If you’ve Googled digital marketing, I’m willing to bet that you’ve come across this term. So I thought we’d take it back to basics and discuss content marketing definitions and examples.
Content marketing is the golden child and with good reason. 72% of marketing professionals believe it increases customer engagement with a brand and increases leads.
So what exactly is content marketing?
Well let’s break it down, ‘content’ refers to anything you create and post online.
This could be blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, images and videos for example.
And yep, this includes the photos/videos you post on social media. That’s because social media is a channel through which you share your content.
Other channels include your website or any other online presence where you share content.
As such, content marketing involves creating content to market your business.
This is classed as ‘inbound marketing’ as you are trying to draw people in and turn them into customers.
If you’re reading this and worrying about all the content you need to create, don’t panic!
If you are low on resources or time, you can always curate other peoples content and add your own comments.
For example, you may share a study or news article written by someone else and share your thoughts on the piece.
How Content Marketing Works
Content marketing works in a plethora of ways, so I’m afraid there isn’t one quick answer.
By regularly updating the content on your website you help with your Search Engine Optimisation (where you rank on Google). This is especially true if you consider keywords whilst creating your content.
By sharing your knowledge through content marketing, you also position yourself as an expert in your field, helping to build consumer trust.
Examples Of Content Marketing
Video Content
The first example I have for you is a golden oldie.
Blenders may not seem the sexiest of products (especially before the rise of Instagram Wellness) yet BlendTec created a series of videos that managed to increase brand awareness exponentially.
The videos featured the business owner dressing up as a scientist in a lab and blending random objects – including the latest iPhone.
Coupled with the catchphrase ‘Will it blend?’ the campaign quickly went viral with BlendTec’s owner noting that sales were impacted almost instantly.
The campaign proved so popular that at its height you could even buy branded merchandise with the phrase ‘Will it blend?’ on.
Image Content
Shutterstock’s trend report is now in its eighth year, and there are good reasons as to why the company is continuing to produce it.
When it first launched, they shared an infographic online that was translated into 20 languages and focused on trends predicted from user downloads.
Within the first two weeks of the infographic being shared, it was featured in over 170 articles and comments. The email promoting the infographic also had an open rate if 20%.
All of this coverage helped Shutterstock to reach a wider audience and gave them social credibility as many people who read the articles saw them as the expert voice.
Written Content
Florida Physical Medicine knew they wanted to rank higher on Google for ailments related to car accidents.
As such, they created onsite, written content that focused on niche keywords.
As part of this, they created valuable and informative content that answered common questions about the ailments. They then suggested that people who suffered from the ailment should request a free consultation which helped improve lead generation.
By the time they had read the article, the potential customer already had trust that the brand knew what it was talking about, so were more likely to convert by requesting the consultation.
Over the next four to six months this resulted in:
- A 153% increase in site sessions year over year (sessions represent a single visit to your website.)
- A 121% increase in leads (51 to 133) year over year
- All existing keywords ranked in top 10: up 152% (134 to 338) year over year
I hope these content marketing definitions and examples helped to demystify it a bit, as content marketing is truly one of the best ways to grow your business.
If you’ve got any questions about content marketing, drop me a comment below or join me on Instagram.
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