What is Content Marketing?

Definition of Content Marketing

Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain clearly defined audiences and ultimately drive profitable customer action.
Instead of pitching products or services, a strategic content-based approach provides relevant and useful content to your prospects and established customers to help them solve problems in their business (B2B content) or personal life (B2C content).
Effective use of this approach requires a well-tested strategy. In reality, devising an adequate strategy doesn’t have to be too difficult.

Why use content marketing?

For one thing, marketing today is impossible without great content. Content should be integrated into your marketing process, not treated as something separate.

Quality content is part of all forms of marketing, including:

• Email marketing: great quality content gets your audience used to anticipating, opening and reading your brand’s emails.
• Social Media Marketing: the strategy that considers quality content comes before the social media strategy.
• SEO: search engines reward companies that publish consistent, quality content.
• Public Relations: successful PR strategies should address the issues that affect potential customers, not their business.
• Pay per Click: for PPC based campaigns to work, you need great content behind it.
• Inbound Marketing: content is key to driving inbound traffic and generating leads.
• Digital Marketing: content forms the basis for an improved or revamped integrated digital marketing strategy.
• Content Strategy: you need to consider content strategy (which determines how content is created and managed within an organization).

We asked marketing experts what the role, importance and challenges of content are in 2023. Here’s what they told us:

What are some examples of brands using Content Marketing?

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) research shows that the vast majority of marketers use content marketing. In fact, it is used by many major organizations around the world, including:

• Stellantis
• Cleveland Clinic
• The municipality of Milan
• NBC Sports
• Northwell Health
• Salesforce
• Santagostino Clinics
• TD Bank Group
• Intesa Sanpaolo

It is also developed and run by small and medium-sized businesses around the world. Government agencies are also taking action.

Why is the use of Content Marketing expanding?

Because it works.

How does Content Marketing support profits and customer needs?

Wouldn’t it be great if your new and old customers couldn’t wait to receive your content? What if when they received it (via print, email, social channels, blog or website), they took the time to interact with it? What if they anticipated it and shared it with acquaintances and peers?
Go back and read the definition one more time. Note the phrase “relevant and valuable.” This is the difference between strategic content and informational spam sent by companies looking to sell first rather than interact.

When companies create great content, they can expect one or more of these four benefits:

• Increase in sales
• Savings in advertising costs
• Better customers who stay loyal to your brand
• New revenue generated from content (i.e., content as a profit center)

Content is the present – and future – of marketing

Ready to learn more? We can help. Here are some popular ways to delve deeper:

• Have you just started? Maybe you need specific advice, think about it.
• Do you want content marketing leaders to provide your organization with specific coaching or training?
• Do you want to learn from your colleagues and industry experts? Participate in one of our events!
• Do you want to entrust our team of Content Marketing specialists with the creation and publication of content?

Contact our consulting team to find out how they can help you address your content challenges.
If you have questions about Marketing in general and Content Marketing in particular, don’t hesitate to contact our Team.