Why do you? What the heck is content marketing anyway? And what is with all these rhetoricals?
All terrific questions.
For the uninitiated, content marketing is a type of advertising that gives to your customers without noticeably asking to receive. You know the article you’re reading right now? As in, these words right here? GET THIS. You are currently ingesting a prime example of content marketing.
Whether it be through video, podcast, blog post or how-to guide, content marketing seeks to align your brand with the gift of information that is either educational or entertaining. And if you can combine those edutainment, all the better.
Don’t combine them into entercation though. It just sounds yuck.
There are professionals in the field that can help you step aboard the content marketing train, offering content marketing services that can bring not only brand awareness, but brand admiration.
Here are but a few reasons that show how your organization could benefit from a bit of marketed content.
Traditional Advertising Can Look Dodgy
The internet is constantly evolving. Just look at the forever awesome website for the 1996 film “Space Jam.” No, an 8-year-old with a learning disability did not make that site. The year 1996 made that site.
If that was the website template used for 2015’s “The Revenant”, you’d probably have some questions. Why then would you be happy to use an advertising tool from the internet’s dark ages, like Google Adwords?
In a Neilsen poll, people were asked how much they trusted different forms of advertising. While personal recommendations topped the list, the six bottom placed finishers were all online, unsolicited advertising. Search engine ads, online banner ads, social network ads; it seemed online advertising equalled untrustworthy.
How do you remedy that? Instead of being unsolicited, become solicited. Offer people helpful and enjoyable material. Have them share your awesome branded content with their friends. Work your way from untrustworthy internet advertising to trusted personal recommendation.
Be Seen as a Thought Leader
By consistently releasing informative content out into the world with your brand attached to it, you will start to develop yourself a reputation as a font of knowledge.
By being a thought-leader in your industry, you’ll have the respect of consumers and will be their first port-of-call when they require your product or service. Reputation can be a tricky thing to manage, but by releasing quality branded content marketing, you’re doing all you can to develop and maintain that air of credibility.
Quality Content Will Bring Quality Customers
When a search engine ad pops up, all we know about the person who sees it is that they put in a couple of particular words into the search engine. And sure, you could think to yourself that it is a fairly targeted way of getting your brand in front of customers. You could have spent that money on something as frivolous as flying a banner plane over the city.
Which, while ineffective, is nonetheless awesome.
But compare the search engine ad with content marketing. Instead of throwing your name up in front of anyone who types in “buttered crumpets” (a very specific crumpet manufacturer example – I apologize), you are getting in front of the faces of anyone who is actually interested enough in your content to actually sit down and ingest it. They then pass it onto friends who will also appreciate it. Soon enough, you could be in front of the eyes of a huge amount of the most high value leads you can get.
Content Marketing Delivers Long-Term
Unlike a three week advertising campaign, content marketing can be working for you years down the track. As long as the piece of content is still relevant and live on the internet, the level of interest could explode at any moment.
Earned media is a term used for the process of getting your content shared by people and organizations on the web. If you produce something of quality, and someone influential picks up on it, you could be one your way to thousand or millions of dollars’ worth of brand exposure for free.
It’s The Future of Advertising
Whether you like it or not, consumers are wising up to traditional forms of advertising. They’re not looking to be sold to, they’re looking to get something out of you in return for investing their time. By utilising professional content marketing services, your organization could be well on its way into the hearts, minds and eventually wallets of the masses.
Let’s get entercating.
Still yuck.
