Content marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on creating, publishing, and distributing content to a target audience over the Internet. Unlike other forms of Internet marketing, content marketing relies on anticipating and satisfying existing customers' information needs. The idea of content marketing is that the brand should give something of value in order to get something of value in return. Instead of commercials, it will be an offer. Instead of a banner ad, it's an article.
When companies seek content marketing, the main focus should be on the needs of potential customers. Once a customer need is identified, the information can be presented in a variety of different shapes and formats, including news, videos, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, questions and answers, articles, images etc.
Content marketing goals
Content marketing is often used by companies to:
Attracting attention and generating potential customers
Expanding its customer base
Generate or increase online sales
Increase brand awareness or credibility
Involve an online community of users
Content Creation
When creating content, companies typically take three initial steps:
Determine the target audience and their needs
Define content types
Books - Videos - Contests - Webinars - Questions and Answers - Surveys - Interviews - Audio Clips - Articles - Search Engines - Social Media - etc.
Create a content management system
To get started, you will need to find a content management system. Despite the difference in content management systems, most include functionality to help with content creation and publishing, and analytics to track the success of posts.