Why do you need Content Marketing?

Consumers have shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons (making them irrelevant). Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, and that there has to be a better way. Enter content marketing. But what exactly is content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. y is content marketing?

It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media, not renting it. Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent.
Often, content marketing is used when businesses realize those programs are either ineffective, too expensive, not scalable, or all of the above. Here’s what I mean, using the “infographic generator” example above for demonstrations.

You write a blog post about your infographic generator, and included a link to the tool in the post so people can try it for themselves. Let’s say the visitor-to-lead conversion rate is the same on this blog post as it was in your PPC campaign — 2%. That means if 100 people read that blog post in your first month, you’d get two leads from it. But your work is done now. And over time, that one blog post you wrote years ago will continue to generate leads over, and over, and over, every single month. And not just that blog post — every blog post you write will do the same.

In other words, content marketing programs set businesses up for predictable, scalable, and cost-effective traffic and lead-flow that doesn’t rely on securing budget each month. It’s like an annuity.

Usually, businesses don’t completely cease all other marketing activities and switch to content marketing cold turkey. In fact, most veteran content marketing programs typically incorporate other marketing techniques to complement their content initiatives. But the impetus for most of the companies I’ve worked with to initiate a content marketing program has been the need for a more cost-effective, predictable, and scalable source of traffic and leads than what they’ve been receiving from their current marketing programs.

If you’re in the same boat, let’s get down to brass tacks and talk about how to “do” content marketing.