Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing digital assets
Content
marketing defined
Content marketing is the process
of creating and distributing digital assets, such as blog posts, videos,
ebooks, technical and solution briefs, and a variety of other digital content
to provide information to your audience.
Content marketing is essential to
search engine optimization (SEO) success. To rank at the top of online search
results, you need to create engaging, high-quality, in-depth content related to
your industry, business, and message.
What is
content?
Before we can master content
marketing, we need to define content. Digital content comes in a variety of
forms including articles, blogs, case studies, diagrams, ebooks, free offers,
games/quizzes, social media posts/hashtags, infographics, knowledge articles,
lists, music, news and opinion pieces, podcasts, reviews, slide shows,
toolkits, user-generated comments, videos, widgets, XML feeds, and cartoons.
Experience TV: Content and CX.
What is
content management?
As potential customers enter the
sales funnel, content has become one of the main ways businesses interact with
them. For content marketing to generate leads, a content management system is
needed to create, manage, update, and deliver content, consistently and
efficiently.
What is the
difference between content marketing and content management?
Content management supports your
content marketing efforts. Content management is a set of processes and
technologies that support the collection, management, and publishing of information
in any form or medium. For example, content management is how you organize your
digital documents, pictures, videos, graphics, and videos, typically using a
content management system (CMS) or content management platform.
What’s the
purpose of content marketing?
Content marketing is a lead
generation tool, but it also increases brand awareness, sales, reach,
customer interactions and engagement, and loyalty. It also helps educate
customers and potential customers about your products and services, build
stronger customer relationships, and create a sense of community around your
brand.
How does
content marketing work?
Content marketing works because
it offers people informative and useful material that they need as they conduct
research and travel through the buyer’s funnel—from research and investigation
all the way to the decision to purchase. Using blogs, ebooks, social media
posts, graphics, and videos, content marketers attract potential customers,
keep them engaged, and move them along their path to purchase.
What is the
difference between content marketing and content strategy?
Content marketing is focused on
driving and converting leads using the material that was designed under the
umbrella of the content strategy.
Your content strategy is the glue
that connects all of your content efforts with organizational goals and
customer needs. It can include your editorial strategy, content structure, and
content governance.
What is a
content marketing platform?
A content marketing platform
(CMP) manages and centralizes all upstream content marketing processes. It
identifies content topics and determines formats, channels, and voice to make
content recommendations, and supports actual content creation. A CMP lets
marketers spend more time creating great content and driving
marketing-attributed revenue and less time reinventing workflows, gathering
approvals, overseeing manual collaboration efforts, and struggling with operational
inefficiencies.
What is a
content services platform (CSP)?
A content services platform helps
businesses manage and control important documents, records, and related content
items. They are critical components of the digital workplace and digital
business.
What is
content management software (CMS)?
Content management software is a
system that manages content. To dig deeper, content management software (CMS)
lets content marketers create, collaborate, archive, publish, and
distribute—without the need for IT intervention.
How to build
a website with content management software (CMS)
Building a website with a CMS can
be as simple as writing copy and inserting images and graphics directly from a
control panel or dashboard. Depending on the platform used, there are numerous
website building options.
What are the
types of content marketing?
There are many types of content
that are used in content marketing. Each requires different editorial
strategies, content structures, governance, and marketing plans to be used in
your content marketing initiatives. When deciding what content to create,
consider all the different channels you might use. Today, people are constantly
on their phones and other mobile devices. So, your content should be easily
viewable and readable on mobile just as much as on any other channel or
platform.
Additionally, many people don’t
have the time or inclination to read through your content, even if it’s just a
short email. A longer digital asset—a technical or business brief, ebook, or
case study—may not work well in a mobile marketing strategy. An infographic
might, though, as it can deliver all relevant points in one image. A video
might work as well, since it's highly consumable via mobile.
Visualization is a powerful tool.
Words matter but add more to your words. You can incorporate art, music, maps,
games, and various interactive features.
Perhaps your ideal customer would
prefer a song or even a music video? What about a podcast or a comic book?
Content offers many possible ways
to connect and engage with people. Which type of content you use depends on you
and your audience. If it fits your brand and is acceptable to your audience,
you can (and should) give it a try.
