, in CM, we are actually trying to sell the content itself to the audience. So once and for all:
- Content marketing is the process by which we try to market a product or service using content.
- Content marketing includes actions taken to sell the same content.
These two concepts find meaning together; In fact, content marketing (in which we try to promote content) is one of the things we do in the content marketing process.
Why is content marketing important?
Content marketing is important because without content, our marketing will be practically flawed. We use content in introverted marketing, social media, advertising, SEO and even audience communication. So it matters to us, and we use content and content marketing because of its benefits. The benefits of content marketing are not small, but here are the most important ones. This type of marketing is important to us because with its help we can:
- To better acquaint our audience and potential customers with the services and products we offer.
- Increase the conversion rate and return on investment.
- Communicate with our customers, which ultimately leads to increased brand loyalty.
- Show the audience how our services and products can solve their problems and challenges.
- Create a community of users for our brand.
- Improve SEO.
To see the role of the way of learning SEO, we suggest you read the SEO training page .
How to measure success in content marketing?
To measure the success and effectiveness of content marketing, we must first set criteria for measuring the effectiveness of content. In a business environment, these metrics are called key performance indicators, or KPIs. Depending on what our goals are, we need to consider and record different metrics.
To get the most out of our content program, it is best to review and analyze these metrics on a monthly basis. In the image below, we bring you the content goals and the criteria we need to measure in relation to each goal. You can save the image to access it anytime, anywhere.
What are the different types of content marketing?
There are many types of content marketing that we can use depending on our strategy. In this section, we explained the different types of content marketing and in each section, we explained how to use it with one more example. The different types of this strategic process are:
1- Content marketing on social networks
Social networks have more than 3.6 billion users worldwide. This is why most businesses invest in social media and use it as one of the most important marketing tools. So we can use these media to publish content and attract and engage our audience. Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Telegram are the most popular social media in Iran.
How to do it?
Mr. Emad Chabak’s Instagram page is one of the best examples. On the Instagram page, in addition to creating value by producing useful and practical content, as well as creating relationships with audiences and customers, they also introduce their products and services. For example, in the image below, we see that while creating content value for users, it tries to introduce users to a comprehensive SEO training course that includes a 60% discount .
2- Content marketing in the blog
Unlike social media, the blog is one of the media outlets that we own. So we can use all our creativity and knowledge in it to do the content marketing process efficiently. Among the things we can do with the help of the blog are:
- Complete and comprehensive information about our services and products
- Redirect users from social networks to blogs
- Enable content sharing on social media to make content more visible
- Advertise and promote our other content, services or other products
How to do it?
Diamoviz site also has a blog section called free education. In this section, we include SEO and content production tutorials, e-books and checklists. We are constantly posting relevant and useful content in the blog section to engage our users. All of these articles are in line with the goals and vision of the business and are published in order to increase customer and brand awareness.
3- Content marketing in video
According to research by the Wyzowl Institute, 69% of consumers of any brand prefer to receive information about the company’s products and services in the form of video. In addition to creating effective communication with the audience, video marketing can increase the conversion rate and return on investment. This is why media like YouTube is becoming more and more popular. Because both more users use it and more businesses use it as one of their tools.
We can publish the video we have produced on blogs, social networks and even other sites. As videos become more and more popular, investing more in them is a smart move. Video content has the potential to go viral, and we can use it in brand awareness campaigns.
How to do it?
Video tutorials, interviews, product presentation videos, live broadcasts, short videos, webinars, etc. are all examples of video marketing with the help of video. Different types of these cases can be covered in media such as Instagram and YouTube. The videos posted on Emad Chabak ‘s Instagram page are a good example of this.
4- Content marketing with the help of podcasts
In recent years, podcasts have become very popular with users and are becoming more and more popular. According to a field study from Namlik, Persian podcasts are heard up to 300,000 times a day. This report is from last year and these statistics have increased to this day because the trend of listening to podcasts is growing in the world. That’s why so many businesses are starting to build their own podcasts.
Podcasts are one of the tools we have full ownership of. So we can decide on all of our podcasts; From the people who are going to be on the podcast and the space we have to promote the podcast content to the duration of each episode and the overall content and rhythm of the podcast. So here too we can use all our creativity to make the content effective.
How to do it?
Sabkto is the name of a site in the field of book summaries and abstracts that has a podcast of the same name. The main topic of the podcast is about success and self-improvement and it plays a complementary role to other content published on the site. In this way, even users who are not familiar with the lightweight site, get acquainted with the site by listening to podcasts on podcast platforms. Inside the podcast, listeners are encouraged to visit the site and see the site’s products and services. This podcast is also one of the best ways to connect the Lightweight brand with your audience and increase brand awareness.
5- Content marketing with the help of infographics
Infographics are images that present content, information, and data in a graphical format that is very easy to understand. Because infographics convey information and data in the form of visual content with simple and short words and sentences, they are one of the most effective ways to convey information and promote content. The use of infographics is especially useful and effective in conveying complex topics. Because they simplify the content and users interact much better with our content.
How to do it?
For example, consider the infographic site, which is one of the specialized Persian infographic references. This site has published an infographic on why we should use this type of images in digital marketing. Their infographic contains the brand name, the content is well organized and very easy to read. Their image conveys the benefits of using infographics well and in simple language.
In this image, they also encourage users to use infographics. That is, they simultaneously create value in the form of useful visual content for their users, introduce their services and products, and encourage users to order the product.
Conclusion
Thus, I came to the end of the article What is Content Marketing? In this article, we looked at the benefits of content marketing and its types, and reviewed examples of each. Let’s not forget that without the right content strategy, success in content marketing is almost impossible. So in addition to creating and delivering valuable, relevant and consistent content to our target audience, we need to know what to do at each stage. We will talk about content strategy in more detail in another article.
