The Essence of Content Marketing
Content marketing has become a byword in the age of information. But only a few people have a real grasp of what content marketing really is.
To make things clearer for us, here is a simple definition of content marketing:
Content marketing is a marketing technique which uses valuable content to attract and engage an identified target audience. One of the main purposes of this technique is to build a relationship and position a particular business as a trusted resource for a specific subject.
Blog posts, magazine articles, informative videos, striking newspaper headlines, newsletters and website content are some forms of content marketing. It is actually anything that is aimed at engaging potential customers and driving them to action.
Content marketing has five important aspects. These are:
1. It is editorial-based
The primary purpose of content marketing is to inform. It must tell a relevant, valuable story which is loaded with information that readers would be happy to know.
2. It is marketing-backed
Aside from its intent to inform, there is a marketing and sales objective that a business establishment is trying to accomplish with the use of content.
3. It is behavior-driven
4. It has a multi-platform
Content marketing comes out printed, digital, audio or video form. Any of these forms are dependent of each other, but any of these can be combined in a single content.
5. It is targeted toward a specific audience
Content marketing is intended to deliver information and value about a specific niche to a specific audience base. It is not content marketing if the business or website can not identify its audience with whom it intends to build a trust-based relationship.
There are two important characteristics of content marketing. Its most important characteristic is its uniqueness. Any website or business must deliver its own engaging content about the product or service that it intends to push in the market. In marketing, this is called Unique Selling Point (USP).
An effective content marketing plan is very important in every website or business’ desire to retain their audience. Keeping your prospected customers in mind and focusing to their needs makes your content more attractive and interesting. It does not only generate good traffic, but it also attracts other webmasters to link to your page or post your article directly in their website.