What is Content Marketing? A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing

In today’s digital world, content marketing has become an essential part of businesses’ growth and attraction. A successful content marketing plan can help a brand convey its message, attract more prospects and establish itself as an authority within an industry.

In this article, I am going to discuss content marketing, its benefits, types and how content marketing strategies actually work.

What is content marketing?

It is an inbound marketing strategy that uses video, text, audio and image formats to create informative, entertaining or educational content and delivers it to the audience.

A strategic b2b and b2c content marketing plan helps a business grow by putting relevant information about products and services online. It helps with both spreading awareness of the business and driving more people to a brand’s site.

Why Content Marketing is Important?

Content marketing strategies help internet users in filtering a lot of unnecessary information available online. It directs them to relevant and useful content that addresses their problems.

• Educate the people- branding 
• Problem solving- trust building
• Brand awareness 

Content marketing also proves beneficial for:

• Educating prospects regarding your services and products.

Businesses can use a creative marketing service for promotion of their brand. Offering valuable content to interested audiences increases brand awareness. 

Content marketing storytelling  is proven to be an effective approach in educating audiences by mixing creative storytelling with brand awareness.

• Increasing Visibility:

Creative marketing content helps a business become more visible in search results. Visibility promotes more people visiting your online platforms. This helps in generating more leads that eventually convert visitors into customers.  

Visitor → lead → converts 

• Building trust and loyalty with prospects:

Once visibility is achieved through valuable content, customers begin to build a relationship of trust and loyalty with the business. Consistent availability of helpful and compelling content keeps prospects wanting more.

Three E’s of content marketing

A successful content marketing framework focuses on  the three E’s of content marketing meaning content should be entertaining, educational and engaging.

• Engaging

In creative content strategy engaging means the content should capture the audience’s attention on a personal and emotional level. 

It is essential to take pain points, interests and values of the audience in consideration before tailoring content for any content platform.

• Educational

The second E stands for educating the audience with your content. Your educational content should be well-researched and address the audiences’ problems. 

Educational content establishes your brand as an authority within the industry and also makes it a reliable source of information.

• Entertaining

The third E is for entertaining your audience. Entertaining content is shareable, fun and drives engagement.

 Entertaining content can be in the form of quizzes, infographics, games and memes. 

While creating engaging content, you need to make sure that it is relevant to your brand.

Need help with perfecting a winning strategy that is engaging, educational and entertaining? Feel free to contact us now.

Types of content marketing

It is important for a business to choose the right mix of the best practices of marketing to fit its strategy. 

Businesses can choose any of the following types or a combination of a few according to its plan.

• Blogs

A content marketing blog is an effective content marketing type that directs traffic to your website.

Before adding  content marketing blog in your strategy,  make sure:

1. It has relevance to the services your business offers.
2. It is optimized for SEO.
3. Videos

Videos are a creative format of content creation. They can cover testimonials, brand messaging or customer reviews in visual format making content more digestible for viewers.

•  Social media content creation

 Social media content creation is among the most effective and popular marketing types. 

Brands can easily share video, image and text content on various channels such as Tiktok, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube among others.

Crafting compelling content for social media platforms can help in driving engagement. 

• Podcasts

Podcasts use an audio format for content conception. Businesses can either have their own podcast or can choose to give guest appearances to other podcasts within their own industry.

• E-books

E-books are among popular B2B content marketing types. E-books help in lead generation and nurturing. Creating original content, using industry  insights and including exclusive information can make an effective e-books.

• Paid Advertising

Paid advertising promotes a brand on different platforms like social media, search engines and websites. The key in paid advertising is to make sure that the adverts are catchy and offer information that compels viewers to retain.

• Others

There are other less common yet effective types that can help a brand with their strategy including:

Infographics: Marketing infographics help businesses convert worded blog posts and large informative data into smaller chunks that are easily readable.

Email: This type of marketing helps businesses in sharing promotional offers, newsletters, product information and sales with their subscribers.

Webinars and Courses: Free educational webinars and courses provide prospects with free resources. This helps a business in establishing trust and making lead nurturing easier.

What goes behind content marketing?

Achieving desirable results from your content efforts is only possible when the strategy involves following customer journey stages.

• Awareness Stage

At the first stage, a customer becomes aware of a problem. Business should focus on customer problems without excessively promoting its services or products at this point.

FAQ blogs are ebooks are the best content types at this stage.

• Consideration Stage

Now the customer starts looking for solutions. At this stage, business should focus on the solutions for customers’ problems. Using infographics, checklists and how-to blogs work best at this stage.

• Conversion

At the last stage, the customer is ready to make a purchase. Your strategy should focus on highlighting your expertise in providing solutions and how your services differ from competitors. Product videos and testimonials are ideal content types at this stage.

Closing remarks

Content marketing is effective in attracting, engaging and retaining customers. Creating compelling content and distributing it to the right channels help businesses in the growth process. But this growth is only possible if you are leading with an equally effective content marketing campaign.