Because it works!
Most of the businesses are looking to content marketing as a promising new strategy to achieve their marketing objectives. A recent study conducted showed that over 70% of consumers prefer getting information from articles rather than corporate advertisements. This is the underlying reason for the rise in popularity of content marketing.
What is content marketing?
It is the creation and distribution of content that is not only useful but also interesting, to attract your target audience. The specialty of this strategy is that it doesn’t directly sell any product or service nor does it follow a ‘push’ method. It produces potential leads and positions your business as an industry leader merely through the creation of valuable content.
What’s the big deal about it- as opposed to traditional marketing strategies?
It concentrates on creating value rather than pushing your business onto customers.
Consumers are being bombarded everyday with marketing efforts of many businesses at once that they’ve reached a point where they’ve become oblivious to it. As mentioned earlier, although the long-term goal is sale and therefore profit maximization, content marketing does not seem like a regular marketing strategy. It does not bombard consumers, nor does it scream ‘buy now’ or ‘we’re the best’ – it does not come off as overly promotional, while allusively showing off their expertise which prompts customers to eventually buy your products.
It is more cost effective than traditional marketing strategies.
Digital marketing, content marketing specifically is a cheaper, yet more effective alternative to traditional marketing methods like print, radio, paper, etc. This is because you are allowed to display your content at nominal charges and a lot of times, even for free! You also have the freedom to decide the length, the type and the look of the content whereas in case of traditional media, you have limitations such as word/space limit (print), visual limitations (radio), etc.
It has a greater reach than other marketing strategies.
Social media is the lovechild of the World Wide Web which comes in many forms such as blogs, chat apps, photo-sharing apps, gaming apps, forums and social networks. The number of worldwide users is expected to reach a whooping 2.95 million by 2020 which means you’ll have direct access to one third of the earth’s population! This by itself gives your business infinite opportunities to promote and grow your business. This kind of reach is unimaginable in traditional marketing media. Another plus point of using social media is that you can choose the platform and target audience according to your line of business, thereby concentrating only on potential leads.
How does it work?
Let’s use an example for this:
You have a back problem and are looking for a seat cushion, so you get on Google and type ‘cushions for back aches’ and you open one of the results displayed on your page. This page talks about back aches, how people commonly face this issue and how medicated seat cushions can be of long-term relief rather than regular seat cushions that may not be as effective. There you have your solution! You may or may not buy the medicated seat cushion from that website but now you know they exist. Chances are that you will tell the next person you know with a back ache about these cushions or the site. This way, literally anyone who has visited the site is a potential lead and a few can be converted into a sale.
This is exactly how content marketing works- businesses create original content, display them where they can b easily found, address pain-points of the mass, increase website traffic and eventually make sales.
To sum up, content marketing is highly effective because
- Online is the first-place people go to research on their problems or to look for products/services.
- It is a flexible tool- you have the freedom to decide how much, what type of content, which platform, and what elements to use.
- You get all that flexibility for a small fraction of the cost you would otherwise be spending on TV commercials or the radio- hence cost effective too
- The reach that your content will have is massive! (assuming that you’ve done it right)
