Content marketing is one of the most popular advertising strategies, which is changed by all cases. It is talked about a lot, often and loudly, as it indeed has a lot of advantages. However, many people who have their own online brands - both large and small are not quite sure what content marketing actually is, on what principle it works, as well as how and when it is worth using it. In the following text, we present content marketing comprehensively, and also suggest how to effectively promote yourself online with its help.
Table of Contents:
- Content marketing - what is it?
- What are the advantages of promoting yourself through content?
- How can we promote ourselves through content on the web?
- When is it worth using this method of promotion?
Content marketing - what is it?
Content marketing, or content marketing, is one of the more popular digital marketing strategies. It involves promoting yourself online by publishing interesting and quality content. These are designed to attract an audience that is looking for topical information and will be interested in it. The article or other form of content is then meant to interest the reader enough to make him or her want to get acquainted with the brand that published it.
Content marketing is effective and worth implementing for several reasons. First of all, this is because the demands of your audience or customers are regularly becoming higher and higher, and they require you to publish useful content that will give them tangible returns. Content marketing allows you to build both your brand image, as well as attract customers and generate sales. It is one of the best and most popular ways of advertising on the Internet. On the market, many marketing and interactive agencies offer to conduct it.
An important element of content marketing is also the message with which we create content. The content must not be typical advertising content, and must give specific benefits and help readers. Texts are only supposed to interest and encourage the audience to look for more information on our website, not convince them to take any purchasing action. The incorporation of our branding into thematic text should therefore be subtle and unobtrusive, and the content itself must remain substantive.
What are the advantages of promoting yourself through content?
Speaking of content marketing, it is impossible not to talk about its advantages. First of all, it is a flexible and non-committal way of online advertising. Compared to other forms of advertising, we do not have to commit to any deadlines or regular payments of money. We can implement it the way we want. In addition, we can use content marketing both for free by making all the content ourselves and distributing it, or we can outsource this task to numerous marketing agencies. This is very important, as different brands have different requirements for content marketing and may not want to implement it on their own, for example, due to a lack of specialists or a desire to operate on a very large scale.
Content marketing is also a very qualitative advertising activity that does not raise negative comments. This is a very important plus, because as we know, advertising is very often received negatively. By publishing interesting and useful material, in the worst case our advertising will be received neutrally.
Finally, content marketing is about the concrete measurable profits we can generate with its help. Content marketing can be very effective, and through it we can reach hundreds of thousands of audiences. This will give us the opportunity to get a very large audience and generate many conversions. With the help of content marketing we can operate on a very large scale. Adding one or more interesting posts on large thematic portals, for example, in exchange for a fee, will give our content a gigantic reach.
Building a positive brand image is another plus that indirectly affects sales. If our brand publishes useful content, it will systematically build a positive image. Even if the content does not generate a surge of buyers for us in the first moment, in the long run it will make our brand not anonymous in the market, and many people will reach for our products or services later. With the publication of content, we can also become an opinionated brand, and create ourselves as industry leaders, and achieve this designation through more than just sales alone.
Content marketing is also a very big plus in terms of SEO if we publish content on our website. Publishing content is one of the most important ranking factors in the SEO process of a website. If we do it often and add good quality texts to our website, for example, to our company blog, they will significantly increase our website's Google search position. With content marketing, therefore, we can achieve several benefits with a single effort or promotional action.
One important advantage of promoting yourself through content marketing is that the content doesn't have to be unique. If we're not typically talking about SEO efforts on our website, we can create one or more thematic contents and then publish them in different places on the Internet. So when all we care about is getting publicity and reaching customers, we don't need to pay special attention to having one text appear only in one place. Thus, we can, with the expenditure of a fairly small amount, create one guide or thematic text, and then publish it in a large number of places, where it will reach, in sum, a very large audience.
How can we promote ourselves through web content?
When we want to promote ourselves through content marketing, we have many different options to choose from, both in terms of the form of content and the form of its distribution and publication. Both elements should be well thought out and adapted to the goal we want to achieve, as well as the possibilities we have. All the content we publish should be flawless, as well as substantive, useful and qualitative. We should always bet on the quality of our promotion with content marketing, as only such content will give us numerous benefits.
The most popular form of content is written content. We can include blog posts, tutorials, tutorials or thematic texts and specialized articles. More advanced written forms include, for example, e-books or case studies, which are case studies.
Other forms we can include graphic materials, as well as video. They are less frequently used than written texts, but still, they can present a lot of useful information - and do it even better than written content. So we can publish photos, infographics, as well as videos, footage or animations. Among the most original forms of content we can include 360-degree photos, interactive videos, virtual tours, as well as podcasts and audio recordings.
The second very important element of advertising through content marketing on the web is the distribution and publication of content. We have many places on the Internet to choose from where we can do this. First and foremost are social media such as Facebook and Instagram. In general, there are more than a dozen of the most popular social media platforms where we can add content. We should choose the platform on which our potential audience is located, or the ones with the most audience - if they are on all of them. On the web, we can also publish content on our website. We can create a special tab on the company website for this purpose, such as a blog. Other places are online forums and thematic groups. They will bring together very large audiences who are interested in a particular subject category and will certainly be eager to check out guides or expert texts. A very interesting way of publishing content on the web is also the use of sponsored articles. Such promotion consists in paying large and reputable thematic portals in exchange for the opportunity to place thematic content, for example, an article that will bear the logo of our brand. Such cooperation is very often possible even with top thematic or news portals.
An important issue of content marketing is also the branding of the materials we publish online. They should be clearly and legibly labeled in such a way that the recipient has no doubt who the sponsor or publisher of the content is. We also need to provide an easy and quick way to navigate to our website or to another central location on the web of our brand, so that recipients can easily read our offer - that is, do what we care about most. To this end, we should add our brand logos on materials, company names, and links leading to our project page.
When is it worth using this method of promotion?
First of all, we can use content marketing together with other advertising strategies. It won't interfere with them, and in many cases it will also provide a lot of opportunities to expand the basic ways of advertising. Thus, with content marketing we can try new solutions, and see if other ways of advertising won't be more effective than the ones we are currently doing. We can also use content marketing to diversify advertising methods. By betting on several different independent means of advertising, we don't run the risk of locking up the one main one we rely on and cutting us off from online promotion.
Content marketing will also be a very good solution for those who are looking for an efficient and effective way of advertising. It will therefore provide very good value for money, and the cost of customer acquisition will regularly decrease, as content marketing is a passive way of advertising and will continue to produce results long after the advertising campaign is over. It will also be a good way for those who are thinking about long-term online advertising and regular brand promotion. If we intend to be advertising active online for a long time, it is worth investing in content that will help us in many different ways. Content marketing should also be mandatory for brands that want to create a professional and quality image. In this case, the absence of a blog tab or content activities will even be perceived negatively.