How does
content marketing work with account-based marketing (ABM)?
As with all of your content
marketing efforts, aligning the right content to account-based marketing
(ABM) strategies will drive targeted traffic to your site. Your content
management strategy should focus on personalization and scale, since the goal
is to create a variety of personalized content pieces for your ABM program.
Here are four steps to keep in mind:
1. Research your audience
well for complete understanding.
2. Identify what content
already exists and speaks to your target audience and identify content gaps
where old content needs to be replaced, retired, or updated.
3. Build a content strategy
for your targeted accounts using a content/message matrix to map what content
or message you will use to reach your target accounts across the entire buying
journey.
4. Personalize at scale by
repurposing and curating a content library with variations. For example, you
may modify content, or create different versions, to speak to a specific
company or industry. Or you can expand the messaging to speak to an executive
versus a practitioner.
What is a
content/message matrix?
A messaging matrix is an
important element of a successful content management strategy. It’s a chart
that summarizes and systemizes your company’s messaging and then aligns your
content library with that message.
Why use a content/message matrix? Content creation can quickly overwhelm even the best of marketers, so this matrix helps prioritize content production and makes sure that the right content is be being created—not just content creation for the sake of content creation.
What is a content/message matrix?
Content marketing is a key tool
in your lead generation strategy because it will drive targeted
traffic to your site. There are typically five goals when it comes to content
marketing:
1. Increase marketing
conversions by driving traffic to key landing pages
2. Expand brand awareness
3. Build and enhance
customer relationships
4. Bring in revenue
5. Boost SEO efforts
How is
content marketing evolving?
Content marketing is moving
towards audience enrichment and away from product promotion. Increasingly,
successful content will be more empathetic, purposeful, and customer-first.
Let’s take a look at four areas:
Visual. In many cases, your message
comes across better if your audience can watch it. Video is very popular and
very engaging. Which is why it is expected that the explosion and expansion of
video as a crucial medium for content marketing will likely continue.
Quality. Increasingly, content
marketers have to create material that stands out from the crowd. To do so, you
need to create quality content. There is no way around it; to connect with your
customers and drive traffic, you need content that is concise, easily
understood, well-crafted, relevant, and engaging.
Social. Both B2B and B2C
marketers are continuing to adapt their use of emerging platforms, such as
TikTok and Snapchat (for B2C) or discover new ways to use tried and true
channels (such as LinkedIn and YouTube for B2B).
Mobile. Developing content
specifically for mobile-oriented marketing strategies is essential, and savvy
content marketers are always looking for new opportunities. This means that
blogs (and other digital assets) need to be easily navigable on smartphones and
that video content needs to available for viewing on mobile devices.
What role
does content marketing play in B2B marketing?
B2B marketing success relies
on engaging content. Content marketing—if done right—can be your secret weapon.
Not only can it engage readers/viewers, generate leads, and close deals,
but it can also build that initial audience and then be used for feedback to
improve/enhance products and services, and refine the customer journey and
marketing efforts. Bottom line, content marketing can help your business find
out how to help your customers more.
What role
does content marketing play in B2C marketing?
Quality content is imperative to
any B2C marketing strategy. Engaging content builds customer trust in addition
to driving traffic and conversions. Although emotions are more likely to drive
B2C customers, marketers can easily pull those emotional triggers—and weave in
their products/services—through stories targeted to B2B audiences. B2C
customers, like their B2B counterparts, are looking for solutions to their
problems, and your content should always communicate answers.
How to make
B2B content more engaging—like B2C content
B2B audiences now expect more of
a B2C experience in the content they consume. According to Forrester, 60% of
B2B customers prefer not to use sales reps as their primary source of
information. In fact, 68% of B2B customers would rather do their own research
independently online.
Historically, B2B content
marketing sought a more professional and business-like tone, while B2C
marketers could be flashier and more emotive. Now the walls between B2B and B2C
are crumbling. TV and radio advertisements are still not the best fit for B2B
audiences, but marketers can learn a lot from mass media B2C advertising about
how to intrigue and engage customers.
Article by Oracle.com