Content marketing is the latest buzzword in the Internet world and is basically a marketing technique which centers around the creation and distribution of relevant, valuable content to engage a specific target audience. Of course the ultimate goal or objective is ensuring—through the content—that target audience takes action which is profitable in some way to the website owner. On the surface you are simply presenting information that increases the knowledge of your readers rather than overtly offering up a sales pitch for products or services. The underlying belief of content strategy is that when companies bypass the standard hard-sell lines and deliver consistent, ongoing, respected content to their readers, those same readers will respond with their business and their loyalty.
The Inception of Content Marketing
Content marketing was a response to consumers who were jaded and had shut themselves off from traditional marketing techniques. Those who study such behaviors realized that magazine advertising is largely skipped over, and many American families now own a DVR for no other reason than to be able to skip annoying commercials. When it soaked in that traditional advertising was becoming less effective by the day, experts from around the world concluded that content marketing is truly the wave of the future. That being said, content marketing is useless and impossible without the benefit of great content.
Without Great Content There is No Content Marketing
If the content being presented is not informative, relevant and valuable, then content marketing will never be successful. Great content forces human beings to look at their world in a different way, to think and, in the end, to behave differently. One study shows that over 3/4ths of those who are in charge of making company decisions would rather get the information and knowledge they need to make those decisions through a series of engaging articles rather than through a blatant advertisement. Many companies engage their readers through a newsletter, e-mail updates or blog writing and all of these are part and parcel of content marketing.
A Plan for Great Content
While we are all aware of the necessity of posting often, that content must be high-quality or it would be better not to post it at all. When looking at content for a specific website, the question must be asked as to whether that content fully engages the target audience. Is it inviting and above all, is it relevant? Is the content valuable to the reader whether through entertainment, inspiration or information? The value of content is much easier to gauge than the value of a link in that when great content is posted onto a website the site owner soon knows how many links that content generated, how many “likes” it received on Facebook, how many referral visits it produced and how much search traffic it created through which keywords.
More and more companies are realizing they need more than copywriters—they need writers who can infuse heart and soul into their content, making it ready to take its place in the content marketing strategy. Great content should never be taken lightly as it is crucial to the success of any website or blog.
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